FM transmitter help please

mrs_baggins

Yes, I know they are possibly all illegal in the uk but not for other parts of the EU and I have a question if someone could possibly answer.

I bought a really cheap one as the car cassette player doesnt work and wanted to play ipod nano through speakers. the one I bought had a choice of 5 channels to choose from and this I think is where the problem is. The car radio cannot seem to be fine tuned so had loads of difficulties actually trying to get a channel in the first place. After asking various peopel someone managed to tune the radio into 1 of the frequencies but cant recall how so cant try the otehr frequencies! Anyway the outcome is that it plays through the speakers but with a lot of interference especially when the engine is on. Someone has said that possibly its beacuse the tramsmitter itself doesnt have enough strength to give a really good signal and wondered if a more expensive one would be any better or would the problems be the same?

I have had a look about and it seems that some of them are not limited to 4 or so frequencies but can be tuned to whichever frequency is best.

So my question is- would a more expensive one ness have any more uumph (technical term!) than the very cheap one I bought?

penrhyn

The good news is that they have been legal for a month or so now.
Tesco were selling the Kensington ones which are well regarded.
You can check out more of these on the Apple Store site.
QVC were selling the Belkin one yesterday.

superscaper

penrhyn is right, they were made legal on the 8th december, but the law requires absolute limits on the power of transmission (which is very small), so I doubt there will be much difference between them.

Colcoops

Try and use it with the radio in your house to see if it works any better. It may be your car radio or aerial.

mrs_baggins

I knew some were going to be legal. think it has to have a CE mark. I think it may be the car radio, cant try it at home as it has a ciggie lighter attachment to plug into car. will try it on someone elses car and see what the quality is like on theirs

Aiadi

The better makes (belkin, iTrip...etc) are definitely better than the cheapy ones but engine interference noise is inevitable with these things and that is why hard wiring is always preferred if practical. Get one that you can easily return is unsatisfactory and try it in your car.

SimonW

It seems a little odd that your car radio can not be "fine" tuned to the frequency that the transmitter is using.

Do you mean that the car stereo is on "auto" search and keeps skipping past the frequency you want to tune in to? It is possible to switch between "auto" and "manual" to fine tune the car stereo...

Fifer

How are you tuning it? I suggest plugging tha Nano in and playing a tune you will easily recognise, then set your radio to autoscan until you hear your chosen tune and program that frequency to your chosen channel number button (usually just by pressing the chosen number and keeping it depressed until you hear a beep).

mrs_baggins

I have had a few very techie people having a look at the car but with no joy! when I am on manual mode in the car radio I can get 88.3 (radio 2) but when i try to go up just a tad to 88.9 it automatically goes to the next strong signal. Its almost as though I am not on manual but it is as it says on the radio which mode I am in. It hasnt got a dial to turn just arrows to go up and down. Someone has managed to somehow tune into one of the avialable frequencies after messing for half and hour but he has no idea how it happenned and cant replicate it again. So my way of thinking is that somehow it can be done but not the way the book says and not anyway I can work . Which is why I thought if I bought one that doesnt have only 4 or 5 channels to choose from but one where you can tune it to any channel that it would be better. But I also dont want to spend 20 odd pounds on something thats no better than what I already have.

penrhyn

may be helpful if you could give us the make and model of your car radio.

mrs_baggins

Will get that when I get home as its in car park at the moment. Its the original radio that is put into a renault scenic car- I think its a 2000 model but I will check if it will make a difference. I dont know if there will be a make but I will have a good look later. thanks