Radio Data System Facts for Kids

Radio Data System is a communication protocol that allows to send small amounts of digital information in a common FM radio broadcast. Aside from time and date, this commonly is the name of the station, or information about the program that is currently broadcast. First tests were done in 1983 and 1984, the standard was officially introduced in 1988.

The following types of information can be sent:

Programme Service name, usually the station name. There's a short version (with 8 alphanumeric characters), and a long version (16 characters, UTF-8)
Programme type: One of 16 prossible types, for example news, or pop
PTY-31 allows to switch to a mode for emergency messages. Newer receivers often disregard this; as it was never used correctly
Traffic Programme: If enabled, the station also carries messages about read traffic
Traffic Announcement: Traffic announcements are flagged
Enhanced Other Networks: If this channel doesn't offer traffic info, it is possible to switch to another channel for traffic information
Traffic Message Channel: Coded messages about traffic, to be displayed in a GPS or navigation device
Alternative Frequency: Broadcast another frequency for the current programme

It is possible to transmit Radio Text. In theory, it is possible to transmit 64 characters per line.

Images for kids

Logo for RDS1 and RDS2
A Radio Data System – Traffic Message Channel (RDS-TMC) receiver (left) attached to a TomTom navigation system to integrate real-time traffic data into the navigation.
Typical radio display when no RDS data is available
Typical radio display showing the PS name (programme service) field.
Sample Radio Text usage, in this case showing the name and artist of the song being broadcast – Duran Duran's "Save a Prayer" – the bottom line scrolls to reveal the rest of the text.
PI A206
Service menu of a car radio
RDS on Radio C Yekaterinburg 103.7 MHz
RDS Demodulator Sanyo LC72723

Radio Data System facts for kids

Images for kids

See also