Re: Which Northeast stations use RDS?

[Garrett Wollman <wollman>]

<<On Sun, 26 Mar 2000 20:56:42 -0500, SteveOrdinetz <steveord@wavewizard.com> said:

> RDS seemed to be a solution in search of a problem.

I think this analysis is rather over-simplified.

Rather, RDS is a European solution to a problem which exists in almost
every industrialized country -- except the US!

The problem that RDS was intended to solve is very simple: if you're
listing to Radio 2, you'd probably like to keep on listing to Radio 2
as you drive out of the range of one R2 transmitter and into the range
of another.  If you care about the traffic, you probably want to
switch to the local service to hear that report, and then switch back
to the national program you were listening to before.

Beyond a few large state-wide public radio networks in the US (e.g.,
Minnesota Public Radio), these sorts of regional or national networks
with dozens of transmitters simply don't exist here.  Hence, no need
for the service.

(Even in countries with large private broadcasting enterprises, many
are more like Britain with its national private stations, than like
Canada where most private stations are programmed independently.)

-GAWollman

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Garrett A. Wollman   | O Siem / We are all family / O Siem / We're all the same
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