Is the FM radio RDS?

[Good Old Bakes]

I didn't think it was but a guy on another site swears it is. I must admit, I've not had much call to use it but when I've tried it, albeit in a poor signal area, I could never get it to display the station name.

 

[lekky]

What does rds mean?

 

[sharpey]

What does rds mean?

Radio Data System - it automatically shows you the station name and some scrolling text info also it will change the station frequency automatically if it starts to get weak, ive tried the radio a couple of times but i havent noticed it being RDS

 

[mad]

Similar XDA thread:
desire's fm radio - xda-developers

As far as I see on mine, RDS works but very badly.
It's very long to display, it doesn't display the name all the time, it also seems to need a perfect signal and work only on very few French stations (RTL2, Pluriel)

 

[fortexg]

Hi, new to Android world...
First Android/Desire impression: still needs a lot of work to be great, really useful & stable - Handspring/Palm Treo history repeating (gone through Treos 180/270/600/650/680 with all their issues...)

I agree with mad - RDS works, but very badly.

- Only RDS PI (station name) seems to be implemented, there is no other RDS functions (like in car stereos) - EON, AF, TA/TP, PTY,...
- signal needs to be at least 5/7 for PI to work
- works better after turning the radio off/on, then stops again when tuning to another station

Other issues with FM radio application:
- hang on my Desire - phone did not even shutdown; had to remove battery (I know, I need a task killer...)
- stereo/mono switch does nothing even on 7/7 signal strength (always just mono)
- no preset +/- buttons on phone interface (only scan+/-)
- the original headphone buttons should double as volume control (as on ipod shuffle)

 

[Scary]

Interesting, I tried out the radio on mine today for the first time (I went up a big hill overlooking London so I could get a decent reception and auto scan) and was surprised that one of the presets filled in it's name automatically. It was 'BBC Londn' so I assumed it was RDS because of the 9 character version.

A preset up/down would be nice as would the ability to reorder them. Also it switches the radio off when the camera comes on for some reason