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KGMZ RDS based geotargeting…?

Mediafrog+ said:
RadioInsight article:

radioinsight.com

KGMZ To Debut First RDS Based Visual Geo-Targeting

Audacy Sports "95.7 The Game" KGMZ San Francisco will debut the first RDS-based visual geo-targeting for automobile screens over Super
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com

Can someone elaborate on this? What are the booster stations referred to in the article? Or is this tied in with GPS in auto media systems?
Click to expand...

KGMZ-FM2, KGMZ-FM3, KGMZ-FM4 (there is no FM1). On channel boosters
 
Audacy uses a similar system on its KWFN Sports "The Fan" station in San Diego. The booster stations were developed in 2021 to improve the 97.3 signal in other parts of the metro, particularly in North County where the signal can be spotty. Later on they discussed how they would be used for something called Maxxcasting - geo targeted advertising and information. I didn't really understand the whole concept but it seems like they could also be used for individual audio ads targeting a certain area or community when the main station is airing ads as well (kind of like the cable companies and streamers airing local ad insertion during breaks) but I never saw or heard any of this in action. It would apparently also send HD information to the geo-casted areas when needed. I did notice once when driving near one of these boosters (they are all on the same frequency, 97.3) that the HD display said KWFN-FM3 Carmel Mountain or something like that, which was one of the booster stations.
 
Interesting. When I first heard about that - targeting separate areas with boosters - I assumed it was separate audio commercials. But stations have enough problems syncing boosters when the audio is coherent. I was wondering how that would work with separate audio. But RDS certainly could work. The boosters are, indeed, local to Levi's Stadium - one at the Santa Clara Convention Center, with 1750 watts and another in downtown San Jose with 100 watts:

and

This has obviously been in the works for a while. The CP's were granted last Summer. Oddly enough, I don't see a License to Cover for them. Also, they look to be outside KGMZ's 60 db contour. Didn't think you could license a booster like that. But I'm sure I'm missing something.

Dave B.
 
DaveBayArea said:
This has obviously been in the works for a while. The CP's were granted last Summer. Oddly enough, I don't see a License to Cover for them. Also, they look to be outside KGMZ's 60 db contour. Didn't think you could license a booster like that. But I'm sure I'm missing something.

Dave B.
Click to expand...

Class B FM stations such as KGMZ are protected to their 54 dBu contours and so the boosters have to contain their 54 within the primary station's 54.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
RadioInsight article:

radioinsight.com

KGMZ To Debut First RDS Based Visual Geo-Targeting

Audacy Sports "95.7 The Game" KGMZ San Francisco will debut the first RDS-based visual geo-targeting for automobile screens over Super
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com

Can someone elaborate on this? What are the booster stations referred to in the article? Or is this tied in with GPS in auto media systems?
Click to expand...
I'm very familiar with RDS, but this has me baffled. What's the intended listener experience here? It's not clear what's actually happening - is this simply a case of the listener within range of the booster receiving some different text information on RDS, or is there a visual component here? RDS is just a text service.

If two different RDS signals are being sent from the booster and the main transmitter, the listener's car radio will likely receive either a garbled mix of text from the two, or (more likely) no text/information at all when travelling on the boundary of the two transmitters.
 
I'm wondering the same thing. Maybe @Weiserguy or someone else in the area can drive within 5 miles of Levi's Stadium and show us what their display says. I'm imagining if it was something besides text like a map, that it would replace the station logo on the car's screen and maybe be larger. I don't know how much of the screen area that RDS can use for an image. This says RDS2 can display traffic and weather, and it's backwards compatible with RDS:
www.radioworld.com

What’s New With RDS2? - Radio World

The RDS Forum continues to enhance and test the latest RDS standard
www.radioworld.com www.radioworld.com
 
radiofan2023 said:
I'm wondering the same thing. Maybe @Weiserguy or someone else in the area can drive within 5 miles of Levi's Stadium and show us what their display says. I'm imagining if it was something besides text like a map, that it would replace the station logo on the car's screen and maybe be larger. I don't know how much of the screen area that RDS can use for an image. This says RDS2 can display traffic and weather, and it's backwards compatible with RDS:
www.radioworld.com

What’s New With RDS2? - Radio World

The RDS Forum continues to enhance and test the latest RDS standard
www.radioworld.com www.radioworld.com
Click to expand...
I've never seen RDS2 and don't know if it ever progressed beyond the tech demo stage. I don't think any receivers were ever commercially made - by the time RDS2 was invented, Europe was moving to DAB. Plain RDS can't send out logos or images, although it does have TPEG as an add on for traffic info that can be superimposed onto the car's GPS map. I though TPEG was pretty much Europe-only, though.
 
Miss Tuned said:
I've never seen RDS2 and don't know if it ever progressed beyond the tech demo stage. I don't think any receivers were ever commercially made - by the time RDS2 was invented, Europe was moving to DAB. Plain RDS can't send out logos or images, although it does have TPEG as an add on for traffic info that can be superimposed onto the car's GPS map. I though TPEG was pretty much Europe-only, though.
Click to expand...
There is someone here who was working with a college station that said the station was experimenting with RDS2, I think it was last year. There are RDS2 encoders available, but it seems from reading search results that the main problem is that radios that support it aren't available here in the US.

I'd never heard of TPEG before now, it sounds like it's Europe-only though from reading about it.

The only car brand I know of that provides traffic/weather info in the US is Hyundai, but it uses HD Radio data, and I have no idea what it looks like on the car's screen either.
 
radiofan2023 said:
There is someone here who was working with a college station that said the station was experimenting with RDS2, I think it was last year. There are RDS2 encoders available, but it seems from reading search results that the main problem is that radios that support it aren't available here in the US.

The only car brand I know of that provides traffic/weather info is Hyundai, but it uses HD Radio data, and I have no idea what it looks like on the car's screen either.
Click to expand...
It wouldn't surprise me if this was just scrolling RDS text with local weather, traffic, etc for the targeted area.
 
radiofan2023 said:
The only car brand I know of that provides traffic/weather info in the US is Hyundai, but it uses HD Radio data, and I have no idea what it looks like on the car's screen either.
Click to expand...
I have a 2019 Hyundai Sonata which has HD Traffic and Weather - not really anything spectacular. It's like the old TomTom or Garmin units that used FM technology in that your traffic map is color coded and may display icons for accidents and other hazards. Also, in the info system submenus there are lists of local accidents, short form weather forecasts for your local city and other major cities around the country, and local doppler radar - these display in their own maps and sections, rather than showing up on your GPS driving screens.
 
powers said:
I have a 2019 Hyundai Sonata which has HD Traffic and Weather - not really anything spectacular. It's like the old TomTom or Garmin units that used FM technology in that your traffic map is color coded and may display icons for accidents and other hazards. Also, in the info system submenus there are lists of local accidents, short form weather forecasts for your local city and other major cities around the country, and local doppler radar - these display in their own maps and sections, rather than showing up on your GPS driving screens.
Click to expand...
I would love to see pictures of all those.
 
radiofan2023 said:
I'm wondering the same thing. Maybe @Weiserguy or someone else in the area can drive within 5 miles of Levi's Stadium and show us what their display says. I'm imagining if it was something besides text like a map, that it would replace the station logo on the car's screen and maybe be larger. I don't know how much of the screen area that RDS can use for an image. This says RDS2 can display traffic and weather, and it's backwards compatible with RDS:
www.radioworld.com

What’s New With RDS2? - Radio World

The RDS Forum continues to enhance and test the latest RDS standard
www.radioworld.com www.radioworld.com
Click to expand...
I drove to the KGMZ-FM4 transmitter site yesterday. It is definitely operational, as the 95.7 MHz signal there was very strong. The RDS was different, too:
KGMZ-FM4 : PI=0x2129, PTY=Sports, PS="The Game", RT="All weekend Big Game coverage plus Mondays postgame recap", DATA CT none
The main transmitter RDS has not changed:
KGMZ : PI=0x2129, PTY=Sports, PS="95.7 The Game", RT="95.7 The Game The Bay Area's Sports Station", DATA CT good

Using 3 different radios (Qodosen DX-286, Sangean HDR-14, Hyundai Ioniq 6 car radio) I didn't see anything else different about the FM4 transmission. I suspect the main difference will be the new FM booster rule allowing 3 minutes of divergent audio programming every hour.
 
radiofan2023 said:
There is someone here who was working with a college station that said the station was experimenting with RDS2, I think it was last year. There are RDS2 encoders available, but it seems from reading search results that the main problem is that radios that support it aren't available here in the US.

I'd never heard of TPEG before now, it sounds like it's Europe-only though from reading about it.

The only car brand I know of that provides traffic/weather info in the US is Hyundai, but it uses HD Radio data, and I have no idea what it looks like on the car's screen either.
Click to expand...
I have never heard of TPEG before, but it seems related to TMC, which I have heard of, and which I can confirm (due to my recently departed 2012 Audi A3 TDI) is operational in California at least. The traffic map TMC provided me were pretty basic, but good enough for me -- during the occasional times I had SiriusXM, my car's traffic map had much better detail.
 
radiofan2023 said:
I'm wondering the same thing. Maybe @Weiserguy or someone else in the area can drive within 5 miles of Levi's Stadium and show us what their display says. I'm imagining if it was something besides text like a map, that it would replace the station logo on the car's screen and maybe be larger. I don't know how much of the screen area that RDS can use for an image. This says RDS2 can display traffic and weather, and it's backwards compatible with RDS:
www.radioworld.com

What’s New With RDS2? - Radio World

The RDS Forum continues to enhance and test the latest RDS standard
www.radioworld.com www.radioworld.com
Click to expand...
Sorry, didn't see this until now, when we're 30 minutes away from kickoff. I'm 20 miles from the stadium -- I spent five years working across the street from where Levi's Stadium now is, so I know that area -- and you can't pay me enough to drive into that chaos zone this afternoon. (Assuming anyone without a ticket could even get through security into the "white zone", and I'm including local residents right at the moment.)
 


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