FM Transmitters: How Good a Choice for Listening to Your iPod on Your Car Stereo?
- 2006.02.24
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I talked a while back about how to get your car set up for an iPod. Since then, not much has changed, except for the fact that I've had the opportunity to play around with one of the options for iPod/car compatibility, an FM transmitter.
These little things are pretty amazing. Simply connect one to your iPod, and whatever you have playing on the iPod will come through on the desired frequency on your radio.
My mom recently picked up a Belkin TuneCast II for use with her iPod nano. Two of her three cars have cassette decks, so the cassette adapter was a viable solution, but the third car has a CD player and no cassette deck. That's why we figured the TuneCast II would be perfect.
The main feature of the TuneCast, as opposed to the Griffin iTrip, is that it's compatible with any MP3 player - or even Walkman cassette player - since it has a standard headphone connector instead of iTrip's iPod dock connector. This is excellent if you have a car with a CD player but sometimes want to listen to your cassettes.
The TuneCast operates off it's own batteries, not draining the iPod's, something the iTrip does. The downside is that you may need to carry some extra AAA batteries with you on a long trip.
How Well Does It Work?
The big question is how well does it work? My use of it found that it really depends on the car you're driving and the area you live in.
Why the area? Some areas have more radio stations, whereas others have very few. If you have a large number of open frequencies, you should have no trouble finding something to set the TuneCast to.
Unfortunately, the New York metro area has a station on nearly every frequency, and finding an open one is a bit of a chore. Also, a station may come in on the frequency you have selected as you drive, forcing you to change the settings while you're driving.
The car also matters quite a bit. Cars that have their radio antenna in the front tend to get better reception from the TuneCast. The two cars I spent time testing this in were a 1986 Saab 9000 Turbo and a 1995 Mercedes E300. Both cars have their antennas in the rear, and there was a significant difference when it came to reception.
The Saab wouldn't receive the signal from the TuneCast unless the it was positioned on top of the dashboard. Not the most convenient location for it - go around a sharp corner and it could fall off. The Mercedes required a bit of fiddling with placement, but I was able to find a spot on the center console where reception was decent. Perhaps this is due to the angled antenna in this car, as opposed to the vertical one in the Saab.
In terms of sound quality, there's a noticeable difference in terms of whether the radio's getting good reception or not from the TuneCast. Even at it's best, the sound was a bit muffled and quiet in the Saab. Touching the TuneCast would open it up, but removing your hand removed the improvement in sound.
To see what it could really sound like, I tested the unit indoors with the radio in the kitchen. With the TuneCast close to the radio's antenna, the sound was much better. I could see this as a very handy device if you want to play music through your stereo system without going connecting cables, but the TuneCast II seems to not have a very good broadcast range in general. I was a bit disappointed - and there's no way to add an antenna to the TuneCast itself.
The bottom line is that the best solution is to have a stereo
that supports either an audio input (through a headphone-type jack)
or an iPod via a dock connector. A cassette adapter would be my
second choice (if your car stereo takes cassettes), and an FM
transmitter is a last resort. 
- Link: $15 Device Turns iPod into a Personal Radio Station, Dan Knight's review of the NewerTech RoadTrip FM transmitter, which draws its power from your cigarette lighter plug.
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