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BMW 3-Series (E90 E92) Forum > E90 / E92 / E93 3-series Technical Forums > ConnectedDrive / I-Drive / Navigation Related Discussion > Strange radio station ID's



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      09-13-2009, 12:56 PM   #1
rusky_335
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Strange radio station ID's

This situation applies to the latest generation iDrive:

When I view the list of FM radio stations, they mostly have very strange names such as "Madonna", "DOT ORG", "omething", and other nonsense. I have HD and RDS enabled. When I disable RDS, the list is just the FM frequencies.

Have other people observed this? Why does it do this?

As soon as you select a station it changes to the recognizable call letters, for example WRDU-HD. The saved Preset stations also retain the wacky identifiers.

The station names do not change from day to day. For example, the one that says "Madonna" never changes.
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      09-13-2009, 12:57 PM   #2
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lol, ive never used the radio, but im gonna go check that now.
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      09-14-2009, 10:33 PM   #3
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I've seen the same issue in my 2009 iDrive. Wierd and I have no explanation...
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      09-14-2009, 11:07 PM   #4
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Wow, they didn't fix this in the new iDrive? Same problem in the old iDrives. Whatever was displaying on the RDS when you stored the station is what the station will be named. To change it you have to store the station again when something more desirable comes up on the RDS. Or just turn off RDS.
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      09-14-2009, 11:09 PM   #5
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on a side note: the nav in my dads escalade does the same thing, replaces the station name with the RDS feed... drives me crazy!
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      09-15-2009, 04:27 AM   #6
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if you go to the station and press the "option" button, there's a command to "rename station" and it usually suggests the actual station name.

I know it's not the best solution, but at least a workaround
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      09-16-2009, 05:05 PM   #7
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It's because of all the moronic broadcast engineers who transmit the song info in the PS field. This only happens in North America for some reason, because most American car radios have only PS support and not full RT/TMC/EON or other RDS features.

The PS (Program Service) field is normally an 8-character fixed ID which helps an RDS radio recognize your network or station ID. In NA, a few broadcast techs thought it would be fun to update the PS field every 3 or 4 seconds with an almost scrolling form of song/artist info. This leads to weird names like:

"Pink Flo"
"yd - Com"
"fortably"
" Numb"

...and other weird displays, such as station advertisements, even company ads, etc.

Normally your station or network callsign should be transmitted in the PS field (the one you see on BMW radios) and the song/artist info should be transmitted in a separate field, called the RT field (Radio-Text). Not sure BMW radios support this though.

If bbimmer79's workaround exists in NA iDrives, this should solve your problem.
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      09-16-2009, 06:12 PM   #8
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My MY07 335 does this too. All my presets are snippets of station slogans or song names. I'm over it.
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      09-17-2009, 12:46 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by shag View Post
It's because of all the moronic broadcast engineers who transmit the song info in the PS field. This only happens in North America for some reason, because most American car radios have only PS support and not full RT/TMC/EON or other RDS features.

The PS (Program Service) field is normally an 8-character fixed ID which helps an RDS radio recognize your network or station ID. In NA, a few broadcast techs thought it would be fun to update the PS field every 3 or 4 seconds with an almost scrolling form of song/artist info. This leads to weird names like:

"Pink Flo"
"yd - Com"
"fortably"
" Numb"

...and other weird displays, such as station advertisements, even company ads, etc.

Normally your station or network callsign should be transmitted in the PS field (the one you see on BMW radios) and the song/artist info should be transmitted in a separate field, called the RT field (Radio-Text). Not sure BMW radios support this though.

If bbimmer79's workaround exists in NA iDrives, this should solve your problem.
Thanks for the explanation
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      02-13-2010, 12:02 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by shag View Post
It's because of all the moronic broadcast engineers who transmit the song info in the PS field. This only happens in North America for some reason, because most American car radios have only PS support and not full RT/TMC/EON or other RDS features.

The PS (Program Service) field is normally an 8-character fixed ID which helps an RDS radio recognize your network or station ID. In NA, a few broadcast techs thought it would be fun to update the PS field every 3 or 4 seconds with an almost scrolling form of song/artist info. This leads to weird names like:

"Pink Flo"
"yd - Com"
"fortably"
" Numb"

...and other weird displays, such as station advertisements, even company ads, etc.

Normally your station or network callsign should be transmitted in the PS field (the one you see on BMW radios) and the song/artist info should be transmitted in a separate field, called the RT field (Radio-Text). Not sure BMW radios support this though.

If bbimmer79's workaround exists in NA iDrives, this should solve your problem.
+100000000000
it does not happen in North America only by the way
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