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RDS receiver with automatic region recognition

  • US 5,303,401 A
  • Filed: 05/04/1992
  • Issued: 04/12/1994
  • Est. Priority Date: 11/03/1989
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. A receiver, havingmeans for simultaneously tuning and processing a signal intended for audio reproduction (46, 40) and an auxiliary digital signal (38);

  • a decoder (10), coupled to an output of said tuning and processing means, for decoding digitally encoded traffic news contained in said auxiliary signal;

    a memory device (12), coupled to an output of said decoder, and pre-programmed with a table associating highway numbers and highway access point numbers with specific respective geographic regions;

    means (34) for filtering a stream of information from said decoder (10) and said pre-programmed memory device (12); and

    means (14) for indicating to a user, by at least one of visual output and audio output, information selected by said filtering means (34);

    further comprising, in accordance with the invention,means (52), coupled to a control input of said tuning means, for directing a scan of a predetermined frequency band;

    a rewritable scan memory (54), coupled to an output of said tuning means, storing frequencies of stations detected during said scan;

    a further memory (84) which includes a list of geographic regions (85) and the frequencies (86) of stations receivable in each region;

    a comparison device (82), coupled to respective outputs of said scan memory (54) and of said further memory (84), which compares the frequencies received during said scan with the frequencies (86) stored in said further memory, to find an at least partial match between the received and the stored frequencies, thereby automatically recognizing in which geographic region said scan was performed, and outputs, to said filtering means (34), a number identifying said recognized region;

    said filtering means (34) subsequently limiting output of information via said indicating means (14), to traffic news relevant to said recognized region.

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