RDS/RBDS

The RBDS/RDS Features

A code used as part of the automatic tuning feature which uniquely identifies each radio service in the reception area in which it is transmitted; this is implemented to assist receiver memory management. This is a 4 character hexadecimal code that identifies the country of origin and whether the transmission is of a national, regional, supra regional or local type service.

Used for receiver displays of an 8 character alpha numeric Program Service name which may use Upper or Lower case characters, eg {BBC_4_FM}, {Classic_}.

A code defining the type of program being broadcast (eg News or Rock). There are 32 different program type possibilities, some have been defined for RBDS and others have been defined for RDS. This is in fact the main difference between RBDS and RDS. The receiver may utilize the PTY code by being made to search for a particular type of program.

Lists of Alternative Frequencies for the same program service. Used in conjunction with the PI code to assist automatic tuning. Using this information, a radio can automatically search out another station that is playing the same material. This is useful when the station you are listening to is fading out.

A flag indicating whether the station broadcasts traffic announcements at some time in the day.

A flag indicating when a traffic announcement is actually on air. The TP and TA flag may be used by receivers for automatic switching to traffic announcements from another service, such as tape cassette or a muted condition. This allows you to listen to the information and will revert back to the previous receiver state when the message is over.

Indicates one of up to 16 different operating modes for the receiver (eg mono, stereo, binaural).

A flag indicating whether music or speech is being broadcast. May be used by the receiver to give independent volume settings of music or speech.

A code identifying a particular program (by its date and time) to enable automatic on/off switching of receivers. The receiver will be set to respond to the published start time, however, the receiver will only respond when the PIN is transmitted (which coincides with the actual start of the program) thus allowing for timing inaccuracies.

A message of 32 or 64 characters of text for display by receivers. The display is alpha numeric.

The Enhanced Other Networks feature provides a set of additional data about other networks to give RDS radios the ability to respond very intelligently to user requests, such as "finding" travel announcements on other stations.

Time data is usually originated from standard time transmissions and is sent in the RBDS/RDS data stream once per minute, to enable receivers to display the current time and date and used to synchronize Paging receivers. It is recommended that unless the clock is synchronized to an accurate source, then the CT feature should not be used.

Provides the possibility of a continuous data stream to receivers and associated peripherals (eg printer or home computer).

A data channel for use only by the broadcaster.

A complete feature offering the possibility of mobile pocket pagers with alphanumeric display of messages and alerting beeps.

A feature using a very small amount of data for emergency warning services such as national disasters and hazardous chemical spills.

A feature to transmit compact data to control a voice synthesizer to reproduce predetermined traffic messages, in the users own language.

A feature to provide data about the transmitter site, giving city and state name and to provide DGPS navigation data.

A feature to extend the PTY information for additional displays but not for automatic search tuning.

| E-mail Us | Home |