Ability to disable the RDS clock

Here in the US (New York at least) RDS is almost never used. Furthermore, no station here transmits a clock. However, this doesn't stop the clock from appearing on the Empeg. WXRK doesn't use RDS at all and a clock shows up on the Empeg 50% of the time I listen. WNEW uses RDS for call letters and genre but I will sometimes get a clock. The clocks are always wrong on both stations.

It bites having to explain why there is a screwy clock on the display. I would really enjoy being able to toggle the RDS clock from within Emplode. Thanks.

Any screen other than Info:Radio will have your player's realtime clock. Only the Info:Radio screen will show the RDS clock. So, to disable the RDS clock, simply press the Info button.

At least that's how it's SUPPOSED to work in Beta11. If you can find different behavior, let us know.

Your solution is not my wish. I do not need to watch Funnelweb and crash into a tree just because the RDS clock is wrong. I do not want any clock. There is a clock in my car.

Complain to your radio station(s). They either don't realise that they don't have an accurate clock, or don't realise how annoying it is. If nobody complains, nobody should be surprised when all they get is crap.

It might be more than that, though.

This morning, I turned on the empeg's radio, and switched among three different stations. None of these were RDS stations (the RDS indicator never appeared), but somehow the RDS clock showed up, and its time was several hours off.

I'm wondering if the empeg is interpreting random noise as an RDS clock sometimes?

Complain to your radio station(s). They either don't realise that they don't have an accurate clock, or don't realise how annoying it is. If nobody complains, nobody should be surprised when all they get is crap.

The chances of getting every radio station in one's area to change their clocks is much less than the chances of getting a simple option to turn off the RDS clock on the Empeg. I second this feature request because RDS does nothing for me.

I realize it's a very neat feature over in Europe, but over here in the States, it's more of a nuisance than anything else. The stations here just use the RDS text to spew out a goofy slogan or something that takes up my screen real estate. I'd just disable RDS entirely if possible.

I'm wondering if the empeg is interpreting random noise as an RDS clock sometimes?

This is exactly what I assume is happening.

In reply to:

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I'm wondering if the empeg is interpreting random noise as an RDS clock sometimes?

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If it is, I'd call that a bug. If there's no clock info in the RDS stream, then the empeg ought to blank that area of the screen. If the clock data is inconsistent, it's probably just noise, and the same goes (e.g. if no clock data is received for a couple of minutes, or if wildly different times are received).

How does RDS clock work?
If the receiver gets the RDS time as a start time and then calculates and displays the clock from then on (unlikely) then noise might make sense.

If, however, it just displays what it receives in the RDS clock packets, then it must be getting this info from somewhere. If the clock is consistantly inaccurate then random noise would seem unlikely?

Peter