Radio Data System (RDS)

A quick look around SEQ and stations that have data on the group 8A Traffic Message Channel include 4MMM Brisbane, B105, Sea FM 90.9, Hot 91, Gold FM, River 949.

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Does anyone know what the other group data is that some stations broadcast on RDS?

For example hit105, 4MMM, ABC Classic and JJJ broadcast 1A data - is this a program schedule for timed recording?

4TAB has data on 10A while River, Hot91, hit105 and 4MMM have data on 3A and 4A.

Example of Bushfire RDS message on MIX FM (and SEA FM) Sunshine Coast

19:55:57 Everything Sunshine Coast
19:56:05 HONKY TONK WOMAN - ROLLING STONES
19:56:29 Residents are advised that if their plan is to
19:56:40 relocate or they do not have a plan then
19:56:51 they are advised to relocate now.
19:56:59 UPDATE: Bushfire WATCH and ACT
19:57:10 for #Coolum (Sunshine Coast)
19:57:19 as at 6.15pm Fri 20 Jan
19:57:28 Everything Sunshine Coast

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I just got back from Canberra.
I got some good reception of Hit 93.1 from Wagga just north of Canberra (just on NSW side of the border on the Federal Highway) but there was no RDS. It COULD be a reception issue (this was on the current model Toyota Camry, a work vehicle), but it doesn’t look like they are running it.

Also, Snow 97.7 Cooma doesn’t seem to be running RDS.
I thought they did?

Meanwhile, Eagle FMs RDS is quite odd.
The FIRST line (where stations usually have the on air ID as static text) has variable text promoting the breakfast show
Something like
BREKKIE
WITH
BILLY
WEEKDAYS
ON
EAGLE FM

And the 2nd line has fixed text
"Goulburn’s Eagle FM"

Suffice to say, no song title or any other info there.

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Hills FM have a similar unusual RDS read out for the station name area that also manages to include the song title and artist !

Scrolling PS is EVIL … I used to like it when I first experimented with RDS at river949 however I have learnt that scrolling PS causes grief for alot of car radios.

It was the best solution 10 years ago as very few cars did RT

Glad you like Mix/SEA RDS… I just hope it has helped people be informed

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Thanks for those observations. Snow FM does have RDS but it decodes in a funny way and may not decode at all on some receivers. See this video for a demonstration. Your presentation of Eagle FM’s RDS is spot on, too.

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Yeah, late to it but I did see the text on both 91.9 and 92.7 repeating the emergency warnings while driving up to the Coast on Friday evening. Was very professional and along with the audio warnings helped get the message out there. Great work to you and your team there

Does someone wanna fix KIIS 1065’s RDS? Been stuck for a week!

Listening to Star 104.5 this evening in the car, and noticed while part of their “All Aussie Party Show” they played a soundtrack to the fireworks display somewhere that had the title and artist of the songs playing showing on RDS.

It was a 15 minute mixed segment (mashup) of a bunch of different songs, and each one displayed on my RDS screen. I would have assumed it would simply be 1 long cart in their playout system, but I’m stumped trying to figure out how they could have the song info going out to RDS?!

Very cool, none the less!

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Maybe they cut the mashup into individual tracks approximately where the transitions were. Would make music logging easier that way too.

Unless Zetta has the feature to output different info based on the song timing?

Email or ring them and ask?

Only guessing, but all the music in the library has digital tags associated with them, each piece of music should theoretically still have their individual tags associated with it, even though they’ve been cut & pasted together.

It may not have been one long produced piece of music, Zetta could’ve been set to take a grab of each song between point A & point B then play those grabs sequentially?

The digital tags info is then sent to the RDS by/from the Zetta play-out system.

I would say you guys are essentially correct… Zetta can do some really tricky things with mixing and looping.

However the exports are basically the same as Nexgen…the exports are based on play events … nothing special with that part of it.

Another Hit station for the collection :slight_smile: - RDS from Mt G received in Brissy today.

Capitalisation seems inconsistent with other hit stations that seem to now be predominantly lower case.

Mid North Coast NSW (102.3 and 105.1) is also all Upper Case and just says HIT … No “FM” or frequency (because it’s on 2).

I’ve noticed that 96five hasn’t had RDS for the last couple of days - not sure why. Also Radio Metro on the GC hasn’t had RDS for a couple of months now, when it had had it for some time before. And 4ZZZ have shown no sign of reinstating the RDS on their signal they had a couple of years ago

Perhaps the community stations don’t place a high priority on keeping it up should it fail?

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Most in the stations don’t understand the need for it. It’s quite surprising. They’re in radio but understand less than you’d expect. Resourcing could also be a problem, many do not have diverse enough member bases to have the volunteers to work on it.

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With a lot of community stations having to pay freelance engineers to work on anything broadcast side, a lot wouldn’t want to/be able to pay for things that aren’t 100% essential for staying on air.

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Thats part of it… Ive found they all want it… BUT they dont even know where to start… dont know how to do it… what equipment to buy, and of course nobody to install it (not that its that hard!)

Anybody who knows community stations knows most of them have more bullshit going on then a slaughter yard… there are always divisions in the members and what 1 side says the other says no to… sounds like politics!

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