Hi All

My wife was driving our FL2 on Sunday when she says that the radio suddenly switched on quite loudly and momentarily and the radio display stated Alarm. I have checked the manual but cannot find any mention of a clock alarm. Does anyone know if the car comes with one and how to go about setting it or disabling it? My father-in-law has a habit of playing around with buttons when left by himself in the car so would not be too surprised if he had been switched it on inadvertantly.

Many thanks

Chris

White TD4 SE with privacy glass

Not heard of that one before But the radio and nav. system does do some strange things ocasionally and gives some sort of warning (not identified in the handbook) that seems to go away by itself. 2007 Freelander 2 HSE TD4 Manual with Premium Pack & Moonroof.
Stornoway Grey with Ebony Black Pleather, Clear Indicators, Body Side Mouldings etc.

Traffic messages coming through, even if the radio isn´t on, if the last applied channel can provide such.
I assume that is what your wife is perceived as an alarm.

I've sometimes been surprised by a sudden advertising from a silent radio. very

I have not noticed the radio display stated Alarm. But have not looked after, when there are traffic message.
I will next time. LR Freelander2 2,2 Td4 HSE manuel Stornaway Grey (Metallic) & Ebony Black Leather & Sun/Moon-roof & Bi-Xenon & Roof Rails & Tow bar & Body side rubbing strips & Cold climate pack & Privacy glass & NavTeq . Production Date: 11/5-2007 in Halewood.

Sorry, but I have changed to Defender 90 ", and I love my" tractor ".
http://www.youtube.com/bjartin

she wasnt listening to 'ALARM FM' by any chance was she? (if such a station exists?)

Alarm FM the number one station for Gibraltar, taking you where other stations don't reach  Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

OOh little bit o politics there.....
As Ben Elton might say

Of course bjartin is right - It was probably a traffic message she heard This happens on my radio on the rare occasions it is not switched on, and the first time it did it I also was a bit supprised
Good to know it works even here in primitive Viking land, although not very often  2007 Freelander 2 HSE TD4 Manual with Premium Pack & Moonroof.
Stornoway Grey with Ebony Black Pleather, Clear Indicators, Body Side Mouldings etc.

That was probably a glitch in the radio with the national alarm system. I remember reading somewhere, I think in my Honda manual, that most RDS radios come with an undocumented alarm system whereby the government can override the traffic broadcast system to tell you about information in a national emergency. It basically broadcasts on all stations and on to all RDS radios. Some radios you can turn it off, some you can't.

I think it's meant to be in the event of something stupid serious like a nuclear strike or meltdown or something like that. 09MY FL2 Td4 XS, Style Pack, Privacy Glass, Martinique Blue.. oh so very blue..

You can turn it off on the Freely (HSE) radio - mine is on all the time and sometimes churps in with a road warning.

Sometimes like "the rusians are coming - run for cover" or "warning black FL2 close by" or "look out you potholes in the road" or "get ya free chicks at CG's take-away"

off topic a bit there  2007 Freelander 2 HSE TD4 Manual with Premium Pack & Moonroof.
Stornoway Grey with Ebony Black Pleather, Clear Indicators, Body Side Mouldings etc.

There is certainly an ALARM RDS programme type (PTY) code - number 31, to be precise. Another PTY example is NEWS (number 1). Travel flashes are indicated by the Travel Announcement TA flag.

Both PTY and TA codes that other radio stations are transmitting can be carried in the Enhanced Other Data (EON) code transmitted by the station the radio is tuned to. (BBC stations do this in the UK, but few - if any - commercial stations do, as far as I know).

RDS radios can be programmed to switch to switch from the current tuned station to one broadcasting Travel or News vis this. It can also un-mute a radio, or cut into a CD (or other source). I've never heard of one that will switch on the radio, though!

It would make some sense to do so in the event of a national ALARM signal being triggered, but to 'hear' the code the radio couldn't really be off (as it would need to be monitoring the RDS datastream).

Now, the up-market FL2 radios with sat nav have the RDS Traffic Message Channel feature which would be live as soon as the car is started and allow such a radio to monitor the PTY data, as well as the TMC data.....

IF the radio detected an erroneous PTY=31=ALARM code this would explain the symptom described. It would be highly unlikely that the ALARM code would be transmitted accidentally (or deliberately as a test) since thre is another PTY code set aside for this purpose.

The RDS data stream is not highly error corrected, as it is already a very low bit rate system.