RDS/ RDBS

[SteveOrdinetz]

John Bolduc wrote:

>In playing around with it, I noticed that if you program an FM station
>that has a clone, such as WOKQ 97.5/97.9/103.7, or the Shark 102.1/105.3,
>that the radio will switch frequecies from one clone to another without
>any human interaction. I'm guessing this is done based on signal quality??


You can program "sister" stations' frequencies into the encoder, I'd guess 
that the receiver has a signal threshold where it looks for the alternate 
frequency.  I don't have any simulcast stations, so I don't know if both 
have to have encoders for this to work.


>I also noticed traffic messaging seems to be non-existant in New England.
>I did get a message driving near Charlotte NC indicating it was a traffic
>message, but in fact it was just a typical station promo message. Is the
>traffic portion of RDS a subscription based service??

Probably depends on the encoder the station is using.  The cheaper ($300 or 
so) ones only allow for a static 32 character "message" field, the more 
expensive units allow this field to be dynamically updated.  Some stations 
may not choose to use this function, or don't have a way to get the data to 
the transmitter site (these boxes use one of the subcarrier inputs on the 
transmitter).