Why Do FM Transmitters Suck?
Chances are, if you've got an MP3 player of some sort, you've considered what it would take for the music from the MP3 player to be played through your speakers. To solve that problem for myself, I recently picked up a Philips Digital FM Transmitter (Model SJM2306/27) thru a recent Woot-off. It sucked.
Granted, the product actually does what it says: takes your MP3 player and pumps it over nearly any available FM channel. This device in particular has three memory locations for you to store the stations. The trick is: finding a truly dead FM channel to use.
The Seattle area's radio waves are fairly packed. Finding a dead space in the spectrum to try and use this device is, to say the least, challenging. To make matters worse, if you drive a long distance, spaces that were free are suddenly not free anymore, meaning you need to find another one.
I did manage to find a dead spot in my neck of the woods and was able to use the FM transmitter ok. Here's the problem: even with that dead spot, there was a bit of interference. Sitting next to a bus at a traffic light added to the interference.
And this, my friends, is why FM transmitters suck. They are not immune to interference and, often, you can't find dead space in the air waves to use it.
Cross-posted from Digital Music
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By KJH, April 18, 2008 @ 10:20 pm
Yeah, too true. They’re never really going to get better. FM channels just don’t have enough bandwidth. Here is another negative review of 3 other FM transmitters:
http://www.gizmosforgeeks.com/2006/05/29/review-fm-transmitters-roadmaster-vrfm8-vrfm9-kensington-pico/
It’s ok if you’re say listening to audiobooks and just want to be able to make out what the person is saying.
By Dameon Welch-Abernathy, April 19, 2008 @ 1:10 am
The bandwidth of an FM channel is perfectly fine. It’s the fact that it’s not CLEAR thanks to the relatively low power level of the FM transmitter and the relative strength of all the FM stations.
By ELETEC, September 30, 2008 @ 12:20 pm
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By rob, March 12, 2010 @ 11:52 pm
http://www.broadcast-transmitter.com
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