As you all know, Lexus thought it would be safer for the radio messaging to not work while you are driving. Apparently it is much safer staring at the radio screen waiting for one word at a time to scroll across the screen rather than seeing the whole thing on a separate, uncluttered screen.

I know how to override the nav system but is there a way to do the same thing to the radio without me getting all mechanical. Surely an override exists?

 

It's not about safety. It's about liability. There's a distinct difference. You car will go twice the speedlimit, you don't see Lexus putting a 75mph limiter on it.

 

radio messaging? not sure what you mean. can you explain to the intellectually impaired?

 

While the vehicle is parked or stopped, you can hit the msg button on the radio and it will change screens.
This screen will either just display the name of the station or if so equipped, it will display the name of the artist and song title. You can also see the radio text on the main preset page but it scrolls at one word at a time. It is far more dangerous to divert your attention to the scrolling text than to just read it on a separate screen.

 

I could be wrong, but I believe that would require more of a software hack, rather than a hardware like the NAV hack.

 

I would have expected that the NAV hack would unlock the message portion of the radio, just like how it works for the bluetooth phone connection, but I haven't done it. Does anyone know for sure?

 

Your premise is wrong. These are two completely different fields in the RDS data.

The display that you see on the main preset page is an eight character field known as PS or Program Service. Some stations put a static string in PS, such as their call letters, while others dynamically rotate station ID, artist and song title information through that field. The rotation is done by the radio station, not by your Lexus.

The display that you see when you press the MSG button is an entirely different RDS field, called RT or Radio Text. It can be used for program announcements, to announce request lines, or at some stations, for artist and song information. Many stations just leave it blank.

If I were designing the system, I'd offer the option to show all the frequency, PTY (program type) type), PS (program service) and RT (radio text) on both the audio screen and as a transparent overlay on top of the map.