text info on radio stations

most of us can't justify spending $10/month for XM. I'm in the car 2 hours each day, and I listen to mancow in the morning, and usually a CD on the way home. Looks like the cheapest head unit on crutchfield that has this feature is $480!
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-lNm0WU...archDisplay=RDS

my friends kenwood had it i think

yea my uncles 02 camry with navi have it...

i wonder if my avic-n1 have it...

text info on radio stations

I forget what this is called. In many new cars (focus and impalas have them for sure), when you turn on certain radio stations, they'll have call letters showing automatically, some even send data such as artist and song title. I really love this being an mp3 fan, but aftermarket radios don't seem to have this feature yet, only stock radios (unless I'm not looking carefully). If I knew what this feature was called, I could do a search.

It is RDS (radio data system).
It's very popular in Europe and most aftermarket radios have RDS back there.
Radio Data System

yes ive noticed this too. my friends 02 malibu has it as well as my moms 02 solara. i could have sworn my friends aftermarket head unit had it too but i dont recall what brand he has. i thought it was something like aiwa,panasonic, or kenwood.

Why not to go with XM. I got for over a year and I just love it.
It have a coverage from coast to coast and it displays all the info like station/artist/song

I also get it. I think its great! Some popular stations in Miami even show you the Title and Artist of the sone currently playing. I get it with an ol school premier P1R I have. I hope all the stations can have that. I think its cool.

my kenwood eXcelon KDC-X879 has it.....it is normally priced at $480, tho...hehehe....it pays to know employees of crutchfield.

i dont really even listen to the radio that much anymore. i just play cds the whole time

i didn't even know radio could do that, but that's neat, my alpine doesn't have it.

KDC-X879: hmm, it's on ebay for $295 buy it now.. might have to upgrade my kenwood someday

I doubt many radio stations in the US will adopt that now that music pirating has become so big. It's been around for a while though, because by brother's '99 A4 came with it stock.

yup.....i got mine for $270 from crutchfield....like i said....pays to know ppl that work there.

if you're gonna upgrade, look into the KDC-X979...i wish i had gotten that one....it's like a $100 more at crutchfield, tho....with various sound improvements...Dolby Pro Logic II, 'advanced' audio controls, etc.

if you want mine, i'll sell it to you for $200 + shipping...then, i'll go and get the 979 later.

KDC-X969 looks to be a nicer model going for the same price, but you can upload custom animation (80 frame limit). I could like do a cool toyota animation for it
KDC-X979 does a 5 second mpeg animation. Just a little pricier ($360 ebay)

My dad's '01 F-350 came with it, along with a single-feed 6-disc in-dash CD changer... Too bad it was an 85W peak (total!) system that was tossed in favor of a Pioneer Premier MP3 head unit and some 6x8 Cerwin Vegas, along with a powered Kenwood bass tube...