An Introduction To Rds - Pioneer VSX-D514 Operating Instructions Manual

Using the tuner

An introduction to RDS

Radio Data System, or RDS as it's usually
known, is a system used by FM radio stations to
provide listeners with various kinds of informa-
tion—the name of the station and the kind of
show they're broadcasting, for example. This
information shows up as text on the display,
and you can switch between the kind of
information shown. Although you don't get RDS
information from all FM radio stations, you do
with most.
Probably the best feature of RDS is that you can
search automatically by type of program. So, if
you felt like listening to jazz, you could search
for a station that's broadcasting a show with
the program type, JAZZ. There are around 30
such program types, including various genres
of music, news, sport, talk shows, financial
information, and so on.
The receiver lets you display three different
kinds of RDS information: Radio Text, Program
Service Name, and Program Type.
Radio Text (RT) is messages sent by the radio
station. These can be anything the broadcaster
chooses—a talk radio station might give out it
telephone number as RT, for example.
Program Service Name (PS) is the name of the
radio station.
Program Type (PTY) indicates the kind of
program currently being broadcast.
The receiver can search for and display the
following program types:
NEWS
News
AFFAIRS Current affairs
INFO
General information
SPORT Sports
EDUCATE
Educational material
DRAMA Radio drama
CULTURE
Arts and culture
SCIENCE Science and technology
VARIED
Usually talk-based material,
such as quiz shows or
interviews.
POP M Pop music
ROCK M
Rock music
EASY M "Middle of the road" music
also called soft rock
LIGHT M 'Light' classical music
CLASSICS
'Serious' classical music
OTHER M Other music not fitting any
of the above categories
WEATHER Weather reports
FINANCE
Finance and business
CHILDREN Children's entertainment
SOCIAL A
Social affairs
RELIGION Religious programming
PHONE IN
Phone-in talk shows
TRAVEL Travel
LEISURE
Leisure interests and
hobbies
JAZZ
Jazz music
COUNTRY
Country music
NATION M
Popular music in a lan-
guage other than English
OLDIES Popular music from the '50s
FOLK M
Folk music
DOCUMENT Documentaries
07
41
En