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Using the tuner
07
49
En
An introduction to RDS
Radio Data System, or RDS as it’s usually known, is a
system used by FM radio stations to provide listeners
with various kinds of information—the name of the
station and the kind of show they’re broadcasting, for
example. This information shows up as text on the
display, and you can switch between the kind of
information shown. Although you don’t get RDS
information from all FM radio stations, you do with most.
Probably the best feature of RDS is that you can search
automatically by type of program. So, if you felt like
listening to jazz, you could search for a station that’s
broadcasting a show with the program type,
JAZZ
. There
are around 30 such program types, including various
genres of music, news, sport, talk shows, financial
information, and so on.
The receiver lets you display three different kinds of RDS
information: Radio Text, Program Service Name, and
Program Type.
Radio Text (
RT
) is messages sent by the radio station.
These can be anything the broadcaster chooses—a talk
radio station might give out it telephone number as RT,
for example.
Program Service Name (
PS
) is the name of the radio
station.
Program Type (
PTY
) indicates the kind of program
currently being broadcast.
The receiver can search for and display the following
program types:
NEWS
– News
AFFAIRS
– Current affairs
INFO
– General information
SPORT
– Sport
EDUCATE
– Educational material
DRAMA
– Radio plays or serials
CULTURE
– National or regional culture, theatre, etc.
SCIENCE
– Science and technology
VARIED
– Usually talk-based material, such as quiz
shows or interviews.
POP M
– Pop music
ROCK M
– Rock music
EASY M
– “Middle of the road” music also called soft
rock
LIGHT M
– ‘Light’ classical music
CLASSICS
– ‘Serious’ classical music
OTHER M
– Other music not fitting any of the above
categories
WEATHER
– Weather reports
FINANCE
– Stock market reports, commerce,
trading, etc.
CHILDREN
– Programs for children
SOCIAL
– Social affairs
RELIGION
– Programs concerning religion
PHONE IN
– Public expressing their views by phone
TRAVEL
– Holiday-type travel rather than traffic
announcements
LEISURE
– Leisure interests and hobbies
JAZZ
– Jazz
COUNTRY
– Country music
NATION M
– Popular music in a language other than
English
OLDIES
– Popular music from the’50s and’60s
FOLK M
– Folk music
DOCUMENT
– Documentaries
In addition, there is a program type called
ALARM
, used
for emergency announcements. You can’t search for
this, but the tuner will switch automatically to this RDS
broadcast signal.
Displaying RDS information
When the tuner is selected, use the
TUNER DISPLAY
button to display the different types of RDS information
available (
RT
,
PS
and
PTY
).
• Press TUNER DISPLAY to select the RDS
information display.
Each press changes the display as follows:
•
RT
– Radio Text display
•
PS
– Program Service display
•
PTY
– Program Type display
• Current tuner frequency
Note
• If any noise is picked up while displaying the RT
scroll, some characters may be displayed incorrectly.
• If you see
NO RADIO TEXT DATA
in the display, it
means no RT data is transmitted from the broadcast
station. If you have entered a name for the station, it
is broadcast instead of RT data. If you haven’t, the
display will automatically switch to the PS data
display. If no PS data is transmitted from the station,
the frequency will be displayed.
• In the PTY display, there are cases where
NO DATA
is shown. If this happens, the PS display is shown
after a few seconds.
VSX_2014TX.book.fm Page 49 Wednesday, June 2, 2004 5:21 PM