• Home
  • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • The Bible’s Way to Heaven
  • Music
  • Programs
    • Breaking the Chains
    • Bible Quiz
    • Founder’s Corner
    • Inspirational Instrumentals
    • Manager’s Minute
    • Pastor’s Study
    • Rise & Shine
    • Riverview Reporter
    • Send the Light
    • Sharing with Sherry
    • Verse of the Week
  • Staff
  • Support
  • Sharathon 2024

Posts

25
JUN
2013

How Did You Put the Internet in My Radio?

Posted By : Martin
Comments : 0

As a regular listener, you might just recently have noticed your car radio telling you that you are tuned to KOLU rather than 90.1.  Then, there’s other information such as the name of the program you are listening to, or the name of the song and who’s singing it, that scrolls across the front of your radio.  And, you might have been wondering how the information got there.

Well, we didn’t hook up your radio to the Internet.  What we did was install a technology called RDS, or Radio Data System.  This adds a signal that you can’t hear to what we broadcast on KOLU’s main transmitter, but the signal contains a “digital stream” of information about what we are playing.  This technology is built in to many newer car radios, and only needed us to “turn it on” for you to be able to see it.

Typically, systems to “encode” this information cost between $1,000 and $2,000.  We wanted to do this, but we didn’t have an RDS system in the budget.  Recently, however, we discovered a company called “Pira.CZ”, located in the Czech Republic, that had a very sophisticated system for a fraction of this cost.  Thanks to a generous donor, we didn’t have to take money from somewhere else, and were able to purchase this little box that does so much.

KOLU's New RDS Encoder

Our New RDS Encoder – The Little Box that Could!

Since we were already providing a “Now Playing” list on our web site, it was a fairly short project to create a program that would feed the same sort of information to our new RDS system.  The result is what you see on your radio dial.

We’d love to hear your comments on this, or anything else we do.  You can either comment on this post below, or you can use our contact page to send us a private email.  As always, thanks for listening to Christian Family Radio!

About the Author
Martin has the dual role of Chief Operator and Chief Engineer at Christian Family Radio. His responsibilities include taking care of all things technical, including computers, audio equipment and the transmitter site. He also manages compliance with FCC rules.

Social Share

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    *
    *

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

    Now Playing

    Click on the title for more information
    REFRESH
    (refresh this list)
    7:57 Beneath The Cross
    RECENTLY PLAYED:
    7:54 I Talked To Him Today
    7:51 More Love To Thee
    7:47 What A Friend We Have In Jesus
    7:43 He Already Sees
    7:40 Hallelujah What A Savior
    7:36 Through It All
    7:31 My Faithful Love
    7:30 Weather Forecast
    7:26 What A Friend
    7:23 All Things Well
    7:19 He Hideth My Soul
    7:15 That’s Him
    7:12 O Worship The King
    7:11 Stand Up For Jesus
    7:08 How Sweet The Name
    7:06 Jesus Paid It All
    7:03 All The Way My Savior Leads Me
    6:58 SRN News
    6:29 Focus on the Family
    6:29 Weather Forecast
    6:04 Love Worth Finding
    6:00 SRN News
    5:56 God’s Love Never Changes
    5:55 The Gloryland Way
    5:52 Trust And Obey
    5:49 He The Pearly Gates Will Open
    5:47 Coming Down
    5:44 Fire In My Heart
    5:41 The Solid Rock Medley

    Christian Family Radio KOLU
    A Ministry of Riverview Baptist Church, Pasco, WA
    PO Box 2734
    Pasco, WA 99302
    Contact us
    FCC Public File
    FCC Applications

    90.1 Tri-Cities/Hermiston

    90.9 Warden/Othello/Moses Lake
    88.9 Yakima & Upper Valley
    92.3 Prosser/Grandview
    89.5 Moses Lake
    93.7 La Grande, OR

    Copyright 2012-2023 Riverview Baptist Church
    Some images courtesy of stock.xchng and C.A Fields
    Certain icons courtesy of VisualPharm

    Powered by WordPress and Goodlayers Themes

    7ads6x98y