Done. Thank you 
Awesome! A shared PI with Hot 91.1 Sunny Cst, Qld, but different frequencies.
Mmmā¦someoneās stuffed-up on the tech side of things at the station.
Thanks for the updates. 
1 Like
Thanks!
I made the same mistake with 3WM 92.9 when I couldnāt see it under Horsham, but later realised it was already under Nhill.
Which brings me to a questionā¦ how do we determine whether a service should be listed under the main licence area or has its own region listed in Column A?
Is it based on the LAP? Because if so, the Nhill entries should probably go under Horsham because 3WM and 3WWM at Nhill are covered by a Horsham LAP, and not a separate Nhill LAP. And have āService Area: Nhillā in the āNotesā colomn.
Hope that makes sense. Iām sure there are other inconsistencies like this too.
1 Like
Itās a good point you have raised & at times I struggle to find consistency or comfort in my own decisions, where I needed to make them.
But a first point to be made is that is I didnāt create the RDS List or change the existing āMarket Areasā - in the main. I have added to both the existing content & created more worksheets. Most of the locations, I think are roughly based on Market LAP, but as youāve pointed out, not all stationās TX sites are always listed within the one LAP/Market areas within the RDS List.
Only last night I moved some of the UG FM ex RDS TX sites into the discontinued worksheet. And I so happened to look at the ACMA KMZ Google Earth LAPās for the region & that of Shepparton.
As a station UGFM (Alexandra region) has itās own LAP with all itās FM TXs located in it & Shepparton has RA1 LAP & RA2 LAP.
And yet the Yea (Mt Broughton site) has Hit 93.7 & UGFM as a mutual overlapping shared LAP zone. So in that case how does one make a decision which LAP to include Yea area stations in? Alexandra region, Shepparton or perhaps a separate location/area for just Yea?
I noted that 88.9 UGFM Yea (Mt Broughton) was listed under Alexandra & 93.7 Hit was listed under Shepparton. Both stations should have been listed in one Market or the other. Yesterday I moved UGFM Yea into the Shepparton Market LAP in the RDS Discontinued worksheet.
I donāt have a definitive answer & I can struggle for consistency. 
Iāll have a look at Nhill/Horsham ACMA KMZ LAP in a moment on Google Earth & see if we can change that.
1 Like
My thoughts would be 3SUN goes under Shepparton for Mansfield/Yea as 3SUN is under the Shepparton licence area and all 3UGE entries (Alexandra, Yea etc) go under whatever LAP 3UGE sit under - itāll be the same one - Iāll have to look that one up) with eg. āService Area; Yeaā in the notes.
Either that, or we flip it, and just list them by callsign >> frequency and have āmarket/ service areaā as a sub column to keep it simple?
@radiohead I had a look at Google Earth & noted that I already had the shape KMZ file for the Horsham LAP market. Nhillās certainly in there & no other RDS stations in Nhill other than the ACE outlets, so Iāve moved the ACE Nhill entries to Horsham, easy & listed the Service Areas in the notes. Easy decision Thanks for highlighting this easy oversight.
I have been slowly (over past couple of years) adding āService Areaā to the notes area to make it easy for others to identify specific townships matching a TX site within a Market Area LAP. A work in progress.
The great thing about the RDS worksheets is that one can save it as an Excel file (your own copy) & then sort the columns in whatever order you wish. FMLIST for those that have access, has station RDS PI details listed in frequency order.
As I am not the owner of the RDS List it would be inappropriate to change the column order.
I do also like the present structure.
The notes field or an extra row can also be used as is in the case of Cobram to refer to Deniliquin etc.
But perhaps in the future I or someone could create another simplified worksheet in callsign >> frequency >> market or swap the callsign/frequency order.
At the present time I donāt wish to create too much work for myself though.
Rome wasnāt built in a day as they say.
Thanks as always for the welcome feedback.
1 Like
Sometime in the next few weeks I intend on visiting Ouyen and potentially Robinvale to seek out the Hot FM Mildura relays, is the advanced RDS screen from the TEF radios enough to gather info useful for us?
Part of the reason for this road trip is to test the range of my EV, so a good reason to get out and about.
3 Likes
Nice! What EV do you have?
Does it have AM? Iāve heard AM radios donāt perform well on EVs due to the batteries.
(sorry for the off topic Q).
3 Likes
The advanced RDS screen on the TEF does retrieve quite a bit of RDS content & would be perfect for easy lightweight/portable dxing.
An exception of some of what the TEF doesnāt show is RDS Group code data & detailed CT data. To retrieve that content you need an SDR & either an android phone & 'SDR Touch app or SDR# with an SDR & RDS Spy etc & windows laptop etc.
Iām curious too. Mainly to know if the vehicle RDS tuner might decode the FFFF PI code of 100.7 Life FM Riverland in your region. Thereās none of the problematic leading zero PI code RDS stations out your way to test AFAIK.
Iāve heard that too, but probably due to manufacturers skimping out on effective EMC/EMI standards in the electrics to cut costs & thus AM band suffers with vehicle generated RFI.
1 Like
Itās a 2025 Polestar 2 LRSM (long range single motor), sadly no it does not have AM due to the extreme amount of interference from the infotainment system. Ironically the drive motor doesnāt produce hardly any noise as I can use the Deepelec just fine in the back, close to the motor and away from the screen.
It does have DAB but seeing as I donāt live in a metro area itās useless. The FM does at least decode stereo and RDS, but itās not very sensitive.
2 Likes
My 2024 BYD Seal has AM, works well for local stations aka 4GR around Toowoomba but it becomes a harder copy for stations like 4WK 963 from Allora and can just barely hear 4QR 612 from Brisbane
Due to my job I appreciate it has AM and was one of the reasons why I was happy it did have AM in an EV
Getting back to the point of the thread, it does struggle with Long PS it takes forever for the RDS to decode when a station has long PS eg. 92.1 Breeze, and when it does decode after about 5mins it tries to decode the Long PS as the standard 8 character PS
Sooo it must seen the Long PS but doesnāt know what to do with it
It also shows the slide show art on DAB
2 Likes
Have you followed that up with the manufacturer or via dealer as a fault report?
Are there any firmware updates for the tuner?
Long PS uses RDS Group Code 15A
Back in the early days of RDS Group 15A was designated for fast PS, but usage of that & Grp 15A was being phased out by late 90ās.
Later probably in the 2018-2021 period, but officially from 2021, Grp 15A was defined for Long PS usage.
The extract below from 2021.
1 Like
Flow FM updates made to the worksheet
88.7 Urana NSW - PI code has been changed, 90.9 also added to AF.
And a new entry!
Lake Cargelligo NSW
1 Like
The 2DAY FM RDS Radio Text has been going nuts all day, updating at a frantic pace, eg updating some messages every couple of seconds.
3 Likes
Those SCA (2DAY FM & Triple M Artarmon) RDS encoders are good ones, but like the transmitters are getting old now, so not surprised theyāre mucking up.
Good news for you though, they are going to be replaced one day this week or next, they are the only things left at the transmitter site that the SCA engineers control or maintain. TXA do maintenance & operations of the transmitters & BAI do maintenance & operations of all the PIE gear.
SCA Artarmon is a strange setup, the siteās TXA owned & operated, BAI own & maintain the SCA PIE stuff, BAI own the SCA transmitters but TXA operate & maintain them, then the RDS encoders are mounted in the transmitter rack & are essentially part of the transmitters, but SCA still own, operate & maintain them, when technically BAI should own them & TXA sould operate & maintain them.
3 Likes
Something to do with the TMC data and the SUNA contract (assuming thatās still active) by chance?
1 Like
Quite possibly. But to clarify, 2DAY TMC data isnāt provided by SUNA, but that of another traffic provider & the largest map provider for in-vehicle navigation systems AFAIK & looking at RDS Spy just now that data is still being provided by them.
I see the RDS ECC data has been corrected for 2DAY FM which is nice.
The 2DAY RDS RT data problem should be resolved v.soon. 
1 Like
In most Markets its Triple M is the SUNA and Hit Network Affliate(2DAY, B105,Fox, Sea FM. etc) is the HERE Maps traffic service, except in Perth where the networks switched a few years ago, so Here is MMM and Suna is Mix94.5.
Also in some markets like the Sunny Coast where its Hot 91 for SUNA only, and I think a community station does HERE(havent checked that for a while though), and CBR is the other way around as well.
Pretty sure this repeats in smaller markets like Newcastle, Gosford and Geelong whom are nearby to the major metros. Although I am not sure about Newcastle but I know 2NUR did transmit one of them for a while, canāt remember which.
All of this is usually using the TMC RDS Group, and for the cars to find it I believe its the TA or TP thats always flagged.
SUNA is usually Toyota, Subaru and Volkswagen products where as HERE is usually Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan and pretty much all the Chinese cars.
Encoders are usually provided from the respective traffic organisations(or at least the RDS data passes though a supplied encoder for the injection), or bought from them preloaded, so I believe thatās why the networks donāt sell the RDS encoders with the transmitter etc to BAI or TXA. Itās up to the local engineer from each station to maintain them to the traffic providers specs, however with most new encoders, they can just supply the data and it MPX it. So alot of stations are using their own now with just data passing through, but I remember back in the day that there was a contract between the Traffic Provider and the station that said they must have engineering control of it at all times, back in the days when some if not most of the ARN stations had the TX rights for the traffic services.
And @RFBurns could probably confirm this, I think that backup or at least dormant TMC(HERE, Suna) Enabled encoders still sit with alot of ARN stations gear down south.
3 Likes
Yes back in the day the Traffic provider used to supply the RDS encoder & always had full control over it.
There are still some of those encoders still in use on ARN stations, though when the contract with the Traffic provider ended, those encoders ownership transferred to ARN & ARN now have full control of them.
ARN Artarmon main site RDS encoders are newer, bought & operated by ARN, the ARN Artarmon Alt. site RDS encoders are old Traffic provider ones, now owned & operated by ARN.
3 Likes
Thereās been some RDS changes for NOVA 106.9 Brisbane.
One improvement, one neutral & one for the worse.
NOVA 106.9 has:
- Dropped RDS Clock Time (CT). Now no inaccurate CT. [No Group 4A]
- Dropped RT+. [No Group 3A & 11A.]
- Annoyingly dropped RDS RT A/B flag switching, which means on older tuners the RT will
be written over in real time or populated with RT errors where radio reception is no optimal.
Not toggling the RDS RT A/B text fields also prevents the RDS Spy RT logger diagnostic tool from functioning, this results in diagnosing some RDS RT problems more difficult.
Really wish NOVA would stop doing this & implement RDS as per design & the International RDS Standards.
3 Likes
