In-Car FM Transmitters

Chasser

Chasser

Chasser

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
3,023
Location
West Oxon
I've just been given one as a gift. I know it's a relatively cheap one (I think it's from Asda!!) and it works but, I have to whack the volume right up on the car radio and there is noise/interference between tracks.

Question is. If I invest in one of the more expensive ones (seen some Belkin ones knocking around), will it work better or is this just a failing of my car radio?
 
I once owned a Belkin jobby for all of a day, there was static in between tracks, it couldn't handle the bass of certain tracks and was constantly dire.

This Belkin had cleartune? or something that was meant to alleviate any disturbance but to no avail.

Unfortunately, I believe this will always be a problem with FM until DAB ones materialise (if they ever do).
 
we got a cheap one from tesco when we borrowed my dads car for the week, had to get the volume on the player right then turn it up a bit more on the radio but we didnt have to have it right up and didnt get any interference. mite be the position you have it in when using it in the car also.
 
Not sure if your MP3 player has it (and tbh I don't know if this is how these FM adapters work!), but back in the day when I had my tape adapter it was also similarly quiet but my Sony MP3 player had an option in the settings to change output to 'line out' instead of headphones which helped tremendously.
 
I have a belkin one, it works great so long as I'm in the country - or somewhere with few radio stations otherwise there is far to much interference. Never have to raise the volume though.
 
They're always going to be crap.

Best of a bad bunch are the sort where you unplug the antenna wire from the back of your radio and connect the FM transmitter inline, with the other end connected to your MP3 player. This sort will disconnect the car antenna while you are playing MP3s so you should see less interference.
 
Is it some legal problem why they don't sell stronger radio transmitters for the general public ?

I'm actually quite happy with the built in FM transmitter in my N97 for my car, just put it under the headunit and quality is actually not that bad and while there is some ''noise'' it's minimal. In my dad's car where I can't put it near the HU it's quite rubbish though, and I wish it was a stronger transmitter.
 
ZG002 said:
Surely the transmitter needs to be near the aerial not the head unit?
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The aerial goes into the HU...
The only time the sound is better, is when I hold the phone OUTSIDE my car next to my aerial, from inside the best place is near the HU... The metal outer shell of the car blocks the radiowaves...
 
I have a Griffin one with Clearscan. It's very good as FM transmitters goes, it lives in my mum's car's glovebox now as I bought a head unit with an auxiliary input. It was £45 from HMV.

There's obviously a limit as to how good it'll be, but if you get a decent one they're definitely bearable. If the option's available to you, get a head unit with an auxiliary input though. Obviously this isn't always possible if you don't want to wreck the look of your new car or whatever.
 
ZG002 said:
A lot of original head units have a plug for Cd changers. There are a lot of cable out there that will make your head unit think your ipod/mp3 is the cd changer.

http://www.ipodcarkitdirect.co.uk/Connects2 (ipod kits.. But you can get cables that do normal mp3 players also)
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This is what I did after a few minutes with my N97's FM transmitter. One £30 lead from autoleads and my ancient Sony CDX-MP30 which has been in about 9 cars is taking line audio from the N97 just fine. For bonus points you can run the line audio through the supplied microphone+CD control unit and stick that somewhere close to hand and you get a crappy handsfree kit* and easier to access audio controls. Add a £5 ebay windscreen mount and you get a decent satnav too.

*If the call is urgent the caller can put up with the echo, which only affects their end, if it's not urgent it annoys the crap out of them and they decide to go away and call back when you're not driving. The perfect handsfree kit IMHO.
 
Bought one for the works van, belkin jobby which was £23 down from £50 in halfords, it's rubbish, just cuts out every 5-10 minutes, crap quality, quiet. It's just rubbish, ended up buying a tape thing from the pound shop.
 
snowdog said:
Is it some legal problem why they don't sell stronger radio transmitters for the general public ?

I'm actually quite happy with the built in FM transmitter in my N97 for my car, just put it under the headunit and quality is actually not that bad and while there is some ''noise'' it's minimal. In my dad's car where I can't put it near the HU it's quite rubbish though, and I wish it was a stronger transmitter.
Click to expand...

There are limits on the strength in order to contain it to one vehicle from memory (though there are maximum permissable transmit levels for most frequency bands) and the battery powered ones are't exactly particuarly powerful due to the limitation of the small batteries. Metal roof won't help too much either.

Another problem with them is the bandwidth, last time I looked at one it had a 3KHz bandwidth which isn't much! It was a dirt cheap one though :rolleyes: I'l stick to my headunits line-in/USB personally :)
 
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