Last year KIIS in Sydney didn’t have any RDS at all for 4-5 days I think due to a TX issue.
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Their RDS is back on this morning.
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It is but not entirely. On my Mitsubishi car radio I see the Station name and radio text, but there is no PTY being sent. See the pics below and a comparison from 96five which is operating normally (the second line in particular)
Does RDS have some kind of pilot or similar signal to indicate to a receiver that there is an RDS signal to decode? If so it might just not be working, meaning some radios are decoding it but some aren’t
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I recall looking @ this RDS station earlier in the year it didn’t have a defined PTY.
RDS stations transmit a RDS subcarrier at 57kHz, typically some 25-30dB in strength below that of the 19kHz stereo pilot carrier.
Looking @TV.Cynic post below yours, appears that the PI code has defaulted back to PI of 0000 - that will cause RDS display issues on some radios as previously mentioned in this forum several times. According to the Australian RDS List (Google Sheets) 97.3FM Brisbane had a PI code of 471B earlier.
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Yeah that makes sense. I don’t have anything that can read PI codes so just went off the symptoms of the various radios. The wrong PI code would explain it all.
Maybe I should ring it in to them? But would anyone at the station reception understand what I was on about?
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I’d ask for the Chief Engineer. A PI code that commences with a leading zero is the issue with ‘some’ (small % of) receivers -no display of RDS data if I recall correctly.
Wonder if the station is operating from a standby site or the RDS equipment wasn’t programmed correctly after a failure or RDS encoder equipment replacement?
I’ve no idea.
The SDR dongles are fun things to play with & cheap & reveal a lot info re signals & RDS etc with the right software.
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Gold104.3 have replaced their “Better Music & More Of It” line with “#stayathome GOLD 104.3”
Not sure if any other stations have, will have to check later.
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Fresh 92.7 in Adelaide:
Coronavirus - Wash your hands. Keep your distance. Stop the spread & stay healthy. Latest updates at aus.gov.au
Followed by what program is on now. Then back to Corona message. No song info.
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3mFM now showing text lines such as:
Stay Home & Save Lives
Social Distancing Saves Lives
Wash Your Hands Regularly
instead of our usual lines that promote our podcasts/website/frequencies etc. Now playing data still showing every 30 seconds as well.
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This is a govt buzzword that really needs a rethink; physical distancing is a more exacting description.
Not the doing of 3mFM, who are relaying the public health comms.
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Ironically I just checked and yes, it does actually read “Physical Distancing Saves Lives”
I wasn’t the one who changed it either, I have no idea who did.
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Good on them, glad to read someone has a sensible, independent thought to put into action.
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Issue seems to be fixed as of this morning on 97.3, station name is appearing on my car receiver again. I presume the PI code has been updated?
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Yep
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Is that it fixed @TV.Cynic? What was it before?
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Yes fixed:
Previously
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Yikes, a bad default. Thank you @TV.Cynic
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