B9004 Does Not Like To Travel.

[Mechman]

I live in central Lancashire and and the radio in my XT5 is set on 88.6 Radio 2, (amongst others). Trouble is when ever I leave the area, the RDS does not follow and I end up with just static. When in London the only way to get station was to re tune and put Radio 2 onto another button. It is not that I am madly in love with Radio 2, it is just a national station that the radio should follow. Does anyone know if this is a setup problem in the menu, or am I stuck with a parochial radio.

[blue monster]

Is the 9004 the satmav unit? If so I will take a look at our settings & let you know as we never have any channel issues & we are often in different parts if the country.

[Mechman]

Yes it is. It is the standard Satnav unit fitted in the 2007 XT5. It has B9004 written on the top left corner.

Thank you

[Hoovie]

Sounds like the "AF" (Alternate Frequency) feature is not switched on, which will allow the radio to switch between frequencies on National Stations.

having said that, I find even with AF turned on, I sometimes try retuning manually to force the radio to try and pick up a different frequency as it seems to want to hold on to them for too long.

[Manxrav]

That happens a lot on island.Our national broadcaster is Manx radio and if you try to get in the south it,s on one frequency, go up to Douglas it,s on another and Upp north in Ramsey it,s totally different. As my Dad says if Caroline North was still going we would have it all over the island and no probs with re-tunning. It does work with AF but needs a bit of fine tunning.

Regards Pirate Radio Anarack Clare

[Mechman]

Hi all.

Thanks for the response. I know its not the manly thing to do but,as suggested, I have read the instruction book to check the settings. It looks as though the AF may have been switched off. I have now switched to AF-On and REG-off. I will see how this performs and come back if there is no improvement.

Cheers

[blue monster]

What does the REG setting do as I'm certain mine is set to on in addition to the AF being on & we have no issues?

[shcm]

What does the REG setting do?

My understanding of it is this (although it's been a while since I played around with this and time my have distorted what I remember).

Using the Beeb is the best example.

It will probably have almost no effect if you are listening to a national station like Radio 2. It probably has no effect now in the UK, but you might need it for other parts of Europe. Some years ago, it used to go like this:

If you are listening to a LOCAL BBC station, the flag tells the radio to stay "in region".

For example. You are travelling up the M6, listening to Radio WM around Brum. As you drive north, you begin to lose WM's transmitter, the radio will look for a "similar" station and will probably re-tune to BBC Stoke. Then as you go further north, it will probably latch on to BBC Lancs, then BBC Cumbria etc.

If you've got "REG" turned on, it should only re-tune if the alternative frequency is carrying exactly the same programme or station. Many local Beeb stations only have one transmitter, so it will effectively appear to do nothing. In fact, it may produce the same result as having "AF" turned off, i.e. no re-tuning.

If the local station does have multiple transmitters though, it will re-tune between those transmitters.

The best example I can give is how it used to be around here. BBC WM has one transmitter, BBC Cov and Warwick (C&W) has several and BBC Hereford and Worcester (H&W) has several. If I was listening to one of the H&W transmitters and the signal got weak, without REG turned on, I might get re-tuned to C&W or WM. With REG turned on, I should always stay with H&W, but it might re-tune to one of the stronger transmitters carrying H&W.

To get really technical, it's all down to what's called the "PI" (programme identification) code that is transmitted over RDS by each transmitter, but you usually don't see (some radios will display it).

The PI code is a 4 digit hexadecimal code. All station codes in the UK start with "C". The second digit for UK wide stations is usually a "2". All of the local stations in the same region used to have the same number for the second digit. The last two digits make up the exact station identifier.

When auto re-tuning, the radio will first look for another transmitter with exactly the same 4 digit PI code. If it doesn't find one, it will then try and match on the first 2 digits of the PI code. Turning on the "REG" flag forces it to always match on all of the 4 digits of the PI code.

This is how it used to be. BBC Local stations in the same region, would have the same first two digits in their PI code. However, a few years ago, the Beeb changed all this. Local stations in the same region all got different second digits in their PI code. I think because, without understanding what is going on, the function can be very confusing. Also, many radios didn't implement the "REG" flag option, so you couldn't stop the radio tuning from H&W to WM for the example above.

A shame really, as I think it has reduced functionality, but it seems radio makers couldn't implement the thing properly and the general public couldn't handle it, so they blamed the broadcaster, who had done things properly in the first place.

What we have now means you stay with the local station you are tuned to, but no longer have the option of automatically going from local station to local station, if you are on a long journey.

PI codes here:

http://www.dxradio.co.uk/ukrdsbbc.php

Well you did ask!!!!!