I see no complaints about the BBC's

[Bod]

While we're on this.... any idea why the 9 character limit?

[John Williamson]

The standard says "The text display must display the Component label in either its short form (8 characters long) or its long form (16 characters long). It is not permissible for the receiver to truncate the label to any other length"

For the full document.

So it seems that for whatever reason, either Arquiva or the BBC have decided to omit the "E". Or it's a typo that's not been caught yet.

BBC Radio London transmits its name as BBC LONDON on DAB and misses out the second "O" on FM.

[Bod]

I see. Thanks for that.

[polygonum]

And another case of 9 characters!

[Richard]

Yep. Had the death been this week, the coverage would have swamped news about the floods here. It's just a function of the media.

[John Williamson]

I don't have an RDS capable receiver here, so it's possible they miss out both vowels for a character count of 8, as laid down in the spec for Programme Service. On the other hand, I've seen scrolling PS data on British FM car radios being used in Europe, which alternate between the station name and the track name and artiste currently playing.

[Big Les Wade]

charles posted

And the lead item on BBC national news a few years ago: "South-east England has been battered by high winds and heavy rain all day, causing local flooding and serious disruption. But the good news is, it's moving north."

[tony sayer]

The PI in the RDS spec on FM systems is only 8 characters upper or lower case and most all punctuation marks or spaces..

On RADIO TEXT that is much longer.

You might see on some pirate stations scrolling RDS this isn't legally permitted in the UK but seeings as your a pirate they're not that fussed even keeping the TA Traffic Announcement on so as to lock your receiver up:!..

On DAB I'm not so sure of the PI limitations..

[stuart noble]

Or better still, north west

[polygonum]

As it happens, a traffic announcement interrupted my radio on the way home this evening, "BBCLONDN" - no space. But the display is pretty crude and it does look like a bit of a gap between the C and L.

[tony sayer]

There wouldn't have been, only the 8 digits numbers or marks allowed..

[John Williamson]

I had access to an RDS radio today, and it's BBCLONDN. 8 characters, no spaces, although there appears to be a small gap between the C and the L. This may just be bad layout of the LCD. FWIW, it's a Blaupunkt CDR47 radio.

[bert]

I loved the way they felt it necessary to provide a graphic to illustrate a ferry reaching Flamborough Head then turning back to port because of a fire.

[bert]

Pieces of Seven?

[tony sayer]

I suspect it is just that, the LCD layout...

For the info of anyone interested this is that, the PS...

PS - Programme Service name: This is the label of the programme service consisting of not more than eight alphanumeric characters which is displayed by RDS receivers in order to inform the listener what programme service is being broadcast by the station to which the receiver is tuned. An example for a name is "Radio 21". The Programme Service name is not intended to be used for automatic search tuning and must not be used for giving sequential information.

And shouldn't be confused with the PI code...

PI - Programme Identification: This information consists of a code enabling the receiver to distinguish between countries, areas in which the same programme is transmitted, and the identification of the programme itself. The code is not intended for direct display and is assigned to each individual radio programme, to enable it to be distinguished from all other programmes. One important application of this information would be to enable the receiver to search automatically for an alternative frequency in case of bad reception of the programme to which the receiver is tuned; the criteria for the change-over to the new frequency would be the presence of a better signal having the same Programme Identification code. This can be something like C7B5 or C2O1

All in here:)..