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For the RDS guru here...

S

Studio1

I had a client ask me today about RDS.

"Yes" I said. "You can put your station ID on it, weather or traffic info, song title etc".

Then he said "Another station is using it to force the receiver to change frequency when they drive into a new location, so they don't lose the station".

I just looked blankly at him. I've never heard of this before, can someone enlighten me on it?
 
Oh yes, it's used by networks overseas. You can choose an alternate frequency for your station so it hands off when you get into a weak signal area...or just flat-out switches to the alternate frequency as soon as you land on "the main" frequency.

How do I know? I inherited a station where It was setup like this...on accident. We were getting complaints from BMW owners. However, not all RDS radios include this feature. Mostly European.
 
I have a question about implementing RDS on a setup with an originating station and a translator. Should the two sites be set up with separate encoders, or would it work to have the translator pass the main station's RDS? I'm assuming the RDS would pass through from a composite receiver depending on how tight the cutoff was above the upper end of the stereo subcarrier.
 
Have three translator sites using "traditional" translator equipment--10 watt Tepco units, and the RDS passes through just fine.

Have another site on a different station that used an Inovonics composite receiver and that unit also passed through the RDS.
 
Ciao Ciao;)

Sorry for my English, are Italian ...

The RDS radio system date system is widely used in Europe. I think in Italy to be almost
indispensable to the character of the territory.
I did not know that America will not be widely used ...

Working with Rds (subcarrier 57khz) you can send a lot of information;

I use:
1) FA "Alternate frequencies." This service allows all'apparato recipient of tune to a frequency in alternative
when the signal becomes too weak

2) IP Identification Program. It is a code that uniquely identifies the radio station.

3) PS, Programme Service. There are eight characters used usually to send the name of the radio.

4) PTY, Program Type. Coding type of content transmitted by the station, for example
varied, rock, dance, etc.

5) RT, Radio Text, Radiotekst. It allows you to send free text by the radio as, for example, the author and title of song
wave.

Exist many other functions that I will not use, if you need information you can ask.

CIAO

Edoardo Maruca
 
As long as the translator passes composite baseband, RDS should be retransmitted as well. But that's not to say that the RDS injection on the translator output will be quite as high as on the primary station, because the translator's IF filter skirts may be down a dB or two at the edge of the channel. So you may need to run a bit more injection on the primary to get acceptable performance.

If your translator doesn't pass composite, you might consider this inexpensive single-chip encoder from PIRA.CZ:

http://www.pira.cz/rds/show.asp?art=minirds_encoder

I'm running one on the translator that simulcasts my AM station and it seems to work fine. I modified it to take pilot sync from the Omnia 3 processor we're using; just a matter of wiring the 19 kHz output to one of the pins on the chip which normally isn't connected. The control software is a free download; you'll be surprised at all it does for 30 Euros.

By the way, many privately-operated local FM stations in Europe consist of a group of several "translators" in neighboring towns, each running between 10 and 500 watts and sending the same PI code and alternate frequency list. In terms of coverage (to a mobile listener with an auto-tuning RDS receiver) a network like this behaves much the same way as a single Class B1 would here in the US. But there's an advantage in that multiple low power transmitters can be distributed across the desired market to fill in problem areas caused by terrain blockage.

The following station listing (from the German state of NRW) gives an example of some low-power FM networks. You'll find many other examples elsewhere in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, etc.:

http://www.ukwtv.de/sender-tabelle/UKW/Deutschland/Nordrhein-Westfalen.htm#Radio MK
 
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