59
Basic playback
05
An introduction to RDS (for Europe)
Radio Data System (RDS) is a system used by most FM radio stations to provide listeners with various kinds of
information-the name of the station and the kind of show they’re broadcasting, for example.
One feature of RDS is that you can search by type of program. For example, you can search for a station that’s
broadcasting a show with the program type,
JAZZ
.
You can search the following program types:
!
In addition, there are two other program types,
TEST
and
NONE
. You can’t search for these.
NEWS
- News
AFFAIRS
- Current Affairs
INFO
- General Information
SPORT
- Sport
EDUCATE
- Educational
DRAMA
- Radio plays, etc.
CULTURE
- National or regional culture, theater, etc.
SCIENCE
- Science and technology
VARIED
- Usually talk-based material, such as quiz shows or
interviews.
POP M
- Pop music
ROCK M
- Rock music
EASY M
- Easy listening
LIGHT M
- ‘Light’ classical music
CLASSICS
- ‘Serious’ classical music
OTHER M
- Music not fitting above categories
WEATHER
- Weather reports
FINANCE
- Stock market reports, commerce, trading, etc.
CHILDREN
- Programs for children
SOCIAL
- Social affairs
RELIGION
- Programs concerning religion
PHONE IN
- Public expressing their views by phone
TRAVEL
- Holiday-type travel rather than traffic announce-
ments
LEISURE
- Leisure interests and hobbies
JAZZ
- Jazz
COUNTRY
- Country music
NATION M
- Popular music in a language other than English
OLDIES
- Popular music from the ’50s and ’60s
FOLK M
- Folk music
DOCUMENT
- Documentary
Searching for RDS programs
One of the most useful features of RDS is the ability to search for a particular kind of radio program. You can
search for any of the program types listed above.
1 Press TUNER to select the FM band.
!
RDS is only possible in the FM band.
2 Press PTY.
PTY SEARCH
shows in the display.
3 Press /– to select the program type you want to hear.
4 Press ENTER to search for the program type.
The system starts searching through all frequencies for a match. When it finds one, the search stops and the
station plays for five seconds.
5 If you want to keep listening to the station, press ENTER within the five seconds.
If you don’t press
ENTER
, searching resumes.
If
NO PTY
is displayed it means the tuner couldn’t find that program type at the time of the search.
!
RDS searches all frequencies. If the program type could not be found among all the frequencies,
NO PTY
is
displayed.
Displaying RDS information
Use the
DISP
button to display the different types of RDS information available.
!
If any noise is picked up while displaying the RT scroll, some characters may be displayed incorrectly.
!
If you see
NO RT DATA
in the RT display, it means no RT data is sent from the broadcast station.
!
If you see
NO PS DATA
in the PS display, it means no PS data can be received.
!
If you see
NO PTY DATA
in the PTY display, it means no PTY data can be received.
%
Press DISP for RDS information.
Each press changes the display as follows:
!
Radio Text (
RT
) – Messages sent by the radio station. For example, a talk radio station may provide a phone
number as RT.
!
Program Service Name (
PS
) – The name of the radio station.
!
Program Type (
PTY
) – This indicates the kind of program currently being broadcast.
!
Current tuner frequency.
