ABSTRACT
The definitions for the program types (PTY) are one area in which the European Radio Data System (RDS) Standard and the North American Radio Broadcast Data System Standard differ. A newly defined use of the decoder information feature is the addition of a dynamic program type indicator. If the program type is statically set, then the dynamic PTY bit should be set to 0. While the Program Type feature is very powerful, some important limitations should be noted. The PTY codes have been carefully chosen to represent programs that do not change over time so they will not become outdated. How are these variations accounted for when only fixed PTY codes are defined for use? The Program Type Name feature allows the people to describe the PTY with up to eight alphanumeric characters. The PTY information is transmitted as a binary code and is contained in every RDS data group.
