Question about RDS

[Rob]

Does a station need to send stereo out for RDS to work? We have this station 104.7 that's in mono but has a stereo carrier.

(WAAZ)

-Rob

[Mike-CT]

Nope. My local LPFM is WACC-LP 107.7 about 3 miles away. They have RDS but transmit 100% in mono. I wish they were stereo.

[Rob]

This station, WAAZ played some elevator music (which is blah) but sounds AWESOME in stereo.

they have stereo with mono carier.

Thanks. Rob

[cd637299]

By "elevator music," do you mean beautiful music (instrumentals)? Or is it soft AC or MOR? If any of those, I wish they would stream! But they don't even have a website, do they?

To stay on topic....just like WAAZ, Radio Musical Nacional CMBF 99.1 in Havana, Cuba, is in the same boat. Stereo light, but never runs stereo. Heard it consistently from the Keys 10 days ago with RDS "MUSICAL". The readout is in the "Got FM DX?" column.

cd

[Jeff-MA]

During the afternoon when 89.7 WGBH is broadcasting NPR programming, they shut the stereo carrier off, but the RDS remains on. Also, other examples of stations that broadcast in mono full time (no stereo pilot at all), but send out RDS are 90.9 WBUR and 107.7 WTPL.

[Russ-PA]

I've noted this on a few stations also although I can't recall which ones. There shouldn't be any connection between the RDS and the stereo in terms of the hardware, so what's unusual is some stations running mono some of the time ;-}

[K3PHL]

One example that jumps right out at me is 103.5 WTOP in Washington DC. They are an all news station and run in mono in and attempt to have better coverage on the fringes. When I receive them via tropo, I always get RDS info.

[Russ-PA]

Here they're semi-regular, and all I have to do is swing the antenna in their direction and the RDS pops right in.

[KC5KBV]

KARN-FM 102.9 Sheridan AR (metro Little Rock) runs mono with RDS (No IBOC). The station used to broadcast various music formats in stereo for years until flipping to a simulcast of the old AM news/talk format (KARN 920 is sportstalk since April 2009) in late 2003.

Mono makes sense for spoken-word format stations since many radios do not have a "mono-stereo" selector including the Sangean HDT-1.