Tuner and RDS question

I know that the original tuner module supports (supported?) RDS.
In the Europe RDS was of some use, but is RDS used by any US radio stations?

Yes, but mostly only call letters are transmitted. None of the more advanced features such as traffic announcements are used. The clock is used sometimes, but it is rarely right.

This is a FAQ entry.

Thanks guys,
I saw the faq but wanted a bit more info.
Is it illegal for US station to broadcast anything other than locally? I can't find any that go much more than their home town. Sounds like the FCCs handiwork !

In the New York metro area, most stations out of New York City have booster antennas on Long Island and parts of New Jersey. New York stations can be heard a good 50-60 miles outside of the city usually. I am not sure if anywhere else is like this. I would assume so.

Do you mean broadcast as in actually over the FM waves? I don't think that there's any particular FCC ruling that keeps that from happening (except, perhaps, wattage limitations); FM simply doesn't have that great a range. You can sometimes get AM stations from hundreds of miles away, though.

I was driving with a work buddy back to DC from the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in 2000 and we were picking up a political radio show (about the convention) from Boston on an AM channel! While stopped at a gas station to fill up, he actually called them from his cell phone, and they put him on the air! It was funny seeing his lips move, and then a few seconds later to hear him talking on the radio.

_owen

I've gotten AM broadcasts from Utah while in Sacramento, CA...

You can thank the ionosphere for that.

I guess from your posting that most US stations transmit from just one FM transmitter. This is like some of the small "community" stations we have in the UK. Some of these are seasonal, and only broadcast during the summer.

The national stations and the bigger regional ones cover a bigger area with a network of transmitters with overlapping ranges, and normally use the RDS AF (alternative frequencies) feature to inform the tuner where to look when it travels out of range. This gives near-seamless coverage of a much larger area than a single-transmitter station (which would need much more power, swamping nearby receivers).

Of course, in a country like the US, particularly in the west, there are big empty areas where it's not economically worthwhile to add transmitters, whereas pretty much all of the UK is fairly densely populated, so the environment is quite different.

And so endeth the lesson of why RDS is much less used in the US than Europe (apart from "Not Invented Here" effect, of course).

Yep, FM has a limited range compared to AM, but RDS cannot be used on AM.
The range problem with FM is overcome by using multiple transmitters, the problem then is that the transmitters that overlap need to be on different frequencies to stop interference, hence the use of RDS-AF feature to switch to the strongest signal.
Still doesn't explain why there are only local radio stations in the US. Although I do prefer the local radio here to the likes of Radio City in Liverpool !
The diversity of sounds here is amazing, if you can't find music you like here in Austin then there is something wrong with you

I see. I think I didn't quite follow your question. You're asking why there aren't national radio stations. I think that has more to do with culture and the occasional practical issue. I often forget this, but you need to remember that the physical size of England is about the same as that of a medium sized US state. I think that folks here in North Carolina, for instance, would be less than interested in happenings in California. And advertising would be a nightmare, as most radio advertisers are smaller, usually regional, businesses. (And I'm not aware of any mutiple transmitter radio stations.)

In reply to:

---

I think I didn't quite follow your question.

---

That's understandable, as it wasn't meant to be a question - more like General speculation. Thanks for the extra thoughts, though. They are interesting to me at least.

The FCC has a hand in how many frequencies in a given market you can control. I'm not sure what they say about broadcasting the same content over many frequencies in different locations, but Clear Chanel is basicaly a proof-of-concept that you can do it. (ok, not compleetly, but close).

Here in the bay area we have one radio station who's name I can't remember at the moment who's bought up nearly the entire 92.* space, and you can listen to them through out a range of 200 miles. At one point they had a transition that joked that the only reason they didn't own more than X number of frequencies was that the FCC wouldn't let them.

Matthew

In reply to:

---

I guess from your posting that most US stations transmit from just one FM transmitter.

---

There are actually a good number of stations in the more rural parts of Pennsylvania which simulcast on 2 frequencies. I think all of the Entercom stations around Scranton/Wilkes-Barre are on 2 frequencies. On my last trip, none had RDS. However, there was a station in Worcester, MA which had RDS and was using it to designate themselves "The Fox" instead of sending their call letters. Someone, probably them, also sent me incorrect time.

On the way back, as I was coming into Scranton I got the time from (perhaps it was 99.1 WAAL, or maybe it was whatever I had on before that) and indeed, it too was wrong.

What is Clear Channel? I hear this term used on a few stations.

Clear Channel is a parent corporation. A big conglomerate. Just like "Entercom" mentioned a few posts later.

Clear Channel is one of the biggest owners of stations in the U.S.

There was a Salon article (I think) a few months back describing some of their practices.

I can honestly say the empeg is appealing to me for 2 reasons, and one of those is Clear Channel. When I leave town, I enjoy using the tuner, but when I'm home, the repetition is too much for me, and the mp3 capabilities of the empeg get regular use.

OK, I thought it was kind of new technology or something.