LOR II and RDS Functionality

[Texan78]

RDS is becoming a pretty standard feature now on most newer cars. It has been out for quite awhile now but now is becoming a pretty standard option for radios. I can speak for GM that pretty much all there new and some older vehicles come equipped with RDS. Espeically if you have Satellite radio from the manufactuer it will have RDS. Some manufactures are even starting to install HD radios which is suppose to be the new wave to radio technology as Digital TV is to of course TV. Those radios will all be RDS ready. Of course just about all your aftermarket radios you buy these days Kenwood, Alpine, Pioneer, Sony, etc all come with RDS and some even HD ready.

My question is can you create a txt file to show via RDS between shows that will display when the next show starts, hours of operation, web site, display name etc. Even though some radios are RDS equipped, some can only display so many characters, while others will scroll if there are more then will fit the screen. I think if you can display a RDS message between shows, that would be even better.

Maybe I missed it and I apologize if I have, but what other devices do you need to transmitt RDS?

[dqhall]

Texan78 wrote:

My question is can you create a txt file to show via RDS between shows that will display when the next show starts, hours of operation, web site, display name etc. Even though some radios are RDS equipped, some can only display so many characters, while others will scroll if there are more then will fit the screen. I think if you can display a RDS message between shows, that would be even better.

Maybe I missed it and I apologize if I have, but what other devices do you need to transmitt RDS?

The text file can display any RDS information you want your viewers to see. As long as you play a sequence between each song, such as a commercial spot welcoming viewers or something, you can transmit a message. I use the message 'Happy Holidays' between each song.

All RDS compatible USA car radios display only Dynamic PS information. The maximum length for PS is 8 characters at one time. So, depending on your RDS software, it will break the text into 8 characters chunks or break them apart at spaces. For example, if you send a message 'Merry Christmas', the RDS software would either send

MERRY CH
RISTMAS

or

MERRY
CHRISTMA
S

Some RDS software can scroll the message, and you can set the scroll rate as well.

For hardware RDS solutions, I only know of 2 at reasonable prices. They are http://www.pira.cz/rds/ which is the RDS encoder by itself or http://www.pcs-electronics.com which sells the FM transmitter with built-in RDS. For a software solution, I believe Airomate, mentioned above, is the only one.

I hope this information helps.

[Tim Fischer]

Jeff Millard wrote:

I see RDS on quite a few after market radios, but how many manufacterers actually include it in their radios? I was looking at a new Honda Pilot recently and noticed it had a pretty killer sound system/DVD. I didn't think to see if it had RDS too.

Jeff

Our Grand Caravan came with it (2007 model). My aftermarket JVC I put in our other car does not, even though it can display MP3 tags when playing MP3 data CD's...

-Tim

[Texan78]

I looked at the pira site and it looks pretty reasonable. I wish there was a plug a play version out there that would just connect directly to your sound card then have your transmitter connect to it without have to modify your existing transmitter. Be nice if Ramsey or someone would build a transmitter with the RDS encoder in it. Not sure why they have not done that yet.

So I could play a background sequence between shows and have it display any information I want? Is that how I understand it.

[Tim Fischer]

Texan78 wrote:

Be nice if Ramsey or someone would build a transmitter with the RDS encoder in it. Not sure why they have not done that yet.

I emailed Ramsey support early in this year asking if a) they had plans for such a kit, or could send me info on how to modify my FM25B to add one purchased elsewhere. They didn't even so much as respond to my email...



-Tim

[Texan78]

Tim Fischer wrote:

Texan78 wrote:

Be nice if Ramsey or someone would build a transmitter with the RDS encoder in it. Not sure why they have not done that yet.

I emailed Ramsey support early in this year asking if a) they had plans for such a kit, or could send me info on how to modify my FM25B to add one purchased elsewhere. They didn't even so much as respond to my email...



-Tim

That is a shame because from a marketing standpoint that are losing out on a huge profit margin but not building one with it. I don't know how much makes up there clientele that would need a use for this, but I am pretty sure us Christmas folk good contribute a pretty good dent in there pocket for it.

Most cars that have double din units which means those radios that look like TVs that have navigation all have RDS. It is pretty widespread thing now to have it. I am trying to find a list that will show you the manufactures that have RDS radios but can't find one yet. I do know it would be worth the investment especially with HD radio just around the corner. I know Kenwood has launched there decks that are HD ready as well as Alpine and there are several stations here that broadcast in HD radio. Of course the receiver adapater isn't cheap. I priced it for my Kenwood in my truck and it was about $300 just to add HD on to my Kenwood HD ready unit.

[Tim Fischer]

Not to drift off-topic, but I don't understand why HD radio receivers are so darned expensive. All the Clear Channel stations here promote the heck of it (via regular radio commercials), but until the cost of equipment approaches that of standard FM, nobody's going to adopt it beyond a few techno-geeks with deep pockets...

You can't tell me it takes $100-300 worth of "stuff" to decode a digital sideband from a standard FM carrier...

-Tim

[Texan78]

Tim Fischer wrote:

Not to drift off-topic, but I don't understand why HD radio receivers are so darned expensive. All the Clear Channel stations here promote the heck of it (via regular radio commercials), but until the cost of equipment approaches that of standard FM, nobody's going to adopt it beyond a few techno-geeks with deep pockets...

You can't tell me it takes $100-300 worth of "stuff" to decode a digital sideband from a standard FM carrier...

-Tim

Yea it is the same way here, the stations that are in HD are proud of it and let you know. I am one of those "techno-geeks" that have it. About 84% of the stations in the US are broadcast via HD. Like I mentioned earlier, more and more cars are coming equipped with it. I am not sure if you can upgrade an exsisting factory unit or not. I know you can buy aftermarker radios that are HD ready like mine. It is suppose to make the audio CD quality and cut back on static and inerefrence. I don't notice much difference in the standard analog signal and the Digital one. One cool thing about HD is it can transmit weather, traffic and other numerous messages on screen as well as your normal RDS about the music. Also this is probably the coolest of all is it gives you more channels. LIke you can have a station like here 96.3 which is country. Well you have 96.3-HD-1 which will play all new country, 96.3-HD-2 playing Texas Country, 96.3-HD-3 playing classic country and so on. So it gives you a wider selection. I mostly just listen to Sirrus Satellite or have the iPod plugged in most of the time so I don't listen to regular radio that often.

You are not missing much so it is something you can live without unless you just want the extra stations and information. Which I could do without because most of that comes across my Garmin Nuvi like traffic and weather so I don't need my HD radio for it.

This does bring up a good discussion though. Once more and more cars start getting equipped with HD units over the years, some are probably thinking hey if I spend my money on this and cars go digital then RDS will become useless because of the digital signal. That is not true. That is one of the neat advanatages of HD is it can accept both Digital and Analog signals so the RDS from our standard transmitters will work well into the years. Unless they stop analog all together like they are doing with TV in a couple of months. Then we are screwed, but I don't see that happening because it would hurt the portable radios and make the cost of them outragous.

[Richard Hamilton]

Tim Fischer wrote:

Texan78 wrote:

Be nice if Ramsey or someone would build a transmitter with the RDS encoder in it. Not sure why they have not done that yet.

I emailed Ramsey support early in this year asking if a) they had plans for such a kit, or could send me info on how to modify my FM25B to add one purchased elsewhere. They didn't even so much as respond to my email...

-Tim

Really good quality transmitters are out there with RDS built in, but you'll pay $700 for them!. Surely they will get cheaper.

[Steven]

Doug posted a link to my page that documents the procedure to add an RDS interface to the FM100B. Thanks, Doug! This modification takes few components that would probably cost less than a couple of dollars if Ramsey would integrate it. I posted a suggestion to add these modifications to the Ramsey bulletin board, but there was no reply.

I suspect the basic problem is that the percentage Ramsey FM100B customers who would use RDS is low in Ramsey's estimation, and the modification would require engineering changes to the board layout, and make Ramsey's inventory of FM100B printed circuit boards obsolete, so I understand their reluctance to make the change at this point.

Another interesting point is that I also made RDS modifications to the EDM LCD transmitter, but because EDM uses a different FM transmitter chip, the changes required only two capacitors, a resistor, and a cable, and required no modifications to the metal case.

I have heard that some people have trouble getting the RDS software that uses a sound card to work. This is probably because they are sending the sound card output to a FM transmitter with stereo inputs. The way FM stereo works, the highest possible audio frequency is 19kHz, so to prevent aliasing (which sounds terrible), most FM stereo transmitters send the audio input through a low-pass filter to eliminate any frequencies 19kHz or higher. The RDS signal is 57kHz, so this will get filtered out.

The other problem is that the stereo pilot signal of 19kHz should be in phase with the RDS carrier of 57kHz. If the transmitter is generating the 19kHz signal and the RDS software is generating the 57kHz signal, then it's impossible to keep them in phase.

The proper way to use the RDS sound card software is to have it generate the stereo signal and the RDS signal, and send it to a mono FM transmitter.

[Dinosang]

jstein wrote:

Dinosang wrote:

jstein wrote:

So with this there is no need to purchase any additional "hardware"?

As long as you have a compatible 192khz sound card no!

Just one other thing, will this work with LOR when the new update is released or do you know? If it does this will be great!

By the looks of it there should be no problem with LOR as it will use a text file to send the info to and Airomate can pole any text file that you choose. You can even set how often you would like to check for changes in the text file I leave it at the default 3 Seconds so when there is a change it is almost immediate.

[Dinosang]

Texan78 wrote:

I looked at the pira site and it looks pretty reasonable. I wish there was a plug a play version out there that would just connect directly to your sound card then have your transmitter connect to it without have to modify your existing transmitter. Be nice if Ramsey or someone would build a transmitter with the RDS encoder in it. Not sure why they have not done that yet.

So I could play a background sequence between shows and have it display any information I want? Is that how I understand it.

Airomate http://www.diffusionsoftware.com/airomate.php As long as you have a compatible sound card! I purchased it and it works great!

[Steven]

Dinosang wrote:

Airomate http://www.diffusionsoftware.com/airomate.php As long as you have a compatible sound card! I purchased it and it works great!

Ok, I have a question that should be a FAQ, but isn't covered on the Airomate site:

What transmitter are you using?

The only thing I found regarding transmitters was this quote from a Airomate representative:

The input of your transmitter doesn't need to be special input. The only thing that matters is that the input doesn't contain a MPX filter.

I know the Ramsey FM25B, FM100B, and the EDM LCD all have MPX filters on their input, so this says that Airomate won't work with those transmitters. So what transmitter are you using?

[Dinosang]

Steven wrote:

Dinosang wrote:

Airomate http://www.diffusionsoftware.com/airomate.php As long as you have a compatible sound card! I purchased it and it works great!

Ok, I have a question that should be a FAQ, but isn't covered on the Airomate site:

What transmitter are you using?

The only thing I found regarding transmitters was this quote from a Airomate representative:

The input of your transmitter doesn't need to be special input. The only thing that matters is that the input doesn't contain a MPX filter.

I know the Ramsey FM25B, FM100B, and the EDM LCD all have MPX filters on their input, so this says that Airomate won't work with those transmitters. So what transmitter are you using?

Purchased from Ebay.
http://www.hllyelectronics.com/html/fm_transmitter_1_43.html




Attached files

[Texan78]

Dinosang wrote:

Texan78 wrote:

I looked at the pira site and it looks pretty reasonable. I wish there was a plug a play version out there that would just connect directly to your sound card then have your transmitter connect to it without have to modify your existing transmitter. Be nice if Ramsey or someone would build a transmitter with the RDS encoder in it. Not sure why they have not done that yet.

So I could play a background sequence between shows and have it display any information I want? Is that how I understand it.

Airomate http://www.diffusionsoftware.com/airomate.php As long as you have a compatible sound card! I purchased it and it works great!

So what exactly is this suppose to do? Don't you still need an external RDS unit to transmit the RDS? This just looks like software....

[Dinosang]

Texan78 wrote:

Dinosang wrote:

Texan78 wrote:

I looked at the pira site and it looks pretty reasonable. I wish there was a plug a play version out there that would just connect directly to your sound card then have your transmitter connect to it without have to modify your existing transmitter. Be nice if Ramsey or someone would build a transmitter with the RDS encoder in it. Not sure why they have not done that yet.

So I could play a background sequence between shows and have it display any information I want? Is that how I understand it.

Airomate http://www.diffusionsoftware.com/airomate.php As long as you have a compatible sound card! I purchased it and it works great!

So what exactly is this suppose to do? Don't you still need an external RDS unit to transmit the RDS? This just looks like software....

It is just software but you do need a 192khz sound card because of the high frequencies used for the RDS Data.

[Texan78]

Dinosang wrote:

It is just software but you do need a 192khz sound card because of the high frequencies used for the RDS Data.

I think most of us are looking for a solution for the actually RDS unit to connect to our transmitters. No need to purchase software when LOR is already about to release RDS capabilities in there next release and it is being tested now as we speak.

When I was referring to plug and play I was talking about RDS unit that you could just plug your transmitter into from your sound card without having to make any modifications to your transmitter like you have to do now.

[Tim Fischer]

Texan78I think most of us are looking for a solution for the actually RDS unit to connect to our transmitters. No need to purchase software when LOR is already about to release RDS capabilities in there next release and it is being tested now as we speak.


One thing I've never gotten a clear answer on: Will LOR simply work with external RDS hardware (and possibly software), or will it actually try to do the "soft-RDS" thing with the high frequencies? I'm assuming the former, but the latter would be cool...

-Tim

[Dinosang]

Texan78 wrote:

Dinosang wrote:

It is just software but you do need a 192khz sound card because of the high frequencies used for the RDS Data.

I think most of us are looking for a solution for the actually RDS unit to connect to our transmitters. No need to purchase software when LOR is already about to release RDS capabilities in there next release and it is being tested now as we speak.

When I was referring to plug and play I was talking about RDS unit that you could just plug your transmitter into from your sound card without having to make any modifications to your transmitter like you have to do now.

You seem to be misinterpreting how the RDS will be implemented. LorII will not send RDS to your transmitter it will only send the text to a file and then your rds software will read the file and it will encode the RDS data. Even all the hardware RDS units have a software program to relay the RDS Data. You were asking about a plug and play solution and the Airomate software is the closest thing to what you asked! As it only uses your sound card to produce RDS data.

[Steven]

Tim Fischer wrote:

One thing I've never gotten a clear answer on: Will LOR simply work with external RDS hardware (and possibly software), or will it actually try to do the "soft-RDS" thing with the high frequencies?

LOR will be able to be configured to run a command when a sequence starts playing. I assume it will pass the name of the sequence, or perhaps each sequence will be separately configured with a different command to run.

Typically, this command will put the name of the song in a text file, which will be monitored by the RDS software, which will cause the name to be sent to the RDS encoder, either hardware or software.

The command could also change the message in an LED sign so visitors could know the name of the song (and artist) without having an RDS radio.