Car Stereo Question

[bkrich83]

This has been bugging me for some time. I am sure it's in the owners manual, but I hate reading the instructions.

The car stereo in my 350z says 'RDS' when I tune in to certain stations. What does that mean?

Anyone?

[Husker_OS]

Re: Car Stereo Question

This has been bugging me for some time. I am sure it's in the owners manual, but I hate reading the instructions.

The car stereo in my 350z says 'RDS' when I tune in to certain stations. What does that mean?

Anyone?

I know in my truck, I can press a button and it will scan for a certain type of radio station. Like for example, 100.5 is a rock station. So if I scanned for rock stations, 100.5 might come up. But only certain stations are like that. Not all rock stations will come up. Just a few.



Did that make any sense? It barely makes sense to me lol.



here's a link about it..

http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/rds.html

[fishepa]

Re: Car Stereo Question

Taken from Cructchfield:

Some FM stations transmit additional data in the form of textual program descriptions and even traffic information, which RDS-capable tuners can use to limit station searches and alert you to traffic road conditions.

[bkrich83]

Re: Car Stereo Question

I know in my truck, I can press a button and it will scan for a certain type of radio station. Like for example, 100.5 is a rock station. So if I scanned for rock stations, 100.5 might come up. But only certain stations are like that. Not all rock stations will come up. Just a few.



Did that make any sense? It barely makes sense to me lol.



here's a link about it..

http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/rds.html

Great, now I gotta start hitting random buttons.

[TJdaSportsGuy]

Re: Car Stereo Question

Like someone before me said, RDS is when a radio station transmits additional information about itself to your radio. It usually includes the name of the station, the name of the song playing, the name of the company on the currently playing commercial, stuff like that.

It's designed as somewhat of an answer to XM and Sirius' ability to inform listeners of which song they are listening to, via the in-dash display. Not many radio stations nationwide are utilizing this technology yet, as it is quite expensive to get the box necessary for the RDS transmission. I would imagine though, in your part of the country, that most of the L.A. stations are doing it.

[bkrich83]

Re: Car Stereo Question

Duh.

I tuned in to an RDS station and hit a button labeled 'DISP' which I assume is short for display . And the radio flashed a bunch of info, song name, station, and band.

5 of the 6 stations on my presets are 'RDS', but they all show differing levels of info. At least I know what that means now.

[TJdaSportsGuy]

Re: Car Stereo Question

Duh.

I tuned in to an RDS station and hit a button labeled 'DISP' which I assume is short for display . And the radio flashed a bunch of info, song name, station, and band.

5 of the 6 stations on my presets are 'RDS', but they all show differing levels of info. At least I know what that means now.

It's actually pretty neat, once you get into all the possible uses for it. Amber Alerts and Emergency Alert Systems could REALLY benefit from using RDS, plus it gives the listener something for free that they'd have to pay XM or Sirius for.

Can you tell I'm a big advocate of local terrestrial radio?

[Husker_OS]

Re: Car Stereo Question

Duh.

I tuned in to an RDS station and hit a button labeled 'DISP' which I assume is short for display . And the radio flashed a bunch of info, song name, station, and band.

5 of the 6 stations on my presets are 'RDS', but they all show differing levels of info. At least I know what that means now.

You're lucky. Only 1 station on my 12 presets has it. And I rarely listen to it. Viva la mp3 player!!

[TJdaSportsGuy]

Re: Car Stereo Question

You're lucky. Only 1 station on my 12 presets has it. And I rarely listen to it. Viva la mp3 player!!

Like I said, it's still pretty new and expensive for radio stations to implement. Slowly but surely, they're getting rolled out across the country.

[ExtremeGamer]

Re: Car Stereo Question

Like I said, it's still pretty new and expensive for radio stations to implement. Slowly but surely, they're getting rolled out across the country.

89X in Detroit was the first I ever saw use this on a trip to Windsor. They would give song info, then even give weather and upcoming song info. It was really cool, almost ran off the road watching my screen on my radio because I was so impressed. This was 3-4 years ago.