Quick RDS question

For the first few months after I bought my truck (3 years ago) the RDS worked and the radio scrolled the artist and title of my FM station. Then, for some reason, it stopped and only showed the name of the station and genre of the music, usually "rock". I didn't think much of it because I usually listen to CD's. Anyway, after nearly three years of not working, it started working again last week, showing me the artist and title. All day yesterday, however, it went back to only showing me the station name. Does eveyone else's show up intermittently as well, or do you think something is loose in the unit?

Is this on the same station or different stations? If it's one station, it may have to do with the RDS signal they're transmitting because I don't think your radio would give any info at all if the problem was in the radio.

It's with the same station.

Here is one hint that I've figured out. The RF system in the X'es that have RDS is not perfect. If you find it isn't working as you think it should, say it's not displaying anything but the display shows you have an RDS signal, try turning the stereo off for a few seconds and then back on. Sometimes it doesn't seem to get set up right when it first receives a signal. Restarting the system with the signal seems to help - sometimes.

That said, remember that RDS is based on a signal sent by the station. Your stereo has nothing to do with WHAT it displays. That is, it will display whatever the station sends. The station controls what it wants displayed. If your display went to "Rock" for example for a while and then "started working again", the station changed what they were sending in the signal. This is common. I listen to a local station here that changes their content of the RDS signal all the time. Usually it shows the artist and the track title, but not always.

-G