The Boost system does at least, which is the base one in North America. I suspect that all do. You can enable/disable it and PTY.
Harry
MINI Cooper Cabrio: now the car with go cart handling really feels like an open go cart! "... the only man that can come home at 3 am in the morning without getting into trouble with his spouse is the owner of a British sports car!" -- Phil Bailey
WKNC (student-run radio station for NC State University) has RDS, and they'll often change the text to "BEATDOOK" (when a game against Duke University is coming up). They'll then post the score during the game. Cool stuff, don't know why more of the commercial stations have it (oh, that's right, their music sucks is why).
Mine does...maybe a difference between US and UK spec radios? Remember, not every station uses the text, maybe some just do the station name and nothing else. The main station I listen to doesn't use any text at all (which is ironic, given it is the biggest rock station in LA, one of the biggest radio markets in the US and, probably, the world).
Well, there are several types of data that can be encoded in a RDS signal; PS (Program Service, dynamic), PI (Program Identification), PTY (Program Type), TP (Traffic Program), TA (Traffic Announcement), ** (Decoder Identification), M/S (Music/speech), RT (Radiotext), AF (Alternative Frequencies).
From what I've seen, my radio here in Miami displays the Station Name (PS?) and Program Type; these are both limited to 8 characters.
Radio Text is used to display the name of the song currently playing, for example. Since its not a widely used option by U.S. broadcasters, I was wondering if our beloved MINI's radio has this option or not.
So, the question is, have any of you with U.S. MINI's and the stock radio (CD) got any radio text to talk about?
Pretty near all of the big stations here broadcast the call letters or name, and the genre they play. Nothing else though.
Odd, because I had never seen this feature before on any other radio, then the MINI shows up with it, and every station has it, as if this is popular...
Do many aftermarket HU's have this feature?
Chilli Red/White Cooper S, Sport Pack & Sunroof. Delivered June 12th, 2002!
Now with MCS Winter Tire Package.
I find it hard to beleive that a head unit which doesn't even display track information of a Mini Disc/CD displays Radio Text (RT) on the Tuner....
Pictures Please! Mine certainly doesn't do this!
The only time I have seen Radio Text displayed is on my home HiFi receiver. I thought this feature was specifically disabled or omitted from car units to prevent the scrolling display from distracting the driver.
It would seem that the RDS Forum have been very upset by some broadcasters' non-standard usage of the Programme Service (PS) name function - dynamically changing the name to display text messages.
There is plenty of information on the web about the differences between the RDS and RBDS(American) standards. Dynamically changing the PS name seems to be one of the main points of contention.
US broadcasters don't use the TA feature, but many use the PTY (genre -- rock, talk, country) and PI (usually call letters or slogan). TA isn't available here because no one is responsible for notifying drivers of road hazards. If there's a massive pothole on the interstate, you'd better be prepared to swerve around it, as no one is going to tell you it's there until you come up on it.
One difference between Europe and the US is that Europe has many transmitters, but few broadcasters, so you are able to drive long distances and continue to hear the same program. In the US, each broadcaster is unto themselves - they may choose to subscribe to the same programs (like NPR, Rush Limbaugh, Monsters of Rock), but it's often tape-delayed. So when you leave one station's licensed area you're lucky to find anything in the same genre at all. Driving from San Antonio to El Paso several years ago was sheer torture, as all I could get was overpowered Mexican radio, and US country & western (blech!).
Where I was going with this is that in Europe the AF feature will allow your ICE to find another (stronger) frequency that is playing the same program. Since we don't have that here, Satellite radio (XM, Sirius) is going to be hugely popular once it reaches critical mass.
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and all around good-guy 
Radio Text 
Chilli Red/White Cooper S, Sport Pack & Sunroof. Delivered June 12th, 2002!
