FM transmitter - what do you recommend or otherwise

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › FM transmitter - what do you recommend or otherwise

scottjpalmer

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#35659 13-Jun-2009 20:53

I'm in the market for an FM transmitter for my Nokia E71

I guess the Belkin Tunecast 3 is the go unless anyone can suggest something else?

The Nokia CA-300 is quite a cool idea too though . . .

paradoxsm

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#224727 13-Jun-2009 21:39

i had that transmitter (and dissected it on my blog)

Good audio quality but terribly weak transmission even with the "added" whip antenna.

1-day had generic fm transmitters for $10 two days back, would have been worth a punt at that price.

If anyone knows of a generic one that sports solid audio quality and has strong rf, i'd be very keen to hear.

I had a pile of the cheap ipod ones, they varied but most had a problem of some description, from lack of treble to a off-target mpx pilot tone. One had such bad harmonics it would stop the paging channel on cdma! One had 2 stages of output amplifiers and went almost 2km but the drift was awful.
The other had a noticeably hissing mpx stage but had rock solid pll and well designed rf stage. It actually worked superbly when i disabled the stereo mpx as it had correct emphasis unlike most others.
One was actually very good "out of the box" but i'd ordered 5 samples and only one was decent, it was based off a rohm ba1406 chip, the remaining 4 had been redesigned around a new chip and were not nearly as good.

allstarnz

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#224747 13-Jun-2009 22:26

i use a Belkin Tunecast (v2 I think), all good, except the range isn't the greatest. 15m away is a bit average (I use it in the house, not a car). My $10 Warehouse one had better range, it just ate the batteries something chronic, and was no good with a DC adaptor on it.

scottjpalmer

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#224794 14-Jun-2009 07:24

This is for a link from my jacket pocket to my motorbike helmet so range hopefully won't be an issue with anything :-)

paradoxsm

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#224881 14-Jun-2009 14:18

There was a bluetooth unit created especially for bikers, I have lost the link but it had superb range and allowed comms between rider and pillion and even another bike that was close by. Also had comms to standard bluetooth phones and devices but am not sure it it supported A2DP (stereo bluetooth) if it did you'd probably get much better results that way.

scottjpalmer

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#224884 14-Jun-2009 14:23

Yeah thanks - I am on the verge of buying one of these which I will use direct from my phone sometimes but I have a grander master scheme in mind inlcuding the amateur transceiver / wideband receiver I am about to purchase :-)

Bascially - the Yaesu VX-8R has a bluetooth option and can also monitor amateur radio freqs as well as FM radio simultaneously. So the plan is pair VX-8R to the above headset and have the E71 play MP3s via FM to the VX-8R. There is a possibility I won't need the FM transmitter if both devices can pair to the headset direct and sort out their priorities over each other properly (I'm not looking for TX functionality from either phone or radio, just RX)

paradoxsm

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#224949 14-Jun-2009 17:19

I'd suggest asking the makers of the headset directly, i'm sure they have had people ask this or similar before, something I know the cheap bluetooth headsets don't do awfully well being based off little more than cheap reference designs but the better bluetooth units should have no problems like the nokia hs-??? which worked simultaneously with two phones.

This unit does not seem to have the built in comms but does have A2DP which the one I had used a couple of years ago didn't. See if they do offer a bluetooth bike to bike model without having to have the radio, we had used a PRS originally but it was not the greatest though range was better than bluetooth.

personally, spend the extra cash and get the real thing. Those FM transmitters used to be about $90 alone and whilst the Yaesu should pick it up well, i would not bank on the fidelity plus the fiddle with starting and stopping the fm tx / Radio.

paradoxsm

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#224950 14-Jun-2009 17:21

And then you have the harmonics interfering with the Yaesu! The belkin would be better but I didn't test it. (i did test the cheap ones and most were like sinewaves every 12 MHz)

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scottjpalmer

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#224979 14-Jun-2009 18:31

The Yaesu isn't for bike to bike comms.

The more expensive of those units does bike to bike on a separate bluetooth channel and also does 2way comms to cellphone, have another look :-)

paradoxsm

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#224990 14-Jun-2009 18:58

Website was a bit fugly and i'm peeing at this teensy tiny eeepc screen, my bad.

Yes, but the Yaesu is the best "bike to bike" comms system there is! forget "a few metres" if you had that setup!