Five FM iPod Transmitters Reviewed 135
An anonymous reader writes "If you want to listen to your iPod or other audio player in your car, but you don't have a cassette deck or a swanky I.C.E. system, then the answer is to transmit the music over FM to the car's radio. HEXUS.lifestyle reviews five FM transmitters for the iPod and friends, investigating how well these devices cope with broadcasting music over a 2 meter-or-so radius. Some readers will be aware that it's been less than a year since these became legal in the UK, so the majority of iPodding Brits have only recently discovered that they can tune into their MP3 collection on the road."
Mr_Microphone.mp3 (Score:5, Funny)
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Nice (Score:5, Informative)
Very nice! (seriously)
I bought a unit that did NOT turn off after the audio signal stopped and I frequently forgot to turn it off manually...which resulted in the batteries being dead 90% of the time. Whatever unit that you buy, I suggest looking for one that has this critical feature.
Also, if you live in a populated area, make sure that you get one that has a broadcast frequency is FULLY tunable...not just selectable between a handful of discrete values. I live in DC and you are hard pressed to find an unoccupied slice of frequency.
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I have the opposite problem. I have the Belkin unit, which shuts off 30 seconds after the audio stops--even when you just pause the player. So I'm talking on the phone, or into the clown's mouth at the fast-food restaurant, and suddenly the tra
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Back in 1994 I had a FM transmitter for my portable CD player that gave problem free listening to music long before I was able to afford a real CD player in my car.
My CD player and transmitter were sitting on the floor behind the passenger seat (as that seemed to cause the CD player to jump the least)
No need to worry about flattening batteries as it all ran off the cigarette lighter and provided an extra lighter connec
Bikes aren't for everyone (Score:3, Insightful)
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We either walk back from the shop with our groceries, or they're in the trailer with the baby. The 4 year old goes on a seat on the back of my bike, and the 6 year old cycles himself. But that's not uncommon in Cambridge (UK) -
You must admit Cambridge is kind of a weird exception, though: the town centre is far from car-friendly. Also, while your tactic works for light stuff, even with a trailer there's a limit to how many bottles of fruit juice you can carry in one trip! I'd also comment that relying on bicycles for travel in Cambridge kind of limits your shopping options -- to Sainsburys, or, er, the other Sainsburys ... except for certain types of items, of course (cheese, meat, etc.).
it's almost definitely cheaper to live in town than to live out of town and run 2 cars.
FWIW, last I heard about property pri
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You must admit Cambridge is kind of a weird exception, though: the town centre is far from car-friendly. Also, while your tactic works for light stuff, even with a trailer there's a limit to how many bottles of fruit juice you can carry in one trip! I'd also comment that relying on bicycles for travel in Cambridge kind of limits your shopping options -- to Sainsburys, or, er, the other Sainsburys ... except for certain types of items, of course (cheese, meat, etc.).
While it may be an exception, it could also be an example to follow... also with shops close by we don't use the trailer much for carrying groceries. Admittedly we do use our car occasionally, and get a box delivery of organic vegetables and fruit once a week.
FWIW, last I heard about property prices in Cambridge, it's cheaper to commute from Lille ... and yes, I know someone who did that! (Not so good if you want to see your kids for more than 3 days a week, obviously.)
Well we did buy our bottom of the market 90k ukp 3 bedroom semi 7 years ago, which seemed pricy at the time! I'm totally daunted by the prospects for first time buyers these days, and living in Lille might even seem to be a sensible option given th
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groceries are easy. especially in a true metro area. you can find a nice bag (see baileyworks http://www.baileyworks.com/ [baileyworks.com]) or set up your bicycle for panniers (http://www.gaerlan.com/bikeparts/acc/bag/bag.html ) of some sort. i live in providence, ri, and cycling is pretty common. i have a young daughter and clearly wouldn't ride with her, but it really does make sense for folks without children. real estate "within cycling distance" is a relative thing. after some p
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The country life may not be for you, not everyone wants to live with the population density your dream word requires. That and your dream world makes farmers both honored providers and second-class citizens at
Non iPod transmitters... (Score:4, Insightful)
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My iPod is my first ever Apple product. Have had it five months, and I love it. Works great - no complaints yet.
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http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ipod+connect
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Belkin (Score:5, Informative)
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On the other hand, my friend drives a Prius which has a 1/8th inch jack for plugging external devices directly into the radio. He gets a crystal clear signal all the time fr
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If anyone is considering buying a transmitter, consider doing as I did. Just replace the stereo, Besides the higher quality so
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But why, oh why, don't all car stereos come with an aux jack?
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But why, oh why, don't all car stereos come with an aux jack?
I had the $20 Belkin first, but got tired of poor range and constantly replacing batteries. (I actually unplugged the power a
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Plotting FM used frequencies (Score:2)
I wanted to send FM from my PC in order to avoid switching audio input between TV/video and my PC on my hi-fi system like I currently do, but I use an external FM radio antenna outside the house and the reception with this was unfortunately not good enough. The sound is ok/good enough for the small radio I have in the bathroom though, so at least
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My wife used to use an iTrip (one of the ones that you had to tune by playing special audio files on the iPod). When she got a Nano, we got her a Belkin one that came with a car charger. It was awful. It broke pretty quickly, so when I was at an Apple store, I picked up a Monster iCarPlay, which combines a charger with the transmitter. It also has an autoscan feature to find an unoccupied frequency.
I was hesitant about it, because I always hear that Monster products are overpriced. This was pricey (~
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I live in Atlanta, where like all big cities you will have an extremely tough time finding an unused frequency. I settled on 88.3 MHz, which is 0.2 MHz away from a 100,000 W college station and thus gets a lot of interference from that, but at least your music will mostly come in clear. The problem is, that's what everybody else uses for the
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It provided a cradle which was fixed to a gooseneck which plugged into the cigarette lighter. But it had nothing to anchor it in place so you'd go round a corner and the whole caboodle - complete with £200 worth of iPod - went merrily flying around the car.
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I have one from Belkin that didn't make the review: lighter plug with a gooseneck to the docking transmitter with full frequency selection (except maybe 87.9 for some reason) and four presets. It charges the iPod, plays great through my Honda with it's snapped-off antenna, and I can leave the backlight on (so I can always read the display) since it's always charging. The only problem I have with it is that the cigarette ighter in the '92 Honda is crap (I've had two of these, and both have the same problem):
Not in major cities (Score:5, Informative)
I used to use these devices (of all brands), but in the last 2 years or so they have become completely, absolutely, 100% useless in NYC, and I'm sure it's the same in other major cities.
And when I finally broke down and hardwired it, I was amazed at the difference in sound quality, and to this day wonder why I didn't do this years ago.
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I realized that I can't stand listening to radio, what with its 8 songs total intermixed with annoying ads. My solution was to wire an RCA cable from t
Re:Not in major cities (Score:4, Informative)
At least they should have sold you a hard wired FM modulator. They disconnect your antenna, install this box in line and give you a headphone jack and switch, turn the unit on and it blasts your stereo's antenna input with 100mw at 88.5Mhz FM stereo goodness that can not be overridden by the strongest FM station because it disconnects the antenna when turned on. These things are incredibly cheap and common. companies like Scoshe and MEtra, the companies that make 95% of all car stereo install accessories, make them and recommend them. Any car stereo shop that has even 1/10th competent installers would have told you about that option right away.
I strongly suggest finding a competent stereo shop (Note it's the one without the ricer cars in front) and talk to them about getting a good modulator installed. they work fantastic and you dont havet o screw with changing the channel every 5 miles because a station starts coming in stronger.
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This one [logjamelectronics.com] says that it's compatable with your factory 6-disk changer.
Having tried both, there's no comparison between line in and FM modulator. I keep the modulator around only for use in rental cars and the occasional prank...
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My wife has a 2005 Corolla with a 6 disc in-dash CD changer, and there is no aux input. I can't replace the head unit because it's all proprietary wiring that is dependent on several other systems.
I may be wrong (too lazy to actually research this before posting), But it seems that about 6 months ago when I bought a replacement head unit for my car that had an iPOD interface, Best buy had a selection of add-on iPOD interfaces for various makes and models of vehicles. You may want to check this, as I could almost swear toyota had the biggest selection to choose from.
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Sounds like an extremely easy hack to me. I bet I could find no less than two sets of line-in wires to hack...the line to the CD changer, and the line that goes to the car's body computer (to send the door chime or whatever through the stereo, per your description of dependent proprietary wiring).
My 2002 GMC Sierr
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There's a solution: buy a Japanese radio and a Japanese transmitter, and use the frequencies 76 to 87.5 MHz...
Don't know if you could still read the text on your radio then though, and I also don't know what other things you may interfere with at those frequencies... But my MP3 player never seems to pick any signals, so I
but maybe not legal of course (Score:2)
That spectrum is occupied by TV channels 5 and 6, BTW.
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Not too useful if you're going to use it in the car though... if you're going to buy a new radio you might as well buy a system that has an 1/8th inch in... Probably easier to find that a Japanese radio and transmitter too.
I thought the whole idea of these transmitters is to play your devices through your EXISTING equipment.
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This goes for the NYC area too. I'm in north Jersey, about 30mins outside of the city. If a station isn't outright being used, the signal from a neighboring station leaks into it. 92.3 can be heard on 92.1 and 92.5, for example.
As a last-ditch attempt, I found a website that shows you how to pry open a Griffin iTrip and pull the antenna (a 2 inch copper wire) outside the casing in hopes of boosting the signal output. By the time I was done with it, the iTrip looked about as good as it worked.
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SiK iPod charger w/ line out audio [amazon.com]
Yeah... (Score:3, Interesting)
Then my friend gave me another transmitter that worked better than the iTrip, but after a while it broke and the sound only came out of one speaker in my car.
Now I just burn CDs. They aren't as convenient as an iPod, but they sure do make everything easier (not to mention cheaper).
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Don't you mean: Take your legally purchased CDs with you?
Modulator or AUX input (Score:2, Informative)
Nothing is going to beat a direct AUX input or an FM modulator. Using Pioneer as an example, accessories for the Pioneer p-bus range from $20 to $60 to add RCA inputs on units that don't have a factory AUX input. An FM modulator can be had for under $40. You'll need a power cord for your MP3 player, but the sound quality makes up for it.
Your also not limited to just an iPod. I can hook up my Nomad
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So it's still going the FM route only it's cutting off all other incoming signals.
Listening to neighboring cars (Score:5, Interesting)
Mostly it seems to be people listening to Howard Stern on Sirius Satellite Radio, but you also get a sampling of other satellite stations and (most likely) iPods.
The signal will usually be audible for the better part of a minute. Oddly enough, I've never managed to identify the car doing the transmission. You'd think you could tell from the positions of the cars around you and the strength of the signal, but I can't.
I discovered this because I have an iPod FM transmitter, set for 87.9 myself (after much experimentation I was never able to find any less-used channel).
What seems perverse that the signals from other cars' transmitters are not only strong enough to hear when my transmitter is off, they are strong enough to produce annoying an audible interference when my own transmitter, inside the car, is on. You'd think a transmitter two feet from the radio would totally overpower that must be at least forty feet away with two car body's worth of shielding in between, but no.
Re:Listening to neighboring cars (Score:5, Informative)
Here are a couple things I believe are relevant. You car is an electrically noisy place, especially the front of the car. This is why, I believe, most modern cars have antennas at the back of the car, away from the electrically noisy engine. The radio is at the front of the car, and encased in a metal grounded cage, most often refereed to a faraday cage. This keeps the electrically noisy engine, and other signals, out of the car. In any case, the FM transmitter has an antenna on it, the length of which is likely around 1 wave length of the 100 MHZ wave, as do all the cars around you. Each of the waves must leave the car, make it to the antenna, so that radio can decode and play the wave. It may be that there are three or more cars around you may have transmitting antennas nearly as close to your receiving antennas, especially if the transmitting antenna is laid across the dashboard rather facing toward the back.
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Oddly enough, I've never managed to identify the car doing the transmission.
It's probably the 1997 Crown Victoria being driven by a female in the 35-54 age group demographic who's winking at you behind the limo-tint windows.
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AM transmitter? (Score:2)
I have the iTrip and it works well enough, though it is really only a backup solution. I prefered solution is cabeled:
- In my living room I have my stereo system next to my TV, with an AUX cable going under the carpet to where my sofa is,
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sound quality is lower and it will only deliver mono audio
Not exactly true. You can get AM Stereo. Its just that FM took off before AM Stereo became widespread. But it's a standard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-QUAM [wikipedia.org]
I don't know about quality, as I never used AM Stereo. But some people claim AM stereo gives better stereo separation than FM. Plus at a distance of 1m I don't think interference will be a huge problem (AM actually sounds quite good when you don't have interference. Its just that AM is more prone to interference than FM).
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iPods in cars are dangerous (Score:2)
Has anyone had luck with more integrated iPod-in-the-car options? Perhaps one with buttons?
Eclipse iPod Interface (Score:1)
Belkin is handy with a laptop (Score:2)
I ahve the non iPod Kessington (Score:2)
I purchased the kensington to use in rental cars over the summer, and with the first trip out of the way I was impressed, traveling from Tulsa, OK though Rogers AR to Branson Mo, and then down trough
having trouble finding a vacant frequency? (Score:4, Informative)
plan you trip with some presets!
Waste of money (Score:2)
I then looked into an expensive iPod compatible stereo, but finally went for a 16 euro faux cassett type adapter. Works perfectly. I've only had to replace it once when the wire broke
Depends on your car too (Score:2)
AUX In for Subarus (Score:1)
Given the build quality of the ipod (Score:1)
iRiver AFT-100 (Score:1)
The Belkin had low audio, so that when the signal was fading due the weak transmitter the noise was deafening. It was extremely frustrating and I took great joy in destroying it.
Another really good
Athermic Windscreens (Score:2)
When I tried using one of these FM transmitters with my music player (I don't use an iPod) I had problems, as the radio aerial is on the outside of the car. So I bought a Sony head unit, with a USB socket on the front, for £100. Now I can plug in any USB mass storage device or USB music pla
One word: Alpine (Score:3, Informative)
Like this one (9883, $200) [crutchfield.com] or this one (9885, $300) [crutchfield.com] and then drop in their dedicated $30 ipod adapter [crutchfield.com]. That's what - $230...about 40 pounds, nowadays, right? (I kid! and no, I don't know how to put the symbol in slashcode)
Best audio connection, browsing by all the ways you can browse the iPod text interface, and song info on the screen. I'm certain the UK versions are similar (Alpine shows the same adapter for Alpine-Europe). Yes, it's more money than a cheap FM transmitter , but the difference is pretty phenominal, and there's no worries about getting tramped on by a commercial station or someone else's adapter. And no looking down, fiddling with the ipod on the passenger seat (you can ignroe the road while you look at the head unit
I actually purchased the head unit first, then the ipod to go with it. For $70 I picked up an old gen 4, 20 gig ipod off ebay. Scratched, battery only takes about 1/2 a charge, but who cares - it's in the glove box with all my tunes (Thanks to foobar and Nero AAC) and powered off the head unit. Cheaper than a disc changer - and much more useful. I never really figured to get an iPod, but for the application, it turns out to be a good item at the right price.
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It's easy. Type "£".
Alright, funny boy (Score:2)
Thank you for the tip, even if I did have to view the html source (actually, I browsed the posts to look for it before I posted, and just couldn't find an example quickly enough)
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It's directly above 3 on a UK keyboard.
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I can't seem to find that on my keyboard...might it be next to the Any key? :-)
In general, cutting-and-pasting infrequently-used symbols from Character Map (Windows), kcharselect (Linux), or whatever will get the job done...as long as it's one of the handful of characters that Slashcode won't filter out.
Alpine? (Score:2)
Wait, I thought iPod+ iTunes was evil? (Score:2)
Let me check the calendar... April1... nope. Sadie Hawkins Day... nope.
Hmmm... WX report for Hell... ah! There it is!
Not in US - iStuff iCast (Score:2)
Doesn't anyone else use a cassette adapter? (Score:2)
Scosche WIRED FM modulator (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-yd5TEirUa9W/cgi-bin/p rodview.asp?i=142FMMOD01/ [crutchfield.com]
The device wires in series with your car's antenna (a male and a female plug on the device) so that it doesn't have to send the signal wirelessly. Also, when the device is turned on it blocks the antenna for a large band of frequencies around the transmission frequency so there is NO interference. I'm having some slight gain
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My idea of the Ultimate Car Audio System (Score:1)
Don't bother with FM transmitters, the Car aerial is on the outside of the car with the (weak) FM transmitter on the insife of the (metal) car.
My idea of the ultimate car "stereo" would have a CF slot that would be populated with a Bluetooth module by default. You could re-populate the CF slot with your own CF card.
Sadly, it doesn't help us now for those of us that have FM only car stereos.
PS: CF is the best as it is not sticky-outy (ie can be flush) and you can fit adaptors for all the other me
Cassette deck anyone? (Score:1)
Ford and mp3 (Score:1)
mp3 capable cd players avail on most models http://www.fordvehicles.com/util/uad/index.asp?nPo pupID=11938&iWinType=1 [fordvehicles.com]
triptunes for enhanced mp3 player capability http://www.fordaccessoriesstore.com/fas/b2c/featur ed_accessories.asp?id=25 [fordaccessoriesstore.com]
audio input jacks on most new models http://media.ford.com/newsroom/release_display.cfm ?release=23959 [ford.com]
And now Sync http://www.syncmyride.com/ [syncmyride.com]
3.5mm stero jack please... (Score:1)
What I like to do is. (Score:2)
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