Next RDS Forum meeting on 21 & 22 October 2024 at Geneva

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The use of more and more frequencies for radio programmes in the VHF/FM range made it increasingly difficult to tune a conventional radio to a desired programme. This kind of difficulty is solved with the Radio Data System, that has been on the market since 1987, and whose spectacular evolution is still continuing. More

The features of RDS are abbreviated by terms like PI, PS, AF, TP, TA, RT. More

Over 40 years of RDS development. Here are the milestones.

In 2023 the RDS Forum turned 30 and the 40 th anniversary of the RDS technology was in March 2024. Here is the development history in short.

RDS has a range of features. It is not necessary to implement them all. Whatever the number of RDS features is, the product or service in question can be identified with the RDS logo, jointly owned by the EBU and the BBC. RDS is an open system free of IPR and the use of the logo is free. In the USA the logo is protected by CTA & NAB. It is available then against payment of a small license fee to maintain the legal protection. More

The PS name is used as a tuning aid and on the display it identifies the radio programme to which the listener is tuned: You see what you hear. The PS name consists of 8 characters and it is invariable. However because most older RDS receivers did not implement RadioText, many broadcasters abuse PS to give dynamic text messages. Although scrolling through such messages on the PS display will work on most receivers, the RDS Forum explains in a Position Paper of 2009, why such implementations are incorrect and what alternatives exist to broadcast text correctly. More

Here the Open Data Application is explained. It permits new applications that are compatible with existing receivers.