I just installed the tuner module on my Mk2 and everything seems to work fine. I have never had a stereo with RDS before so I was curious to see what it was like...

The first time I tried the tuner, I got a flashing "RDS" text indicator on a couple stations. After a little while, one of them had the call letters of the station magically appear. Since then however, I have NEVER seen the RDS indicator ever appear again!

What's the deal? Is RDS really that seldom used? How many percent of stations in the U.S. make use of RDS? And on the stations that it is available, does your signal strength have to be very strong for it to work reliably? Since I live halfway between two major cities, most of the radio stations here don't have the strongest signal strength (though they are quite listenable).

Or is there something wrong with my new tuner module? Why would the RDS indicator flash on a bunch of stations the first time I tried it, then ever day after that it never flashes on any station for even a second.