car stereo and handheld

[footdoc]

Is it possible (with the help of an adapter) to play music stored on handheld (or on SD/CF card on handheld) on the car stereo?

[Nurhisham Hussein]

Yes. I use a cheap cassette adaptor that is hooked up via my PPCs headphone socket. You shoul be able to get this in any reasonable electronics store.

If you prefer wireless, a few companies make FM transmitters that can be used as well, for example:

http://www.arkon.com/ipodaccessories.html (near the bottom of the page)

Basically you can use accessory that can be plugged into a standard headphone socket.

[isilver]

A lot of car stereos sold in the past few years support aux in. If thats the cane then you just need to be a cord (no more then $30.00) to plug into the radio to listen to music. I have my car completely setup to play music with my pocketPC. I just plug it into a special cradle and dance to the music.

[JimPAQ]

OK, this is way OT, but I just started using Mapopolis. One of the things I’ve loved is hooking it up to my car stereo via the cassette tape adapter to listen to the guy over my stereo. He sounds like the guy on the weather channel on the cable (computer generated voice) but its still way cool. At least my son thinks it is... and ya, I guess I do too.

-Jim

[nategesner]

I use a Belkin FM transmitter sold at WalMart for $20. It runs off two AAA batteries and plugs into the headphone jack. You turn it on, select one of four radio stations and then tune your radio to that station to listen to the music. It works great! I had a friend with a DVD player that watched his DVD but plugged the sound through the stereo so we could all hear it.

I just saw another one sold at Checker Auto Parts that is even better. It fits into the cigarette lighter and is powered by your car. It then plugs into your headset jack. But even better: it has a USB port and you can load MP3 songs on a USB stick for playback! It even has buttons on the face of it for fast-forward, rewind, play, stop, and pause. Costs about ten bucks more, but that's a pretty awesome gadget.

[ctmagnus]

I use a Belkin FM transmitter sold at WalMart for $20. It runs off two AAA batteries and plugs into the headphone jack. You turn it on, select one of four radio stations and then tune your radio to that station to listen to the music. It works great! I had a friend with a DVD player that watched his DVD but plugged the sound through the stereo so we could all hear it.

My experience of these things is Statac. And mine cost $50 :p

Seriously, if you want decent audio (ie, listening to it at the quality you ripped it) use the line in method. Anything else is lower-quality.

[Wiggster]

My experience of these things is statac. And mine cost $50 :p

Seriously, if you want decent audio (ie, listening to it at the quality you ripped it) use the line in method. Anything else is lower-quality.

It's "static" ;)

But everyone is definitely leading you on the right track. Best solution is line-in. Then probably the Headphone-->Cassette adapter. But the FM transmitter has the best "wow" factor of them all :wink:

[frankenbike]

If your stereo doesn't have a cassette player or aux-in, the next best thing is an in-line FM modulator. You have to hook it up to the car's power, take the antenna out of your car stereo and hook it up to the FM modulator, and then there's a cable that goes from the FM modulator to the antenna socket on your car stereo.

The FM modulators usually have RCA inputs, so you have to get an adaptor that goes from your handheld to the RCA inputs.

The wireless ones work like crap in big cities, because they're underpowered and designed not to interfere with normal FM broadcasts. They aren't all that hot in rural areas either, but at least they seem to work better there.

[strongsad]

I use a wireless FM modulator I got at Radio Shack (http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F007%5F013%5F000%5F000&product%5Fid=12%2D2053) , and it works pretty well. It runs both on a cigarette-lighter adapter, or on 2 AAA batteries.

Whatever you do, don't use one that has a dial for choosing the radio station to broadcast on, like this one I got at Best Buy. (http://www.arkon.com/imgs_site/pop_sf100.jpg) It is useless- the dial "wanders" and you have to retune it every 5 minutes. I have one of these useless devices, and I would give it to you, except it would result in either your getting into a wreck from messing with it constantly, or your finding out where I live and napalming my house.

Good luck,
Allen

[MROX]

...wireless FM transmitters...

I had 3 car break in this year so I'm missing about 45 cd now. :cry:
(I can't claim 3 time to the insurance...) So this is topic is very interesting for me.

Anyway.
For those of you who have wireless FM transmitters experience, could you compaire the music quality downgrade to a 66 kbps cd conversion to MP3? Worst, Better?

.

[KimVette]

I use an Irock! which is an FM transmitter. Unlike the crappy Belkin, this one doesn't use a dial - it uses a PLL synthesis transmitter and the selection of the station is done digitally, not in the analog realm (it's a four-postion slide switch - no variable capacitor to wander).

I made the mistake of buying a refurb and the cost to return it would not have been worth it (it came DOA -- well, it wasn't dead, but broadcast in mono only due to loose components) so I took it apart and resoldered all the joints myself, disconnected the original antenna circuit and put an 12" pigtail on to use as an external antenna, independent of the power lead.

If you buy one, skip the refurb units. Once I fixed mine, it worked great. I bought it almost three years ago (I think) and it works wonderfully. I use it on long drives.