Talk:Radio Data System

"Traffic Information Memo"

- implemented by Blaupunkt in 1993, worth writing up about.

When the car radio is off - ignition standby or turned off using "on-off" button, it can capture traffic announcements to flash memory. This happens for 6 hours and the logic captures the latest 4 announcements. It can be set to start capturing after a user-set number of hours so the user can capture announcements that occur in the morning peak.

Earliest form of flash-memory audio recording. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SimonMackay (talk • contribs) 2006-09-20T21:36:03 (UTC)

Bitspeed

where does the 1187.5 bits/sec come from ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.178.10.21 (talk) 13:36, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The basic clock frequency is obtained by dividing the transmitted subcarrier frequency (57000 Hz) by 48. Consequently, the basic data-rate of the system is 1187.5 bit/s. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AtLaTC (talk • contribs) 17:17, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Scrolling RDS

Added a line of information about the use of scrolling RDS. In many places it's use is discouraged because it can distract drivers. This is true in the UK, at any rate, where it's use is not completely outlawed, but is definitely discouraged. Some stations flout this recommendation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.192.179.15 (talk) 2007-04-14T16:42:28 (UTC)

A number of pirate radio stations along the Northern Ireland border use "scrolling RDS" for displaying advertisements, phone numbers and identifying the song currently playing in the PS (rather than the correct RT field). However as well as the potential road safety/driver distraction issues the system doesn't even work particularly well. The Error correction system used for PS text was only designed for use with static text and unless reception conditions are ideal (rarely the cse in a moving receiver) the data gets corrupted to varying degrees resulting in jumbled text. 80.229.222.48 09:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

"Scrolling PS" was quite popular on U.S. stations in 2005 (among those using RBDS at all). Most of the encoders on the market today support it, since the U.S. market for broadcast equipment is so large, even though the standards don't allow for it. The reason it was introduced, of course, is because most car tuners don't implement RT, or require the operator to press a button to display the RT. (Why is that? Because it would be too distracting to the driver for it to scroll automatically, of course! What goes around, comes around.) Back issues of some of the U.S. radio industry's trade journals, like Radio World and Radio Guide, might provide reliable sources for this. (As an aside, I've never seen a U.S. radio that supported AF, although it might be useful in a few northeastern and midwestern states.) 121a0012 03:23, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Would it not also be useful for stations using translators (relay transposers) ? 80.229.222.48 09:07, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

It would -- but translators account for a tiny fraction of U.S. radio listening (even smaller for commercial stations than for FM broadcasting in general, and many of the non-comms are "satellators" with the nominal primary a thousand miles or more away). The stations for whom AF would matter (mostly large public broadcasters in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and the Dakotas) would value it principally for switching among their multiple primary stations, not translators. There are a few markets I can think of there are or were commercial, three-way, all-FM simulcasts; they just aren't numerous enough for AF to be worthwhile. 121a0012 03:31, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

RT and PS

In my place (Lithuania) all stations use PS for displaying data such as clock or "Now Playing" text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grawity (talk • contribs) 2006-09-26T09:55:43 (UTC)

Why dont they use RT (radiotext) ? Thats what RT is for 80.229.222.48 09:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

They use RT, but only for information like "M-1 www.m-1.fm", what PS is for. grawity 19:19, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Scrolling PS is forbidden in the standard. The reasons but have been understood. So in RDS 2.0 PS-name is extended to 32 bytes, radio text to 128 bytes. Bytes, not characters! See UTF-8 standard. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AtLaTC (talk • contribs) 17:11, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Incompatability between PTY tables used in RDS and RBDS

Why did the the EBU not make the North American version of RDS more compatable with the European version by (wherever possible) matching equivalent programme types in the PTY table (see below) given the high probability of radios manufactured in Asia for the US and Europe being imported into the "wrong" market ? Surely given the EBU's role in cordinating standardisation this was an act of enormous stupidity ? 80.229.222.48 10:57, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

PTY code	RDS Program type (EU)	RBDS Program type (USA)
0	No program type or undefined	No program type or undefined (OK)
1	News	News (OK)
2	Current affairs	Information (why not 3 ?)
3	Information	Sports (why not 4 ?)
4	Sport	Talk
5	Education	Rock (why not 11 ?)
6	Drama	Classic Rock
7	Culture	Adult Hits
8	Science	Soft Rock
9	Varied	Top 40 (why not 10 ?)
10	Pop Music	Country (why not 25 ?)
11	Rock Music	Oldies (why not 27 ?)
12	M.O.R. Music	Soft
13	Light classical	Nostalgia
14	Serious classical	Jazz (why not 24 ?)
15	Other Music	Classical (why not 13 or 14 ?)
16	Weather	Rhythm and Blues
17	Finance	Soft Rhythm and Blues
18	Children’s programmes	Language
19	Social Affairs	Religious Music
20	Religion	Religious Talk
21	Phone In	Personality
22	Travel	Public
23	Leisure	College
24	Jazz Music	Unassigned (why ?)
25	Country Music	Unassigned (why ?)
26	National Music	Unassigned (why ?)
27	Oldies Music	Unassigned (why ?)
28	Folk Music	Unassigned (why ?)
29	Documentary	Weather
30	Alarm Test	Emergency Test (OK)
31	Alarm	Emergency (OK)

It will give at RDS 2.0 even more different PTY lists. The culture of the world can not be put in 30 points. For example, China, India, Africa, Arabia, Latin-America etc. needs its own PTY lists. RDS 2.0 will try to manage it accordingly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AtLaTC (talk • contribs) 16:58, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

RDS abuse

Among the less ethical pirate radio operators in some cities it is a common practive to use the "TA" flag (set permanently on) or PTY (set to "Alarm/Emergency") to "lock" peoples radios to their station. or to use an identical PI code (without the AF data) to another station in order to "steal" that stations listeners. 80.229.222.48 09:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Content and implementation

In this sentence: "Due to transmission vagulearities, CT can only..." Who came up with the word 'vagulearities'? Is that a Bushism? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hildenja (talk • contribs) 15:45, August 22, 2007 (UTC).

Fair use rationale for Image:Radio Data System logo.png

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BetacommandBot (talk) 21:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Frequency units inconsistency

The units for the frequencies seem to follow no consistent pattern in this artikle. Sometimes there is a space between the number and the unit and sometimes there is none.--91.15.175.253 (talk) 13:37, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Discussion of digital formats needed

I don't understand why this article has no discussion of packet formats, character codes, upper/lower case, etc. Bhami (talk) 23:40, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

External links modified

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New US Traffic Type

US NRSC FM Translator Announcements: The National Radio Systems Committee has introduced a unique Radio Data System Program Identification code for US FM translators. One type of metadata transmitted by RDS subcarrier is the PI code, which is used by the receiver to uniquely identify the audio program being broadcast by the FM station. In the U.S., the PI code has historically been derived from a radio station’s call sign, which can become complicated when used in conjunction with FM translators. A new algorithm just for FM translators has been created that assigns a unique PI code to each FM translator. This algorithm has been implemented using a web-based tool and a list of all known PI codes for all FM translators in the US. [1]

Eyreland (talk) 21:55, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Is there any Radio with Rds on LCD or LED TVs?

I am honestly curious? I know some sony flat LCD or I do not really know have radio on board, but is there any LED tv with RDS, or FM Rds + Dab+ with DLS? Are they capable to display all RDS at once? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.187.202.138 (talk) 02:33, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

I do not have a good answer to your question. You would need a TV with built in FM receiver firstly. I have not seen such a TV receiver, not that I have spent much time looking. Once the FM receiver is there, it dies not require much technical effort to add the RDS function, especially with DSP based receivers like in mobile phones. Smart TV's give you the possibility to stream radio stations from the internet or from the off-air TV transport streams. Both of these can carry RDS like data for display. Davidbstanley (talk) 06:31, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Proliferation of ads

I am seeing a huge increase in headunit ads in my area via RDS, in what was previously useful information from stations. Is this worthy of a section? Arguments have been made that this can be a distraction and safety issue. I've submitted an FCC complaint on principle, but I have no idea if this is allowed or not. Some older links:

https://www.insideradio.com/dashboard-displays-radio-new-ad-frontier/article_4a8e455c-2333-11e7-9942-cb83f7a5ecdc.html

https://www.insideradio.com/for-valuable-rds-space-it-s-ads-vs-station-promo/article_2b02a2fa-2333-11e7-ae37-97d6d9f9183b.html

https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/opinion-rds-display-is-no-place-for-ads — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1702:4EB2:75DF:99D9:988C:10D2:EF1C (talk) 17:11, 30 November 2022 (UTC)