Belkin TuneCast Mobile FM Transmitter
From Belkin
Now you can use your iPod mobile digital device to listen to your favorite tunes through any FM stereo receiver. The Belkin TuneCast Mobile FM Transmitter wirelessly connects portable music players to your car or home stereo quickly and easily. Just plug the TuneCast into the headphone jack of your iPod or any audio source including your PDA, MP3, CD, or cassette player or connect it to your PC or laptop computer. Tune your car stereo or receiver to the clearest FM frequency, and enjoy your digital music with full sound and convenience.
- Amazon Sales Rank: #804 in Car Audio or Theater
- Color: White
- Brand: Belkin
- Model: F8V367-APL
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 6.00" h x 3.50" w x 9.00" l, 1.00 pounds
The Belkin TuneCast Mobile FM Transmitter wirelessly connects portable music players to your car or home stereo quickly and easily, letting you enjoy digital audio tracks just about anywhere. Just plug the TuneCast into the headphone jack of your iPod or any other audio source, including your PDA, MP3, CD, or cassette player; or connect it to your PC or laptop. You can then tune your car stereo or receiver to the clearest FM frequency, and enjoy digital music with full sound and convenience. The TuneCast broadcasts to a range of up to 30 feet and comes with a three-year warranty.
iPod radio: a versatile, low cost, low-tech solution
The Belkin Tunecast is basically a small radio transmitter that plugs into the headphone jack of your iPod. The Tunecast transmits the music from your iPod to one of four selectable frequencies, which you can then listen to by simply tuning your home or car stereo to said frequency.
The most obvious advantage of this little device is the ability to use it anywhere there's a radio. Say you wanted to play your songs on your friend's stereo, or in your friend's car, or on a boombox at the beach: it's practically effortless with the Tunecast. And it's cheap, to boot.
Of course, what you gain in ease of use compared to, say, a direct line into your home or car stereo, you lose in sound quality. The sound is basically FM radio-quailty, with a noticible hiss in the background. Now, it's still more than listenable, and most of the time the music drowns out the hiss, but audiophiles in search of crystal-clear sound quality should look elsewhere (although they probably already know that).
Overall, I would recommend it simply because of its low price and versatility.
Value depends on where you live
Having owned this device for about a month - I would recomend it with some reservations. the first caveat - of course is the limited number of FM bands that it broadcasts in. If you live in an area where one of the bands in the 88s is free - you will probably have decent results with the device. If all the 88s are full - the device still works - but it is like listening to a radio station that is almost out of range. There is noise - and occasionally you will here other broadcasts coming through your speakers.
The second issue is that scince the transmitter is rather weak - you need to turn up the volume on your ipod to at least 75 percent in order to get a strong signal, and this of course eats up substantially more battery life, and unfortunately - means that you get poor results if you use the line out on an ipod dock (which is probably why belkin put a small amplifier on the line out of its car adapter)
My recomendation for this product would really be based on why you want it. If you want it to play your mps in your car only, - and dont really move from city to city much - and all the frequencys in the 88s are taken up locally - then I would recomend trying another way - either a cassette adapter - or seeing if your car stereo can be wired for an audio input jack.
However - if you are traveling alot in rental cars - this is great as you can never be out of luck if you are stuck with a car without a cassette player. nad if the city you live in has one of the 88s open - you will probably be in good shape.
works well with a stationary radio
This FM transmitter is nice for feeding your iPod music to your office radio or any stationary radio around the house. It does not work well with the car radio, you should purchase the car adaptor kit for that purpose.
