Sunday Survey: iPod FM transmitters - yea or nay?

I hacked our iTrip over the weekend. Pulled the antenna out of the side. It gets much better distance now, but the quality is still pretty bad. Possibly even worse. But I haven't had a chance to try it on the open road yet. Maybe there we'll get a better signal than in downtown Birmingham, Ala.

Someday* I will build a portable FM microwatt transmitter like a mobile pirate/micropower/free-love radio station and mount it in my iPod-white, boombox speaker from Muji Japan http://www.muji.net/

Photo of iPod attache case by Muji here:
http://img55.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ghettoipod200x166lc6.jpg

I already keep my iPod and Boosteroo amplifer in the boombox case and adding a "pirate radio" whould be fun in my pink 1962 Cadillac, hee, hee (transmission is legal up to 0.5 watts in both the US and Japan).

L8r...

Taro,
--- cadillacing in Tokyo at http://news.3Yen.com

*I say "Someday" because my Boise car radio has a 4-disk jukebox plays MP3s recorded on DVD-R. The car stereo hold five DVD-Rs recorded with MP3s stores more than 100MB of music which is a hell of a lot more than my 10MB 1st-Gen iPod.

I'm using the Kensington Digital FM Transmitter/Auto Charger and it works great in my car, an '88 Camry. I tried one of the smaller transmitters that run off of the ipod battery but the signal was far to weak.

The units that draw their power from the car have a much stronger signal output. And they supply power to your ipod and recharge the battery, which is nice.

Ultimately though, the FCC regulates how strong the signal output is on these devices. So if there is a lot of interferance in your area you my just have to look at the other more expensive options.

I picked up the iTrip mini for my, you guessed it, iPod mini quite a while back and have been VERY pleased with it. The quality is, well, FM stereo (what a surprise there) but signal strength is excellent and I can put the iPod pretty much anywhere in the car and it works fine! the iTrip is great (YMMV).

I understand why some countries consider these stuff illegal; drive safely, guys!

Being an easily distractable person, I'm very fond of listening to my favorite music while driving (I stop paying attention to the road) but several times in a year our falimy sets out on long-ish trips an we use audio books not to die of boredom. I bought an iTrip mini from Griffin and tho I had some issues with setting-up the transmission frequency, and quality of the audio is a a bit upsetting, I've never had any issues with the signal strength. Word of caution: if you are going to use an FM transmitter with your iPod, get a car charger too.

I'm currently using a Kensignton RDS Digital FM Transmitter and it works flawlessly for me with an iPod nano in a 2006 Toyota Corolla. So I would say "yea" to that one, but "nay" to many others ones such as the standalone iTrip which is downright deplorable.

I had an iTrip for my 3rd and 4th gen iPods, but since when I bought my iPod video, Griffin hadn't released the iTrip for it, and I don't listen to the radio, I just plugged it into the aux input on my aftermarket stereo. Best decision, much better than the FM transmitter.

If you live in a city, FM transmitters are about the worst way you can get sound into your headunit. An FM modulator on the other hand (one that plugs inline with your actual antenna connection) will do well but you're still limited by FM fidelity issues. Best bet is to just buy a headunit that has a line-in jack (or you might be able to buy one that plugs into the CD changer connection on the back of your deck) and go that way. It's a little more effort, but well worth the frustration it will save over the static headaches FM transmitters will give you.

I use the iCarPlay...if you power from the car, its a stonger signal...
if you use a car powered one, you're sure to kill your lithium ion battery.