Why haven't manufacturers figured this one out yet.
How come on my Audi A3 I can't listen to talk sport/five live on MW and get my RDS Traffic Announcement to work at the same time? Why will it only work on FM? It would be a far better idea if the TA signal cut in whilst listening to any frequency. It does it when listening to CDs, assuming my last station was FM, so it must be capable of multi tasking - so why not on lowly Medium Wave.
I usually call vodaphone traffic before I set off to check which of the three alternative routes to go - and then rely on the RDS to update me on the move. Last week this cost me an hour waiting in an accident (5 car nose to tail shunt - noone hurt fortunately). My point is that I could have avoided this if I'd known. As soon as I tune back into FM - it tells me to avoid the area.
Also whilst I'm having a rant - how about displaying the radio station name so I can decide to turn the TA straight off if it's out of my area?
Or is it a case of operator error on my behalf???
Come on Audi - you should be better than this....
Cheers
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TA has never and will never work with MW,cos the signal is carried as part of FM. Mine always shows the station name before turning the volume up,so I can turn off/cancel as required.
To be honest I find little use for TA anyway, so keep it turned off most of the time.
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As Alastair said,but I think they going to do away with MW at some time in the future.Correct me please if wrong?
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Steve
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but I think they going to do away with MW at some time in the future.Correct me please if wrong?
Inevitably so, but there are no plans at the moment (as with FM). It will be around for quite some more years yet.
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I would swear on my granny's false teeth that my old SAAB 9-5 would operate TA while listening to AM, I always assumed they somehow had FM running in the background, but perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me.
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>>> but I think they going to do away with
>>> MW at some time in the future.Correct me please if wrong?
>
>Inevitably so, but there are no plans at the moment (as with >FM). It will be around for quite some more years yet.
www.drm.org/
"DRM is a world-wide initiative to use analog AM radio for digital sound and services"
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"DRM is a world-wide initiative to use analog AM radio for digital sound and services"
And still some years off with no date yet set.
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The problem is you only have 1 tuner. RDS only works on FM, it was only designed to work on FM.
SO if your tuner is tuned to medium wave you wont get RDS - EVER
Your radio can be playing cd and tuned to an FM station at the same time. It cant be tuned to FM and MW at the same time.
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RF - currently 1 Renault short of a family
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Found TA pretty useless. Journey from Northampton to M25 constantly interrupted by traffic flashes for all stations Oxford to Cambridge.
Presumably a set with completely separate AM and FM stages could run TA to interrupt MW?
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Having used it when it first became available, I soon got hacked of with Johnny Two Bit on Tiresome FM hanging on to the "traffic bulletin" for a few minutes to try and get another three listeners.
I haven't used it since.
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Don't get in-car DAB if you want TA - no facility for TA and DAB together.
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I thought most RDS radios had two tuners?. MW and VHF are so far apart that they need physically different bits to tune the signal in, so yes, there are two tuners. I also thought the VHF tuner could listen to more than one station or how else could you be listening to one station and get TA from another station??.
Martin
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No wrong
The TA switch signal is broadcast to the station you are listening too, which switches your tuner to another frequency away from the station you are listening to, and switches oyu back when finsished. Sometimes they domnt send the switch back signal and you end up listening to another station.
SO no there are NOT two tuners. they dont need different bits, they are using a single phase lock loop to generate what ever frequency you need to listen to. I have a broad band reciever that goes from almost audible frequency to microwave and its just one tuner.
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RF - currently 1 Renault short of a family
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In theory it's fine.
In reality you get traffic holdups/problems/flashes for areas which may be some considerable distance from where you are.
What's the value in that?
I switched TA off a long time ago and I'm no worse off.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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well I have just had new Golf and believe me or not I was driving the other day listening to Talksport morning phone -in,the TP icon was still displayed on the screen and on comes the local BBC trafic news and the INFO was displayed and the local station.
This has never occurred on other cars.
This is has since happened again -I must look in the handbook later.
Yes TA for me is useful and over the years it has saved me time ans indeed forewarned of accidents and delays early for me to take alternate routes.
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The new golf appears to be diffrent on the radio front, it seems the radio is not a radio but a full blown computer, it can be made to do lots of strange things. Its possible it has two tuners.
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RF - currently 1 Renault short of a family
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Its possible it has two tuners.
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Or using frequency hopping techniques.
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RF - currently 1 Renault short of a family
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Mine has a button so it only picks up local traffic info, should you desire, so you don't get irrelevant stuff. Don't they all have that facility, perhaps hidden away somewhere?
Actually, that may be mouth before brain - perhaps it knows what a local station is cos it's all part of the satnav, come to think of it, so would only work in cars where the two are combined?
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I find RDS a pain and it doesn't seem possible to turn it off. Even after you have pressed the button it interrupts your programme with useless traffic information 50 miles away.
A few weeks ago I was on the road to Southport at Ince, where there was a huge tailback due to resurfacing the carriageway. Listening to Radio 4, I was constantly interrupted by GMR Radio with useles information about problems somewhere south of Manchester. As Ince is in Merseyside - used to be good old Lancashire - why not Radio Lancashire or Radio Merseyside?
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Isnt anywhere north of the watford gap all the same place? ON my map of the world its blank saying "unexplored"
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RF - currently 1 Renault short of a family
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Ho Ho Ho Ho.....
etc etc
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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You need a new map. The latest ones say "There be dragons."
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I have just checked my Golf handbook and indeed the RDS TA does function on both FM and AM-clever stuff.
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Steve
hunt around the web and you will find it does all sorts of things.........lots of secret button combinations. The radio on the new golf is deeply imbeded into the cars electronics.
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RF - currently 1 Renault short of a family
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Beat me to posting that the Golf MkV could handle TA on MW...
On another point of the initial posting, the '51 Golf MkIV I had (as well as my MkV) displayed the station of the TA when it cut in.
When I had the MkIV, I was constantly annoyed by Berkshire Radio news cutting in (as a TA) at approx 10 secs past 7pm; the MKV doesn't do that. The Scenic I had a demo approx 1 year ago had both traffic and news announcement buttons - I didn't know there was a distinction.
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You should try living in Swindon, I get Radio Gloucester, Wiltshire, Swindon, Berkshire, Oxford and if the wind is in the right direction Wales and Hampshire.
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I used it a lot when travelling round the country.
My gripes were the numpties who could not use the TA button correctly at Radio Waffle.
The monkeys do seem to be very ham fisted. They'd switch it on whilst Sally Traffic was talking on Radio2 to do the local TA. Or just before the hourly news so we could hear that they were discussing the drains on Ackroyd Street afterwards - and not give the traffic. Or not switch it back at all after the bulletin.
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All Vauxhalls with RDS radios display the station name, even on TA. They always have. It's good to see that VAG have caught up!
I get annoyed by TA because when the traffic is clear I get reports from Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester, Derby, Stoke and Shropshire but when there's a problem I never get any reports!
Or the TA signal cuts in so late that the report doesn't say where the problem is.
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Radios made/OEM'd by Becker seem to offer RDS TA whilst listening to MW. Recent Porsche units do (they're all Becker) and the same units turn up in various cars.
Far more annoying is that these same units (including some Audi units which I think are made by Blaupunkt) don't have long wave so no TMS!
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Becker = blaupunkt
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RF - Da DAA. < changes in phone box > Its TOURVAN man
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In theory it's fine. In reality you get traffic holdups/problems/flashes for areas which may be some considerable distance from where you are. What's the value in that?
Stuartli, try setting it to "Local" not "Dist" you only get TAs from local stations then.
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"Becker = blaupunkt"
Indeed, they're the same company, but they still seem to operate as different divisions because, up until recently anyway, the actual radios do seem to be different.
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>> In theory it's fine. >> Stuartli, try setting it to "Local" not "Dist" you only get TAs from local stations then.
Don't think that will necessarily work. The local setting is meant to stop strong signals overwhelming the receiver; its use is likely to mean you lose the station you want in areas of poorer reception.
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How much effort is to press the TA button if you're getting a report which isn't relevant? If it hacks you off that much, switch it off altogether.
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"Becker = blaupunkt"
Are they? Is this heresay or fact? Blaupunkt is part of the Bosch group, is Becker? Just curious to know, because the manufacturing methods of the two products are VERY different. I've never spotted any "shared design" with the two makes.
Blaupunkt sets are designed to compete in the "mass market", something Becker can't be accused of!
Unless Becker have started to sell re-badged Blaupunkts?
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ooo it appears not
www.becker.de/beckerCC21/www_root/index.jsp?langua...n
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RF - Da DAA. < changes in phone box > Its TOURVAN man
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Having checked, Becker actually appears to be US owned (by Harmon International) who are an independently stock listed company (and also own brands like Mark Levinson, JBL etc.). The radios are certainly different to Blaupunkt in design and no common ownership seems to exist.
Therefore, the correct answer seem to be Becker /= Blaupunkt.
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Last tuesday am, when the weather was at its worst, had one 'traffic announcment' from GMR that consisted solely of the England/Pakistan cricket score.
This morning, another from GMR that was just a report on Michael Vaughans injuries.
What's the point ?
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Paul,
yes it sure does. In many ways:
1. my Xantia radio had a TA button. Press it, you get TA. Press it again and you don't get TA. My Passat (maybe Audi are the same?) I press TA, I get TA. I press 15 other buttons in random sequence and TA switches off. Eventually. The handbook is a model of grammar and utterly meaningless. Obviously translated from German by a German.
2. Why do I always get traffic announcements for Sheffield? Wherever I am in the country I get traffic announcements for Sheffield. Sheffield buses actually. Has anyone ever seen a radio outside of a car that does TA? So why do they tell us about buses running late?
3. DJs... Grrrr. "I've got you on my station and I'm going to keep you here 'cos I know there is no way you would tune into my inane babble otherwise".
but other than that it's fine. Except for the information being out of date of course.
John
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In my Volvo I am driven mad when I have the TA activated as it would appear that it frequently picks up a weak signal that is enough to cut out the normal radio station I am listening to but not enough to give me a traffic report.
I do get the traffic report sometimes but it is this frequent 'dropping off' of the program I am listening to that drives me nuts. On Radio 4 I will be engrossed in a program and it is like ' and I can reveal the murderer is.....' then a blank space and then the continuity announcer reading the credits!
ARGGHHHH!
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JH
TA can easily be switched off in a Passat. Just press FM.
TA will only come on again when , guess, TA button is pressed.
I agree with the radio's complexity- think the radio manual is longer than the car handbook.
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I wasna fu but just had plenty.
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Agree about the manual for the Passat being completely useless, almost worked it out by trial and error for the features I regularly use after 2 months.
I have a Rotel tuner which has RDS and TA for my home stereo...very useful in the kitchen in the mornings before reaching the front door as I already know likely problems with the trains/buses/roads.
StarGazer
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