Car Radios

[ozbark]

Here’s the latest Oct 2025 Vehicle Tuner RDS List.

If anyone has a Vehicle with an RDS radio tuner that doesn’t feature in the above list AND they live in one of the following areas:

Sydney, Ballarat, Adelaide, Renmark, Victor Harbour or Mount Barker, then please let us know if your vehicle (make, model & year) decodes or doesn’t decode the RDS of these FM radio stations:

Sydney: 94.5 FBi
Ballarat: 102.3 3BA
Adelaide: 100.5 WOW FM
Renmark: 100.7 Life FM
Victor Harbour: 89.3 Fleurieu FM
Mount Barker: Lofty 88.9

I’d also be interested to know if any of the very recently manufactured (last 5 years) Mitsubishi vehicles can decode RDS for these stations.

NSW	Goulburn	Mt. Gray [1]	100.7	Forever Classic 60s
ACT	Canberra	Black Mountain	91.9	1WAY
ACT	Canberra	Mt. Jerrabomberra	94.3	1WAY
NSW	Queanbeyan	Mt. Jerrabomberra	97.5	Forever Classic 60s
NSW	Bega	North Narooma	102.9	2EAR
NSW	Bega	Mount Wandera	107.5	2EAR
NSW	Young	Reservoir Hill	92.3	2YYY
NSW	Cooma	Cooma	90.5	2MNO
NT	Darwin	Charles Darwin Uni	104.1	8TFM
SA	Port Augusta	The Bluff	105.1	5TRX
SA	Kadina	Kadina	89.3	5GFM
SA	Victor Harbour	Brown Hill	90.1	5GSFM
VIC	Latrobe Valley	Driffield	91.9	SEN Track

[ozbark]

The Sydney EV Motor Show commences Friday October 31st through to Sun Nov 2nd at the ICC Exhibition Centre Darling Harbour.

If anyone is attending & has an interest in FM Radio & RDS in EV vehicles please let us know if any of the vehicles you sample can or can’t decode the RDS of FBi on 94.5MHz FM.

Any other peculiarities of the AM/FM/DAB tuners in such vehicles would be of interest to the readers here too.

[Dani-Chan]

Happy to report that the Volkswagen T-Cross (which I borrowed while my regular car is getting tinted) does pass the FBI test.

[ozbark]

@Dani-Chan

Happy to report that the Volkswagen T-Cross (which I borrowed while my regular car is getting tinted) does pass the FBI test.

Awesome thanks for the feedback. Looking at this model, it appears they first became available in 2020 in Australia & to continue through 2026. Any idea of the year of manufacture (for the list?)

@Dani-Chan

does pass the FBI test.

The weird thing is, in terms of the RDS standards it actually ‘fails the test’ as PI code 0000 isn’t to be used for FM broadcast stations & display the RDS. But it’s obviously good as a user if it does display the RDS where only that 0000 code is ignorantly used by a local radio station & no one else (including micromitter txs with RDS) for a few hundred kms.

Anyway, thanks again Dani, I’ll add it to the list.

[Dani-Chan]

2024 or 2025 model.

[ozbark]

Here’s some radio info on the ‘Smart 1’ EV radio system.

Unfortunately radio is limited to just the FM & DAB+ bands, no doubt due to the extra expense that would be required to supress RFI from the vehicle electrics on the MW (AM) band.

On the FM band I found no way to perform a manual tune. Accessing Radio stations was acheived by doing a scan which was automatically done across both the FM & DAB+ bands & the stations populated on the Menu on the right side. Once populated it was a case of just finger tip scrolling through the stations. One could place liked stations in a favourites lists. DAB+ & FM stations were linked together by station names or to be more specific in alphabetical order or so it appears.

The display menu looked very similar to one I saw a GWM Havel, IIRC.

Given the FM stations that were populated, the scan of the FM band only appeared to lock in the very strongest of FM stations. I couldn’t recall seeing any FM stations outside the Sydney area in the scanned station list & only one low powered local community FM station was populated in the list, which is disappointing.

I didn’t note all the config settings, but they were limited to about 5 or 6 settings of either on or off, eg allowing linking of FM to DAB+ to allowing switching to best reception, Traffic program, Emergency Alarm signal, probably AF switching was there but I can’t recall.

I can say that the FM RDS details of 94.5 FBi were displaying on this radio, despite the problematic 0000 PI code defiantly & ignorantly being used by the station.

The RDS PS (station name) also appears on the dashboard display for the driver & all details such as PS, RT & PTY on the main tablet like centre display console for the FM RDS stations.

Unfortunately I forgot to test out reception of 2RSR with their RDS LPS to see if that caused any RT display or RDS display issues whilst in the city last night.

The radio display console also allows for the display of the DAB+ slideshow images.

I suspect a portable TEF6686 like radio would be a useful tool whilst in the vehicle to determine how much electrical (background) noise is generated by this vehicle or similar EV vehicles.

The car is designed by Mercedes Benz Germany & built in China.

[Tejas57]

Picked up my MG ZS EV on Saturday and like most EVs the radio is controlled by the touch screen. However because I got the upgraded model it comes with a six speaker audio system rather than the four the base model has.

It sounds quite good and DAB reception seems quite good. There are places where my old car (a 2018 i30) would drop but the MG kept playing.

For a cheaper EV (I paid under $25,000 for a 2 year old model) I’m extremely happy with the radio

[Radiohead]

What is FM reception like? eg can get Gold/Sunshine Coast stations in Brisbane (i think that’s where you are?). And does it display RDS on FM?

[Tejas57]

@Radiohead

What is FM reception like? eg can get Gold/Sunshine Coast stations in Brisbane (i think that’s where you are?). And does it display RDS on FM?

Yeah I’m in Brisbane. i have not tried FM from the coast yet. I’m planning on heading down to the goldie this weekend (weather depending) and i’ll scan in some stations and see if i can get some reception as i chug about town

[Radiohead]

@Tejas57

as i chug about town

Thanks, and you’ll need to find a new term now since EVs don’t “chug”… how about glide?