Do Radio traffic Alerts work here?

slickmcvic

Was driving through the north the last day listening to BBC Radio1,when the radio changed station by itself,locked onto a local stations traffic reports & went back to normal after....anyways do any radio stations in the down here offer the Traffic alerts or was it just the way my radio was set up?

artanevilla

I don't think the Republic has it no.

kikel

My radio has the function but never seen it work. Would be handy to have. Could of avoided many a tailback over the years

yayamark

dont know much about it myself but my car does it for traffic. Theres a tp button on the radio console. mine i think recoreds the last two traffic reports and i can play them.

i must take out the manual and have a read.

colm_mcm

some Blaupunkt units record traffic annoncements, the ones fitted to some old model Octavias.
I seem to remember the TA function working on a car I had 5 or 6 years ago.

MarkN

I worked in a radio station before which had a big yellow button for you to press when doing traffic to send out the signal but I don't think it ever caught on in Ireland.

crosstownk

I remember sending an email to RTE a few years back and the response was that they had no plans to introduce it here.

I've never had a TA work here.

Wishbone Ash

colm_mcm wrote: »

some Blaupunkt units record traffic annoncements, the ones fitted to some old model Octavias.
I seem to remember the TA function working on a car I had 5 or 6 years ago.

I recall it working on Blaupunkt units about 10 years ago.

cbyrne

Some radio stations used to use it. A few years ago when it came out first I definetly seen/heard it been used, but as time wore on it never really took off. In fact fairly recently I was driving along when my radio switched over to traffic or something, but then stayed on! Obviously someone forgot to turn that big yellow switch off!

On recent taxi trips in Germany I noticed they use RDS on the radio to show the artist and track name currently playing on a lot of radio stations, thats cool!

crosstownk

cbyrne wrote: »

On recent taxi trips in Germany I noticed they use RDS on the radio to show the artist and track name currently playing on a lot of radio stations, thats cool!

RDS Text. Obviously the Germans put it to better use than RTÉ who just use it to tell you the date and time :rolleyes:

colm_mcm

cbyrne wrote: »

On recent taxi trips in Germany I noticed they use RDS on the radio to show the artist and track name currently playing on a lot of radio stations, thats cool!

Is that DAB by any chance?

MarkN

The reason for no scrolling text here is it's a distraction to motorists and is dangerous.. Quite a few Dublin stations did it in the late 90s/early 00s but stopped.

JHMEG

Doesn't work here. And neither does RDS time from RTE reliably. Drive across the country and watch your clock vary wildly.

jimmycrackcorm

It used to work a few years back as I remember Cd's being cut off for news bulletins; apparently whatever station was doing it sent out the traffic signal for the whole news bulletin despite the traffic being the last 30 seconds.

patrickc

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

It used to work a few years back as I remember Cd's being cut off for news bulletins; apparently whatever station was doing it sent out the traffic signal for the whole news bulletin despite the traffic being the last 30 seconds.

its definitley stopped though as it used to work some years back for me, but not now

Alun

crosstownk wrote: »

RDS Text. Obviously the Germans put it to better use than RTÉ who just use it to tell you the date and time :rolleyes:

... and even that is wrong most of the time, plus they seem to need two weeks notice sometimes of the switch to summer or winter time. Pathetic. I've emailed them so many times on this it's not funny.

L1011

I seem to remember Phantom did it in their pirate days, at the same time when they had a sort of siren noise before the traffic updates... got very freaked out by that once, looking for the blue lights... felt rather an idiot.

Biro

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

I recall it working on Blaupunkt units about 10 years ago.

Ya, it was here, my old man used have it set, but one day it stopped and it hasn't been on since. They obviously didn't think it was worth their while keep doing it. Typical :rolleyes:

ednwireland

rds time is that what it is ! on my new car radio the time is coreect on rte 1,2, todaym but newstalk is 37 mins out feckers should fix that

MarkR

I have a tevion cd player in my mitsubishi and it does cut into traffic reports on limerick's live95fm. I'm sure that hasn't changed in the last couple of weeks. Haven't been able to get it working in new car yet (manufacturer radio) must check it out..

JHMEG

ednwireland wrote: »

rds time is that what it is ! on my new car radio the time is coreect on rte 1,2, todaym but newstalk is 37 mins out feckers should fix that

My stereo gets only from whatever channel is on Preset #1, which is RTE 1. Driving across the country picking up different transmitters and they're all different. Hell the one closest to my house is out by about 55 mins.

Alun

ednwireland wrote: »

rds time is that what it is ! on my new car radio the time is coreect on rte 1,2,

It's Ok'ish at the moment going by the signal on ntl: cable (it's actually about 6 seconds fast), but the problem is that the clock on whatever piece of electronics the RDS system runs on drifts like crazy, and this drift adds up and up until eventually it's several minutes off. Then apparently someone notices it and resets it (if you're lucky). It's the same palaver when the clocks change ... it can sometimes remain an hour out for anything up to two weeks before someone notices and changes it.

I've emailed them (RTE) several times on this, and each time the time gets mysteriously reset, but not ever even a thankyou as a reply.

EDIT: just seen JHMEG's post above. That's just unacceptable .. although I'd have thought that kind of thing would be done centrally.

aphex™

Alun wrote: »

I've emailed them (RTE) several times on this, and each time the time gets mysteriously reset, but not ever even a thankyou as a reply.

Isn't there a broadcast signal from the UK you can pick up that gives the time? It's pretty famous and made the news when they moved it from Rugby to another place recently. ALL electronics should use that. Can't believe they don't .

yayamark

MarkR wrote: »

I have a tevion cd player in my mitsubishi and it does cut into traffic reports on limerick's live95fm. I'm sure that hasn't changed in the last couple of weeks. Haven't been able to get it working in new car yet (manufacturer radio) must check it out..

Phew i thought i was on my own there.

I listen to limericks live 95fm.

The traffic cuts in for me 2

Alun

aphex™ wrote: »

Isn't there a broadcast signal from the UK you can pick up that gives the time? It's pretty famous and made the news when they moved it from Rugby to another place recently. ALL electronics should use that. Can't believe they don't .

Some wall clocks, alarm clocks and even wristwatches use this, or a similar signal from Germany (in Braunschweig IIRC?). It's a LW signal though and can be prone to interference.

Most computer equipment however, and I'm assuming that whatever device provides the RDS signal is a computer of some sort, synchronizes it's time to an external source using NTP (Network Time protocol). You can buy network devices that get a signal from GPS satellites to synchronize their time and then act as an NTP server to other devices on the local network. If you don't want to go down that route you can build your own NTP server based on, say, Linux and synchronize it's time using freely available NTP servers on the Internet. It's pretty basic stuff and I've installed a few of these in my time, so they have no excuse really.

timmywex

i think it depends on the station, i reckon they hit a button or something that sends out the message that a traffic announcement is on the air and the station changes

rebel.ranter

That time is broadcast from Frankfurt. Here was a recent offer on iBood that mentions this:

http://www.ibood.com/site/eu/forum/index.php?action=vthread&forum=1&topic=1318

Alun

rebel.ranter wrote: »

That time is broadcast from Frankfurt. Here was a recent offer on iBood that mentions this:

http://www.ibood.com/site/eu/forum/index.php?action=vthread&forum=1&topic=1318

Yes, you're right, here's a wiki article (in German) about it ...

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCF77

Don't know where I got Braunschweig from

blastman

The BBC use the TA signal as well, every so often BBC Radio Ulster traffic reports cut in on my car radio. The signal isn't strong enough most of the time, though. Shame practically all of the Irish stations don't bother with it, although I suppose a bulletin every hour telling you traffic is heavy on the M50 would wear thin pretty quickly. :rolleyes:

MarkN

Don't see the need for TA these days lads..

There's a good chance the station you are listening to will do traffic every 20/30 mins during rush hours - if you're in Dublin there's even a station dedicated just to traffic reports... if that's your thing

Alun

MarkN wrote: »

Don't see the new for TA these days lads..

I assume that was "need" rather than "new"?

There's a good chance the station you are listening to will do traffic every 20/30 mins during rush hours - if you're in Dublin there's even a station dedicated just to traffic reports... if that's your thing

That's assuming you're listening to the radio which I rarely do.

TA broadcasts will also interrupt CD's or any other music source as well. It works very well if it's implemented properly, like it is in Germany, but there's no hope of that ever happening here.

MarkN

Alun wrote: »

I assume that was "need" rather than "new"?

That's assuming you're listening to the radio which I rarely do.

TA broadcasts will also interrupt CD's or any other music source as well. It works very well if it's implemented properly, like it is in Germany, but there's no hope of that ever happening here.

Sorry yeh I meant need.

I just wish they'd get the finger out and give us TMC for sat nav.

I will ask a broadcast engineer I know the reason behind it not being used and report back!

Del2005

aphex™ wrote: »

Isn't there a broadcast signal from the UK you can pick up that gives the time? It's pretty famous and made the news when they moved it from Rugby to another place recently. ALL electronics should use that. Can't believe they don't .

rebel.ranter wrote: »

That time is broadcast from Frankfurt. Here was a recent offer on iBood that mentions this:

http://www.ibood.com/site/eu/forum/index.php?action=vthread&forum=1&topic=1318

These are diffetent to the TA. As an aside if you buy a clock on the continent then it'll work off the German transmitter, which means it's no good for here as your clock will always be an hour fast. You need to get the UK clocks.

ednwireland

Del2005 wrote: »

These are diffetent to the TA. As an aside if you buy a clock on the continent then it'll work off the German transmitter, which means it's no good for here as your clock will always be an hour fast. You need to get the UK clocks.

got one from lidl and you can offset it by an hour, works perfectly (you just need to make sure you can adjust the time. the mother in law bought one in austria (cost loads) and you cant offset the time)

MarkN

I have asked a broadcast engineer about this.......

The official reason for no TA here is that the BCI never gave guidelines for stations using it and just announced it should not be used in Ireland.

A lot of radios operated differently when TA was switched on, some would not switch back to the station/source you were listening to which seems to have been another problem.

I get the impression that station's not using TA put pressure on the BCI to make a stand on not using it as they felt their could be losing out on listeners due to radios not flicking back.