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Old February 8th 07, 12:28 AM posted to aus.radio.broadcast,alt.radio.digital,rec.radio.shortwave,alt.radio.broadcasting
ausWY ausWY is offline
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Feb 2007
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Default RDS-FM versus AM-SS - Data steam systems for radio

The Philestine wrote:
which in Australia ranges from 522 Khz to 1602 Khz for the
commercial broadcast stations


I think the AM broadcast band starts at 531 in Australia, not 522.

I hesitated to buy the Sangean, but finding it has lead me to investigate a
whole new area of possibilities in radio. A little research on the internet
and at various electrical goods stores around town has revealed that RDS is
not widely implemented by commercial radio operators in Australia. Very few
stores that I visited had devices capable of decoding RDS information. I
guess it's a bit of a catch-22 situation - the big Australian commercial FM
stations hardly use RDS and therefore why should Hi-Fi and car audio shops
stock units that receive RDS signals?


I'm in Sydney and all of the Sydney commercial radio stations broadcast
RDS, from my location, I can receive the following RDS enabled frequencies:

088.3 - WSFM
095.3 - VEGA 953
096.1 - THE EDGE
096.5 - WAVE FM
096.9 - NOVA 969
099.1 - WSFM
101.7 - WSFM
104.1 - 2DAY FM
104.5 - STAR1045
104.9 - TRIPLE M
106.5 - MIX106.5

Additionally, with WSFM's three frequencies, they make use of the
alternate frequency (AF) feature of RDS, my car radio will automatically
choose the best received frequency. WSFM also broadcast with the traffic
programme (TP) tag. Some of the stations also broadcast artist/track
name, weather information, news, time, etc.

Triple J used to broadcast RDS but have since stopped.

I've seen various cars with RDS enabled systems, such as the Ford Focus,
my friend's Peugeot, the VW Golf, etc. My car's aftermarket Sony tuner
also has RDS capabilities.