During stereo broadcast, the SCA subcarrier must
be locked either in-phase or in quadrature to the
third harmonic of the 19 kHz pilot tone. The
tolerance of the phase angle is ±10° measured at
the modulation input to the FM transmitter.
With no modulation other than the pilot tone, an
oscilloscope trigged from the 19kHz pilot tone
should display the waveform as seen to the right.
To minimize the amount of peak level that the RDS
subcarrier adds to the composite baseband, your
OPTIMOD’s RDS generator is locked in quadrature
with respect to the pilot tone, so the example
shown here is for reference only.
If your transmission system is broadcasting stereo
correctly, it will also correctly pass the phasing built
into your OPTIMOD’s SCA generator.