I thought I had to turn on the RDS display function on my radio, but I couldn't find anything to support that in the manual. I must be confusing it with the ability to turn on the cd text display. Also, looking on page 4-25, I found an interesting quote:
PTY name selection can also be acheived by pressing a preset button.
Initial PTY names are stored in the preset buttons; but these can be changed by pressing the preset button for less than 1.5 seconds while the desired PTY name is on the display.
It always bugged me that my friend's Trailblazer has "traffic" and "info" buttons for quick searches for RDS stations matching those types. According to this, we can turn the 6 presets into RDS station type codes. So I would expect to be able to press PROG/RPT, then 1-6 to pull up any of my 6 favorite station types, and then SEEK or SCAN. Unfortunately, I can't get the presets to recall any RDS station types let alone store new ones. The buttons only seem to act as radio station frequency presets, and not PTY codes as the manual indicates.
Does anyone else actually bother to do any PTY seeks or scans or store the PTYs in the preset buttons? It may not be a "1 button for traffic" solution, but "PROG/RPT, 1, SEEK" is better than "PROG/RPT, keep looking for TRAFFIC and then hit SEEK".
EDIT: PTY means "Program Type", i.e. Station Type -- Rock, Public, Talk, Top40, etc. You can tap the PROG/RPT button, then turn the tuning knob to choose the type of station you want, and then hit SEEK to actually find that type of station (assuming one in your area exists *and* transmits RDS data)