Most European cars support it. We implemented the feature for KRCD and KRCV in the LA metro and found that some Japanese models also had the feature as well as the Korean companies. No US brand did,
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Delilah technical question
- Thread starter Route 222
- Start date
Is it difficult to implement? I assume it’s the kind configuration that one can “set and forget” and the maintenance overhead would be low. I’m puzzled as to why national broadcasters such as K-Love that have RDS deployed don’t enable it. It seems to be a no brainer from a listener experience perspective even if it only benefits Japanese, Korean, and European car radios (which is a significant share).
In Europe and parts of Asia they do it with stations of the same programming combined with a particular amount of signal overlap. That's how I was able to listen seamlessly to a classic rock format from one end of Italy to the other. That model, nor requirement exists in the U.S.
My understanding about cell phone towers is that each tower sends coordinates and coverage areas which facilitates the cell phone’s seamless handoff from one tower to another, but the phone has to send its location (or triangulate) with the towers for this to work. How does the handoff work for radio stations if the receiver doesn’t send its location to the transmitter? Or does the receiver just scan for a list of translator frequencies until it finds a signal?
This is all in the receiver:
The receiver sees the RDS saying essentially; this is classic rock format 002-A. The station in the next town 20 miles away has a station with the exact same programming. It's RDS is saying; this is classic rock format 002-B. When the receiver locked on station 'A' starts seeing station 'B' appear withing reception range, and assuming the signal level and signal to noise of B is better than A, the receiver switches to station 002-B.
RDS can even be programmed to switch to an AM frequency if its reception is superior to the FM station that it is currently tuned to. A good idea for all the AMs that have a low-power FM translator, if only more receivers supported it...
Not sure why one would want to, but yes, it can be switched to an AM station. While I was in Europe, I didn't see any radio switches from FM to MW. Just FM to FM.
Forgive me if I'm a bit slow at understanding this
If the two signals make a venn diagram and the car is traversing the "overlapping" zone of both signals...
If the radio is tuned to classic rock 002-A on 97.1 MHz and it's aware of classic rock 002-B on 93.5 MHz through RDS, how does the receiver know when it is in range of the 93.5 signal if it's not tuned to that frequency? Does the radio continuously scan all frequencies in the background while it's tuned to 97.1?
Going back to the cell tower handoff architecture, the handoff is seamless because the phone is constantly chatting with the tower about it's location and movements. The tower is communicating back to the phone and to adjacent towers so that the connection is not interrupted during the handoff. If you have an iPhone, dial *3001#12345#* and you'll have access to a lot of signal and engineering info. You will be able to see the exact antenna of the cell tower that your phone is connected to and the adjacent towers that your phone is pinging.
I'm curious as to how radio is able to accomplish a similar level of continuity when there's only one-way communication from the transmitter to the receiver and the receiver doesn't have a GPS or any awareness of it's location.
Most of the modern digitally tuned radios can see the IF of the entire band at once. For example; on my wife's Volvo, I can hit the "Radio" button, and the screen shows all the frequencies, call letters or slogans, and formats displayed via RDS. I can then use the scroll button on the steering wheel and scroll through the entire received list of FM stations.
Much simpler than the cell/PCS model. The radio sees signals within range across the band, along with any associated RDS-modulated data. If between two stations RDS labeled with the same programming, the strongest signal with lowest signal to noise, the radio switches to that frequency.
My radio has an option to auto program all presets with all stations that the radio receives. I never used that feature but now I understand how it works. I never realized the radio could continuously detect received signals in the background. Having said that, my radio has never switched between frequencies with identical programming even though the RDS indicators appear for that station.
The stations involved would need to turn on their TS mode, and set up the various data parameters for the station to be one of them that could be tuned-to. As mentioned earlier, the conditions and settings in the U.S. don't lend themselves to automatically switching people's radios between stations.
Another valuable function of RDS in Europe, is the ability to force radios to automatically turn on and select a local station with news or emergency information. Back when RDS was gaining acceptance, I always thought that particular RDS function should be required, like EAS, for every radio station. I suspect the push-back, is station managers are not a fan of one station (competition) hijacking radios, and tuning them to a another station.
A TS indicator does appear on my radio display for some stations, but the radio has never switched to a different frequency. Maybe it’s enabled by default and the engineers don’t know how to disable it.
Aren’t all stations EAS capable now? I understand that the EAS system is automated and doesn’t require a board operator to interrupt programming. I thought this was an FCC requirement.
Aren’t all stations EAS capable now? I understand that the EAS system is automated and doesn’t require a board operator to interrupt programming. I thought this was an FCC requirement.
Yes, but here in the States, only for the station a radio is currently tuned-to.
Using RDS includes their form of EAS in Europe. When an EAS is activated, rather than all local stations running the same EAS alert, radios within listening range are automatically tuned to the appropriate local station with relevant news and information regarding the alert. Let's say your clock radio is turned off, but last time on was tuned-to the local classical music station. You're asleep, but when their version of an EAS is sent, your clock radio turns on automatically, and changes the station to the local news station for the actual alert. RDS data is used to turn on your radio and force-tune it to another station with news about the alert.
Personally, I think they utilize RDS much more effectively in Europe and Asia, with so much more capability than just displaying artist and song titles, as we do here in the States.
Wow! I never knew Europe had such an advanced EAS system compared to America’s primitive one (and Canada’s nonexistent one).
My TiVo does that for the TV it is connected to for EAS or even Amber Alerts. Even if I'm watching something I recorded.
The BBC covers a nation of nearly 70 million with several entirely networked stations. The RDS is set up so that you can drive from one end of the country to the other listening to, say, BBC Radio 1 without even noticing you're changing between transmitters.
Even this is starting to become a little outmoded, with DAB making up more than half of UK listening nowadays (and for several years, DAB receivers have been compulsory in new cars). In the case of national stations, this is a single-frequency network, meaning that you literally don't have to re-tune. There are three such national DAB networks - one for the BBC, two carrying private commercial stations. Most European countries have similar DAB set ups now.
Change "most" to "some". Spain, Portugal, most of the former Soviet nations, Poland, etc. do not.
See Europe: DAB radio network coverage 2019 | Statista
Even France only has 25% penetration.
The difference seems to be based on how big a player government radio has been. Scandanavia and England had dominant and, for most of broadcast history, exclusive radio control. In those nations, DAB has been pushed for administrative reasons.
I have a friend who lives to the NE of Liverpool, and his town is moderately hilly; he can only get DAB on the second floor, but not anywhere else or in his little back yard. His explanation is that "the politicians get it fine in their flat in London and don't care about the fact that it does not work well in much of the nation."
TiVo is the most under-appreciated TV viewing device. The newest model, which I got late last year, has terrific access to the paid services like Amazon Prime, Netfilx and many others. The ability to skip commercials automatically on many shows is terrific, and the interface is much better than that of any cable system box I have seen; that's because the cable box manufacturers don't want to pay TiVo's licensing fees.
TiVo pretty much invented the TV DVR and has patents on most of the best technology.
I'd say a "union" and not quite a "nation" as we understand it in the US. UK, including Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland as well as England, could, in theory, be split. At present, there is a near- majority of Scots who want to do just that and could, since Scotland has its own semi-autonomous government.
We know what happened in the US when some states wanted to drop out of the union...
"Give Scotland Back to the Scottish?".
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