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RDS
- Thread starter Radioma18
- Start date
Microsoft Zune and the iPod "remote" (FM radio adaptor) both display RDS - at least the main PS (Program Service) screen where song titles are located.
The best receiver for display of RDS information is the Denon TU-1500RD, which can also read secondary information such as RT (RadioText) and PTY (Program TYpe) on a large size display.
If you happen to have a spare $6K laying around, you can always snap up an Audemat-Aztec Navigator. http://www.audemat-aztec.com/press/press_releases/pr_User report_navigator 100.pdf
Paul E. Burt, VP of Broadcast Operations
Global Security Systems, an RDS-alerting Co.
The best receiver for display of RDS information is the Denon TU-1500RD, which can also read secondary information such as RT (RadioText) and PTY (Program TYpe) on a large size display.
If you happen to have a spare $6K laying around, you can always snap up an Audemat-Aztec Navigator. http://www.audemat-aztec.com/press/press_releases/pr_User report_navigator 100.pdf
Paul E. Burt, VP of Broadcast Operations
Global Security Systems, an RDS-alerting Co.
The (unbranded only?) Sony Ericsson w810i Walkman phone's radio has RDS, supporting the station ID and AF alt. frequency bits only. How's that for portable? 
Many higher-end Kenwood car stereos also do RDS. One I had a few years back did the station ID, text field, time, AF and program type. I miss that radio!
Many higher-end Kenwood car stereos also do RDS. One I had a few years back did the station ID, text field, time, AF and program type. I miss that radio!
The Radio Shack DX-398 is no longer available, but identical models are still being manufactured as the Sangean ATS-909 and the Roberts R861. Note that this receiver shows station name (PS) in upper-case and can sync the clock (CT), but ignores all other RDS/RBDS data.
I assume the Sangeans all have the same awful tuner section then that my RS-branded one has. The RDS feature should be standard on all radios... Too bad this thing needs a quite strong signal to lock on. The Walkman phone on the other hand often locks on the RDS before the stereo pilot, for some reason.
This is kind of unrelated to what radios can decode RDS, but I have a question about it.
Two different times on different stations I've gotten totally incorrect RDS info. I was driving through PA in a rental car, and somewhere south of Harrisburg I was listening to a station that had the RDS display of WRQX 107.3. It wasn't simulcasting WRQX, and it wasn't on 107.3. (I'm sorry, I don't recall the station I was listening to.) I've listened to WRQX when in DC, and this wasn't it. Also, I wasn't in DC before it happened.
And, just after WTHZ 94.1 in Lexington, NC (Greensboro Market) changed formats a couple of months ago, I looked down to see a different set of calls and frequency on my RDS display in my Chrysler. Again, sorry I don't recall what station was displayed, but it had no relevance to WTHZ.
Could it be that the stations I was listening to had recently installed RDS encoders that were purchased used from the other stations, and the old RDS programming had not been removed? That's the only thing I could think of.
-amos
Two different times on different stations I've gotten totally incorrect RDS info. I was driving through PA in a rental car, and somewhere south of Harrisburg I was listening to a station that had the RDS display of WRQX 107.3. It wasn't simulcasting WRQX, and it wasn't on 107.3. (I'm sorry, I don't recall the station I was listening to.) I've listened to WRQX when in DC, and this wasn't it. Also, I wasn't in DC before it happened.
And, just after WTHZ 94.1 in Lexington, NC (Greensboro Market) changed formats a couple of months ago, I looked down to see a different set of calls and frequency on my RDS display in my Chrysler. Again, sorry I don't recall what station was displayed, but it had no relevance to WTHZ.
Could it be that the stations I was listening to had recently installed RDS encoders that were purchased used from the other stations, and the old RDS programming had not been removed? That's the only thing I could think of.
-amos
It is incorrect to say that the DX-398 ignores all RDS/RBDS data other than a clock sync and a static display of station name (PS). As I type this I am watching my DX-398 scroll song titles, etc.
This radio is not a GREAT radio, but it's not a BAD radio either. It does require a relatively strong signal for RDS display.
Relative to radios giving an erroneous RDS display, please consider that under rare atmospheric conditions it is possible to hear FM stations from extreme distances. I've received stations a thousand miles and more distant with the same signal strength as local stations. Your radio could have been subject to this reception and stored the data.
This radio is not a GREAT radio, but it's not a BAD radio either. It does require a relatively strong signal for RDS display.
Relative to radios giving an erroneous RDS display, please consider that under rare atmospheric conditions it is possible to hear FM stations from extreme distances. I've received stations a thousand miles and more distant with the same signal strength as local stations. Your radio could have been subject to this reception and stored the data.
Well, unless they added some new RDS features to your DX-398, the song titles are being sent over the PS, which is supposed to be static, at least by the European RDS standards.
The Kenwood headunit I had did the same thing re: wrong displays. Occasionally it would display the wrong info from memory. For example in Huntsville, AL while tuned to their lite-fm 96.9 with no RDS it would display "CNTRY969" from a Dothan, AL station; neither was a preset on this radio...
The most likely cause is whoever installed the RDS encoder at the station forgot to change settings. I've seen it several times. In Tuscaloosa, AL station WZBQ changed the PS but not the RT (Radio-Text), so that part (probably still) carries several messages from WNRN in Charlottsville, VA - a non-comm rock station! W216BU in Scottsboro comes to mind as well, showing "CLR_RDS", presumably the manufacturer's default message? WRJM-FM Geneva, AL, says "WDFM" for some reason. Dunno if they ever fixed that one, either.
The Kenwood headunit I had did the same thing re: wrong displays. Occasionally it would display the wrong info from memory. For example in Huntsville, AL while tuned to their lite-fm 96.9 with no RDS it would display "CNTRY969" from a Dothan, AL station; neither was a preset on this radio...
The most likely cause is whoever installed the RDS encoder at the station forgot to change settings. I've seen it several times. In Tuscaloosa, AL station WZBQ changed the PS but not the RT (Radio-Text), so that part (probably still) carries several messages from WNRN in Charlottsville, VA - a non-comm rock station! W216BU in Scottsboro comes to mind as well, showing "CLR_RDS", presumably the manufacturer's default message? WRJM-FM Geneva, AL, says "WDFM" for some reason. Dunno if they ever fixed that one, either.
The DX-398 monitors PS and CT. That's what it does, and that is what is in the tech info.
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al_atl
Guest
I've seen wrong RDS info on my car radio as well, a RB1 stereo/navigation system in a '04 Grand Cherokee. While driving somewhere in north Georgia, I think around Dalton, there was a station whose RDS indicated it was Z-93 in Atlanta. It's been a couple years so I can't remember exactly what it said. But the station, to my knowledge, was not related in any way to the Atlanta station. IIRC, it was a totally different format and was pretty far down the dial from the Atlanta station. Something else interesting...at that time "Z-93" in Atlanta had changed to "Dave FM." Neither station was a pre-set in my radio and I can't say I ever listened to "Z-93" or "Dave FM" any longer than the few seconds the radio's scan may pause on it. I remember checking "Dave FM" and their RDS showed "Dave FM," then switching back to the other station and seeing "Z-93." Interesting, eh?
Different subject, if that's ok... That radio, the RB1...I like it. I like the controls and features, it does an adequate job with FM. But...the AM sounds terrible! Nothing but mush! Makes all AM stations, no matter how good their audio, sound almost as bad as Clear Channel's AMs. Anyone ever tried with any success to widen this thing out a little? It's not a cheap radio so I'm hesitant to go into the thing. The Jeep I had before this one had the Infinity radio. The AM half of that radio sounded almost as good as FM on certain stations. The bandwidth was pretty wide and it even had CQUAM stereo. No stations here (Atlanta area) are running CQUAM except a Spanish station (no habla Espanol), but I've found a few AMs in my travels that still run it and sound great. I don't understand why Chrysler would make the thing so damn narrow. Even though most AMs don't run music now, talk would still sound so much better with the bandwidth widened out a bit. On this radio, it's often hard to understand what's being said. They should go back to the Infinity design for their AMs.
Different subject, if that's ok... That radio, the RB1...I like it. I like the controls and features, it does an adequate job with FM. But...the AM sounds terrible! Nothing but mush! Makes all AM stations, no matter how good their audio, sound almost as bad as Clear Channel's AMs. Anyone ever tried with any success to widen this thing out a little? It's not a cheap radio so I'm hesitant to go into the thing. The Jeep I had before this one had the Infinity radio. The AM half of that radio sounded almost as good as FM on certain stations. The bandwidth was pretty wide and it even had CQUAM stereo. No stations here (Atlanta area) are running CQUAM except a Spanish station (no habla Espanol), but I've found a few AMs in my travels that still run it and sound great. I don't understand why Chrysler would make the thing so damn narrow. Even though most AMs don't run music now, talk would still sound so much better with the bandwidth widened out a bit. On this radio, it's often hard to understand what's being said. They should go back to the Infinity design for their AMs.
al_atl said:
It could also be a situation where the AM stations have rolled off a bit of the high end, so they can broadcast IBOC.
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RDS data available for display is somewhat dependant on the station itself. If you see song info in block, non-scrolling form, it usually means the station is using the PS field to display the info. If you see it scrolling, that means they use the RT field. Unfortunately quite a number of RDS receivers do not display the RT information. So if the station is only providing song info in the RT field, you won’t see that information on a receiver that doesn’t display RT information.
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al_atl
Guest
So far, none of the major AMs here are running IBAC. WSB-AM experimented with it for a while, but it's probably been at least a year since they had it on. I hear they wisely decided against using it. I have a GE Super Radio and most of the stations except WGST sound pretty decent on it...not muddy like the RB1 radio. I also have another car and all but WGST sound pretty decent on the radio in it. Definitely the RB1 radio is the issue.
[re location of RDS scrolling information]:
Depends on what you mean by scroll. RDS works by multiplexing many different types of data (PS, RT, CT, etc.) into one ~1200 bps serial stream. The order and rate-of-repetition of each type of data depends both on RDS standards and the individual station's choice to prioritize one type of data over the other.
The net result is that receivers cannot depend on a specific character to always be in the same place (time slice), and thus do not directly display the information as it comes in. Instead, the receiver dumps each data stream of the type that it wishes to display into a buffer, and then displays those buffers according to pre-set characteristics.
As the PS was originally designed to be a quickly-accumulated static display of the name of the current program (Program Service), the receiver's PS buffer gathers eight characters -- often multiple times to insure good data -- then displays those eight characters as a block. What is now called Scrolling PS is done by the station's RDS encoder changing the eight character display every three seconds or so (if done quicker the receiver may interpret it as bad data and reject the display). The 64-total-character limit gives enough space for a rotating display of artist, title and call letters without the information taking forever to complete.
There is an encoder setting which outputs the 8-character PS string shifted one character to the left every few seconds for an appearance of true scrolling, but be advised that I have seen many RDS receivers say "nuh uh" and reject the whole thing if you try to speed it up past "painfully slow". Plus holding each display for three seconds allows a car-located user to occasionally look at the road
The same buffer concept is used for the RT radiotext stream. RT was originally designed for background or informational displays; the RT display is often found under a button called "info". For display, the assumption was that the 64-character buffer could be more slowly filled (RT data transmitted at a slower rate) and could be read at a time when the user could watch the display for whole display of the scroll ("Road? What road?"). Thus RT is sometimes - but not always - presented as a truly scrolling display. It's not the station doing that -- it's the receiver.
I've seen a lot of stations put their song/artist info on both the PS and RT. I feel that is a lost opportunity to push other station info: on my network's stations I try to display web sites and request numbers as well as the slogan or calls on the RT.
Way more information than you wanted to know.
Paul E. Burt, VP Broadcast Opns
Global Security Systems, an RDS-alerting company
Depends on what you mean by scroll. RDS works by multiplexing many different types of data (PS, RT, CT, etc.) into one ~1200 bps serial stream. The order and rate-of-repetition of each type of data depends both on RDS standards and the individual station's choice to prioritize one type of data over the other.
The net result is that receivers cannot depend on a specific character to always be in the same place (time slice), and thus do not directly display the information as it comes in. Instead, the receiver dumps each data stream of the type that it wishes to display into a buffer, and then displays those buffers according to pre-set characteristics.
As the PS was originally designed to be a quickly-accumulated static display of the name of the current program (Program Service), the receiver's PS buffer gathers eight characters -- often multiple times to insure good data -- then displays those eight characters as a block. What is now called Scrolling PS is done by the station's RDS encoder changing the eight character display every three seconds or so (if done quicker the receiver may interpret it as bad data and reject the display). The 64-total-character limit gives enough space for a rotating display of artist, title and call letters without the information taking forever to complete.
There is an encoder setting which outputs the 8-character PS string shifted one character to the left every few seconds for an appearance of true scrolling, but be advised that I have seen many RDS receivers say "nuh uh" and reject the whole thing if you try to speed it up past "painfully slow". Plus holding each display for three seconds allows a car-located user to occasionally look at the road
The same buffer concept is used for the RT radiotext stream. RT was originally designed for background or informational displays; the RT display is often found under a button called "info". For display, the assumption was that the 64-character buffer could be more slowly filled (RT data transmitted at a slower rate) and could be read at a time when the user could watch the display for whole display of the scroll ("Road? What road?"). Thus RT is sometimes - but not always - presented as a truly scrolling display. It's not the station doing that -- it's the receiver.
I've seen a lot of stations put their song/artist info on both the PS and RT. I feel that is a lost opportunity to push other station info: on my network's stations I try to display web sites and request numbers as well as the slogan or calls on the RT.
Way more information than you wanted to know.
Paul E. Burt, VP Broadcast Opns
Global Security Systems, an RDS-alerting company
By scrolling, I mean similar to crawls you see on the bottom of your TV screen, such as when the station is using the system to inform viewers of severe weather, etc. The 8 block does not "scroll" this way, at least not on my tuner. And yes, many RDS tuners do not have that "info" button. So if yours doesn't, and the station only uses the RT field for song info, you won't see it. You would see it if the station used the PS field for the song info, on RDS tuners lacking the info button, via the dreaded 8 blocks of text at a time.
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