Hi all,

two requests for scrolling (or better scrolling):

1. Quite a few stations here alter their station name every 2-3 seconds to display song names. They keep sending chunks of 8 (or how many) characters, for example "MICHAEL ", "JACKSON ", "EARTH SO", "NG" and then the station name again, after that it repeats.

Would it be possible to detect such a thing and implement a scrolling station name? This would be much better than a constantly refreshing display, especially since errors in the RDS transmissions often distort the display.

2. I don't know enough about RDS to find where the error is here, but some stations' RDS information keeps altering between the actual station's infotext and the information about the cell broadcasting the actual RDS.

While this is fine with stations where text switches only every 10 seconds or so, one or two stations here have a switch frequency of once or even twice per second. This means, the infoline builds up halfway, then continues with a different line or just restarts.

Would it be possible to detect this as well and do a more intelligent scrolling? (one message after the other)

Till

Rather than a technological approach, I think that the first line of attack is to complain at radio stations that deliberately flout the RDS spec. It explicitly states that the 8-character station name field should not be used for non-constant text (this is considered a safety issue in e.g. cars), and that this is what the 64-character long text field is for. (Sorry I've forgotten their official names)

Your BBS bio doesn't say what country you're in, but most places have a national radio regulator; you might want to mention that you will be complaining to them if the transmissions are not fixed to conform to the standard.

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Toby Speight - 040103385

I'm living in Hamburg, Germany. I don't know if it is such an issue as I am not familiar with the laws. However, your complaint sounds reasonable.

Usually Germany has very strict laws for everything, however, these laws are hardly up-to-date. I will try to find out if I can get something specific about RDS.

Till

It's not so much a legal issue as the fact that stations need to renew their licences every so often - and the licensing authorities can withdraw a licence if they think that the station is in breach of conditions. If they get a lot of complaints, they can put more pressure on the station than we can individually; at least that's how things work here in the UK.

I'd suggest contacting the station first - they may not even know they are in the wrong.

The RDS standard is unfortunately for-money[1], but the guidelines for RDBS interoperability[2] does quote from section 3.2.2:

The Programme Service name comprises eight characters, intended for static display on a receiver. It is the primary aid to listeners in programme service identification and selection. The use of PS to transmit text other than a single eight character name is not permitted (see also 3.1.5.1). Transmission of a PS name usually takes four type 0A groups, but to allow an instant display of the PS when a receiver pre-set is selected, the PS name is often stored for subsequent recall from memory when a programme service is selected. For this reason PS should generally be invariant. If a broadcaster wishes to transmit longer Programme Service names, programme-related information or any other text, then Radiotext provides this feature. A similar effect could be experienced with a dynamic text transmission of PTYN. As a result, dynamic PS and PTYN transmissions are expressly forbidden.

[1] <URL:http://www.rds.org.uk/rds98/rds_std_download.htm>

[2] <URL:ftp://ftp.rds.org.uk/pub/acrobat/rbds_vs_rds.pdf>

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Toby Speight - 040103385