What is Digg?56 Comments
- imafish2002, on 10/12/2007, -0/+28Is there any need for the article considering all its content is in the summary lol
- jjk5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13That's cool and all, but unfortunately on most new or higher end cars the antenna is built into the windshield or some other unobvious place.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Tape adapter? Are you kidding me? I can't afford one of those. I use my 8-track adapter.
- xLiKx, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12yea, and is that really necessary? here's a better solution, install a CD player with a jack for ipods in your car instead. it's better than removing something.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Ugh, and this is a completely retarded solution to begin with. FM Transmitters ALL sound like absolute ass. No exceptions, this is just how it is. IF you want to keep the stock stereo, what you should do is get an FM MODULATOR and not an FM TRANSMITTER. The FM Modulator basically is hardwired into your antenna and provides a MUCH clearer signal to your FM stereo.
Utlimately these are both pretty mickey-mouse solutions however because ideally you'd want a stereo that integrates w/ the iPod seamlessly like what Alpine offers. Heck I'd even take a simple 1/8" Auxilliary input over any FM transmitter/modulator. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Tape adapter?
wow.... - noisician, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9At which point, why don't you instead just add a jack for the iPod?
- anthony1124, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5my 70 nova has an antenna built into the front windshield... so... i guess you can unplug the antenna from the back of your radio?
- syder, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I could have added a jack instead ... but that damn Apple chip in my brain overrided my better judgment.
- EBFoxbat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5How hard can it be to add a (toggle) switch to an antenna?
I realize there would be some passive transmission through the switch but surely that can be worked around. - Settra, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Yes, the antennea can be unplugged from the back of the radio..depending on the car, however, it can be hard to get to the back of the radio..
- bigkm, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7who the ***** has a bluetooth streaming client in their headunit ???
- fletcha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I've been using an iTrip for about a year or so now, and have found that the latest iTrip (the black, sleek rounded one) works significantly less than the older, squarer white ones. I've exchanged the black one three times now but still if I hold my iPod close to my body (about 30cms away from the stereo) it completely drops out, but with the older version I could walk in my house with it and still have it cranking on my car stereo...does anyone else have this issue?
- hansamurai, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I use the 90's equivalent of this in my car (portable CD player and cheap FM transmitter from Radio Shack), so I may try this. I drive a pretty old car too, around 1993, and the reception sucks anyway.
- novaneil, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3My '68 Nova doesn't even have an FM Radio.
- syder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3That's what my car has. I had a car audio place install a switch to toggle the car's antenna on or off. Then they installed an iPod dock cable which is connected to an FM modulator that sends a signal that the car radio will pick up while the car antenna is in the off switch. Works perfectly, even in a big city: nice, crisp audio. Plus the iPod gets charged while its plugged in too -- so no need to worry about draining the battery on a long trip.
The whole process, parts and labor, cost a little over $100. - urbanight23, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4another dirty solution is to take apart the FM tuner, and replace the small antenna with a larger one (minor soldering required). I did this with my belkin tunecast II and it actually drowns out whatever station I put it on. The problem is that if you remove your antenna, then you cant listen to the radio if you want to.....unless you use the FM tuner in your player which is just getting stupid.
- zapatar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Another option is to go to http://www.radiolocator.com and find an unused station and tune it to that.
- mtwoar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Cars still come with tape players in them?!
- MrMysterious, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I've been doing this for years with my Mazda3, plus it looks better with out the stupid antenna sticking out.
Also means that you get better reception if you have a satellite radio that uses FM modulation.
On other thing, you can still manually tune to pick up an FM station but scan doesn't work so well. - OsakaWilson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3If you follow the directions here http://www.surfbits.com/?p=526 it will increase your iTrip range to about 15 meters up from the standard 3-4 meters. Also, you will no longer get interference. I live in a city of 6 million and haven't had any problems since doing this hack.
- zaren, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I have a tape adapter. It works fine in my car, but it refuses to stay in the player in my wife's station wagon - insert the adapter, and it spits it out a few seconds later. I wonder how eay it would be to disconnect the antenna in her car... Hmm...
- jmhacc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Or you could just add an aux jack to your car
http://www.hackaday.com/2005/06/14/how-to-add-an-auxilary-jack-to-your-car/
many decks including stock decks have a cd changer input that can be hacked into an 1/8" audiojack input. My girlfriend has a Kenwood and all I had to do was put a 10K resistor between two pins on 13pin din on the back and then run the wires to the audio connector. total cost less than 2.00$ and much better quality than the fm anythings
PS I havent been dugg down in a while So ill say that you are all idiots for buying ipods and their overpiriced accessories - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've thought about hacking the stock stereo in my late-model Corolla... If I can get a few leads on the output of the DAC from the CD player, I can splice some switching circuitry and add a 1/8" stereo jack and a physical switch. Or, maybe there's a simpler connection point such as the input to the deck's internal amplifier. I think it would take a weekend, some patience, and a few basic tools (including an o-scope), but then I would have a direct audio connection to my stock stereo. I realize the whole time/money trade-off, but this just sounds like fun. Has anyone done this before?
- inactive, on 11/02/2007, -2/+3Really what Apple should do is put a Bluetooth transmitter inside their next iPod so you could stream your music (and song data, controls, etc...) to your stereo via bluetooth and not have to deal with assinine wiring schemes.
- tnwake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If the "solution" involves removing a part of your car then it's not a solution! Especially for anyone who listens to normal FM radio sometimes. If it's that hard to find a station where you live, get the kit that lets you directly input you device to your stereo instead of using FM-mod.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've considered doing this but am too lazy.
One thing I have done is pulled the antenna outside the iTrip's case:
http://www.ipodwizard.net/wiki/index.php/ITrip_Antenna
Generally better signal unless you touch the antenna or it shakes too much. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Even more amazing... get a Belkin Tunecast II. Perform the antenna mod. Your FM transmitter now goes 200 feet. No worry about competing interference unless you tune it onto the same frequency as a real radio station.
http://www.christmasdisplays.net/fmtransmitter.php
PS: I agree with a previous poster. Removing the antenna to your car is a retarded solution. - gordonmcdowell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Any suggestions for broadcasting line-in signal around the house WHICH IS AC POWERED? There are many iPOD solutions, and I see an iRiver one that acts as PC audio card (via USB) and broadcasts directly to FM but it requires sound come from PC. I have hacked X-BOX, and want to take that line-out audio and broadcast FM. I do see solutions but they are all built for MP3 players for the car... so run off batteries and-or the cigarette lighter.
- zbeast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I say just by a new car audio system that supports the Ipod.
No matter what you do to an fm radio transmitter to try to get the audio to sound
better transmitted to your car stereo. It will still sound like ass.
You know why? FM radio is only 96k bandwidth.
so it does not care you have lossless audio or 300k encoded mp3 files.
They will still sound like they were recorded at 96k coming out of your radio. - inactive, on 11/02/2007, -2/+3Here, read up n00bs.
http://www.nissanusa.com/bluetooth/
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1473715,00.asp
http://www.bmwusa.com/owners/bluetooth/default - lowbot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I used to love my tape adapter when it worked. The sound quality is great and blows away the fm transmitter. I'd still use it but my deck refuses to play any tape adapter longer than 20 or so seconds.
Now i use a little fm transmitter but I often get overpowered by people with those Sirius/XM sat2FM boxes. On the expressway I get hit with free and annoying snippets of Howard Stern, country music, church sermons, and rap. Man, I miss that adapter. - dobey123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have also done this hack to my iTrip. It works great! Now on those long road trips, I can lock in to one station and have clear reception for 200+ miles until it starts to go a little fuzzy. I then turn off the iTrip and find out the station it was using is coming in crystal clear from whatever city I'm traveling through.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Another solution:
Most foreign cars (and some American ones) allow the FM radio to be set to 87.5, 87.7, 87.9. These are below the official FM band (88-108) therefore there will never be any radio stations there (at least in the US). I can't recall if you have to push a button on the iTrip to unlock these frequencies or not but it does support them. I have done this since day one and it works great with my Toyota, never any interference. - MrBlackthorne, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I used to have an old Pioneer deck that had RCA outputs for an amp on the back. Just for kicks, I connected my iPod to those outputs, and it played through the speakers loud and clear. Used it like that for years until I bought a new car with an iPod connector.
- nklepper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0haha we have the same car with the same set up. the bug is *****. but i love my sirius
- bigkm, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3my solution
Apple Dock - $60 AU
ebay: proprietary stereo Aux connecter to mini jack 3.5 - $20 AU
ebay: ipod car charger $8 AU
the reason for the prod dock is that its nicer than anything else i seen you just jump in the car and slot the ipod in. Any other solution would require two hands and pluging connectors in. - kevan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I have done this -- It really works very, very well (unless of course you want to then listen to the radio :-)
- rivercityjessie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Please, don't remove your antennas! That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
we were using a tape adapter in our 2 cars with a creative player and it worked great, but then I drove through a flood and my older car died and I got a newer one with a stock CD player. The FM transmitter we got worked pretty well...but we had to place it in the rear window, next to the antenna, and it made it too difficult to change songs. We ended up making a playlist. It would play alright most of the time, but I did find myself climbing over the seats to grab the player when the static became unbearable. Next road trip i think I'll just burn a few cds and live without 60 gigs of music.
The remove your antenna solution is dumb, and if you really care that much just get a new CD player with inputs. - Migit109, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0just get a decent headunit and hardwire it, sure you might have to buy an adapter for the cd changer port but thats what 15 bux then just get a y splitter and your done and you have better quality than through fm
- crokuszg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0this isn't a solution for everyone obviously, but for people who live in major cities and have easily removable antennas it is. I live in LA and I've been doing this for a couple years now, I just unscrew my antenna and everything works fine. If I don't feel like using my ipod I just put it back in, even though without the antenna the radio still works fairly well.
- SlabbaJabba, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I have a tape adapter in my car and it sounds great. It doesn't sound like I'm playing a tape. You actually wouldn't be able to tell if it is a cd playing or not, depending on the mp3 of course. As for spitting the tape out... open the tape and take out the gears and what ever else you don't need in there. I had to do that for my car and it has worked perfect ever since.
- inactive, on 11/02/2007, -3/+3Umm... seen any of the new luxury vehicles recently? Almost all of them have bluetooth receivers for devices like phones so you can hear the call through the stereo speakers. It's actually becoming quite common place. And from what I understand it's not too difficult to retrofit an existing stereo with a bluetooth receiver provided it has the proper input channels.
By the time Apple wises up to this, almost every aftermarket stereo will have them. - Aslan72, on 10/12/2007, -5/+5Cheaper solution - by a tape adapter kit and play it through your tape player (if you have one); the iTrip nano wasn't all that and, IMO, a direct connection would be better.
Or, you could always use it an excuse to buy a stereo with a stereo mini plug in...:) - ArmchairAthlete, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Sounds way too extreme and difficult =/. But I suppose it'd work.
I should just shell out the $ for a better headunit with an input on the front or something. - PColtharp, on 06/30/2009, -0/+0Put an FM transmitter closer to your rear window car antenna, without putting the MP3 player / IPOD closer to the rear window.
I just bought a 1/8" male to female, 16' extension cord. I can connect my MP3 player to a transmitter, using the cord. When I use the two devices, I turn on my transmitter and throw it in my back seat so that it is closer to the antenna which is in my rear window. I think this is a good solution for those of you whom have already bought a transmitter. I've had my transmitter for a year, I though it was such a POS; it didn't work. Never thought to do this, until recently. - miraclebaby, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1this works fabulously. i did it on my 2000 beetle. the elements (and apparently bad design) rotted the rubbery outer coating and rusted the inner metal core of the antenna. i took it off to repair or replace it, because it kept banging the back window of my car, and found that my fm-transmitted Sirius radio signal sounded substantially better, with no interference whatsoever. I found the outcome counter-intuitive.
- Ray_Justice, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0most of the time there is a connector on the side of your window (like your rear defrosters) that you can unhook to disable it.
- zootboy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1This is lame. Just make a dock that jacks into your stereo. It is less retarded.
Buried and laughed at. - 3ntropy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2I'm sure this will work just as well by retracting my antenna.. also, for those who have to disconnect their antennas from the radio, it'd be really simple to wire up a switch. (if you didn't figure that out already...) Just remember: toggle switches add 5 horsepower to your car!
-
Show 51 - 55 of 55 discussions
Check out the new & improved 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is