A little more information:
It seems that there are two ways a radio station can transmit rds song information. The best way, in my opinion, is when the empeg interprets it to have the station call sign on the top line and the artist/song title scrolling on the bottom line. A good station will even have the commercial sponser's name. Some stations it seems will only transmit one and only one line of information no matter what song plays.
The next method, and apparently the more frequent method is for the station call sign, artist, song title and sometimes freqruency to be displayed - in parts about maybe 8 to 10 characters long - all on the first line. Very clunky.
So anyway, i can get the clunky method by just starting the car up normally (and i am near these types of stations). I am lucky to be in a town that transmits best formatted and most informational rds information. However, for me to receive this type of rds information, i have to use the battery icon startup method described in above post.

woops