MP3 to Head Unit FM transmitter!

dceire

Anyone know if these are any good and are they available on our Green Isle?
http://cgi.ebay.ie/4-CHANNEL-FM-WIRELESS-TRANSMITTER-IPOD-NANO-CD-MP3_W0QQitemZ5854720081QQcategoryZ48680QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

whiteboard

You can get them over here but they are about €100 if not more. You strictly need a licence to use one of these in Ireland because it broadcasts an FM signal. Most people get them off ebay or (like me) from the US when a friend or relative visits. I have mine about 2 years now and wouldn't be without it. Just make sure the one you get covers the full FM spectrum as I have seen some that are limited to certain ranges and this can be a problem if you travel around the country a bit where local stations can come in on your chosen frequency.

blastman

Not available in Ireland legitimately. I'm sure that one is as good as any other, the higher frequencies you can use are better here as there aren't that many stations up at that end of the FM spectrum.

TJM

I have both an iTrip and a transmitter very similar to the one listed on eBay. I've given up on using them in the car, though, since (as whiteboard points out) when you travel around the country radio frequencies change. Consequently you can start out in Naas with a clear frequency and find yourself in Dublin having to retune both transmitter and radio - very annoying (particularly with the cumbersome interface on the iTrip). I've reverted to the old fashioned cassette adapter - good sound quality and much less hassle IMHO.

Anima

I'm almost certain I saw one of these advertised in a Maplins catalogue.

whiteboard

The one I use is by Belkin and its allows you to store 3 channel locations on the unit. This is useful when you need to move frequency. The unfortunate thing about the cassette approach is that a lot of cars now come with cd players as standard; I know this is why i explored the transmitter solution in the first place.

fletch

These are for sale in Powercity for €25

dceire

whiteboard wrote:

The unfortunate thing about the cassette approach is that a lot of cars now come with cd players as standard; I know this is why i explored the transmitter solution in the first place.

Thats why I'm looking down this route too, I've a Panasonic CD head unit in the car and this could be my only option

Eoin

I have also seen them for sale over here- think it was Powercity. It is probably legal to sell them, but not to use them or something stupid.

Anyway, personally I wouldn't bother. I bought one from eBay for the car and found it pretty poor. It is alright at home when nothing is moving, and you are not driving through areas of differing reception, but on the road it is pretty crap. I found that even if the MP3 player or transmitter shifted around, it could affect the sound.

Obviously, the best case scenario is a radio-quality signal and that is only when it is working as well as it possibly can. Even the connecters that go into a cassette drive are better as they do not depend on the reception.

See if your stereo has an AUX input, would be much more preferable to me.

CrowdedHouse

eoin_s wrote:

I found that even if the MP3 player or transmitter shifted around, it could affect the sound.

I found this too,I have a Belkin Tunecast 2 which is supposed one of the best.
Although I modified it to extend the antenna and it's much better now.
It's also quite hard on batteries and you have to turn up the volume quite high on the mp3 player which in turn makes it harder on batteries