FM Transmitter work?

[Thunder7]

All of my cars do not have a cassette deck, only CD. Does the FM Transmitter actually work? How much degredation from a hardwire is there?

Considering Sirius over XM currently.

[bewarh]

The Wireless FM modulator does work in the car kit but you will many times get a large amount of static from other stations in the area transmitting on the same frequency. They make a FM Switching box that basically turns the car kit from a wireless to a hard wired FM transmitter. It plugs into the Antenna. I'm still trying to find somewhere that carries them but I have read that takes care of all the static.

[NewNameGuy]

I have XM in my car via hardwired FM modulation. I did some A/B test before putting it in, and could hear almost no difference between that setup and an aux-in setup. If installed well, FM works great.

My radio had a choice of 3 frequencies to broadcast on. I picked the one that was farthest from any local broadcast and have never heard static. I do know people with similar setups who weren't able to find a frequency that no local broadcaster was near, and get a bit of static when closest to broadcast towers.

The one drawback of a hardwired setup is that it did reduce my other FM reception somewhat. Most stations weren't affected, but there are a few fringe stations that I could sometimes get before the XM installation that I can't get at all now.

PS - Personally, I'd never use a cassette setup. But that doesn't sound like an issue for you.

[snb3]

are we talking about the mini antenna or directly connecting to the antenna wire under dash?

[RonDawg]

Originally posted by bewarh
The Wireless FM modulator does work in the car kit but you will many times get a large amount of static from other stations in the area transmitting on the same frequency. They make a FM Switching box that basically turns the car kit from a wireless to a hard wired FM transmitter. It plugs into the Antenna. I'm still trying to find somewhere that carries them but I have read that takes care of all the static.

If there is a Best Buy near you they have wired FM modulators. I recently had a Sirius Sportster installed that way into my 2003 Nissan Altima with factory sound system. The wired FM modulator works much better than the wireless unit that came with the Sportster.

[Redfin]

A buddy of mine uses the xmitter that came w/ his XM roady throughout his house. He plugs it in @ his kitchen, and plays XM through a regular portable radio upstairs/ downstairs with a good signal.

As a matter of fact, he told me as a test, he drove down the street and heard the kitchen transmitted signal 'clearly' for a couple of hundred feet in his car.

[cawgijoe]

I just got the Skyfi 2 for Christmas and am using the buit-in wireless FM modulator. It works great. I've heard no static. I don't have a cassette deck in the car and right now see no need to purchase the outboard FM modulator. I'm in the Washington, DC area, so hopefully that is a good test when it comes to interference.

I guess the real test will come when traveling.....especially if the station that you are tuned to actually exists in an area you pass through.

[luckychunk]

I have mixed feelings when it comes to my new Sirius JVC unit and FM transmissions.

In my densely surburban area, the quality comes and goes. I have yet to find a completely static-free open station within the limited low-end set of FM modulations open to me. I am constantly bombarded with different waves of interference, depending on where I drive. Hopefully the drive to work on Jan. 3 will be the cleanest of the bunch.

Worse yet, I seem to receive extremely clickly/chunky static whenever I pass Walgreens. And there are a ton of Walgreens in my area. They currently use satellite communications for their in-store network, but are switching over to a LAN soon. I'm wondering if I'm actually picking up some of their satellite transmissions by mistake.

The actual FM transmissions is a lot better than I expected, though -- I also own a Neuros Audio MP3 player, and its built-in FM transmissions are vastly inferior to the JVC model.

[murrr77]

I just got my JVC today (go me!!!) and am using the built in modulator. It is "ok", better than the brix modulator my partner has. However, you have to turn the volume up more than normal to be able to hear it (no static though). I am going to look for the hardwired solution...

Any other hardwire ideas besides a $100 PIE module?

[murrr77]

Best Buy has two different hard wire kits, one made for xm and one made by Metra. $30/$40 respectively. They do not have the one listed in the JVC and Audiovox manuals.

[videojanitor]

Depending on your car, there may be a more elegant solution -- several companies manufacturer interface boxes that will allow you to plug any line-level source (XM, Sirius, iPod, MiniDisc, etc) directly into your factory or aftermarket audio system.

These boxes plug into the CD changer port on the radio, and "fool" it into thinking a CD changer is connected -- on the other end of the box is a pair of RCA audio jacks for connecting anything you want. To listen to the external source, you simply select the CD changer as the source on the installed audio system.

I just installed one of these that I found on www.pie.net, and it works great -- better than expected really. Audio quality is top-notch, and there's no down-side that I can find, except that you have to check to see if they make one for your particular vehicle/radio. You can find more info about these by visiting www.myradiostore.us (*)-- they seem to carry the widest selection of these things. Look for the link to "AUX Audio Input Adapters."

(*) I do not work nor am I connected with this company in any way. I just offer this is a starting point, as I had good luck there.

[SteveHoltam]

I installed the new audiovox Sirius system in my wifes 4Runner this Christamas and it sounds perfect via the wireless FM system. This is one of the newer units that allows you to pick from a much larger (if not all) spectrum from the FM band. I just went frequency by frequency until I found one that sounded perfect. It ended being somewhere in the 90's. I was amazed how good it sounds. It does have some range. I can follow my wife around on the roads and listen to what she has it tuned to.

Steve

[drgolf]

If you use FM wireless transmission on long trips you might find your signal being "stepped on" by other FM stations. In the first day I got my XM, I had that happen 3 times in a 75 mile drive. After reading the manual, I found the cassette adapter gave a better quality signal and it was easy to switch so I did. No more interference from other stations.

Moral of the story. What FM frequency that works in your home area might not work when you travel. Switching frequencies while traveling will work but is a pain.

[DravenGSX]

Here in Orlando, the FM transmitter with my Roady is all but worthless. The tape adapter works much better. In other vehicles I have found that a direct connect is really the only way to go.

I'm afraid that you'll be extremely disappointed with the sound quality using an FM transmitter.

[SteveHoltam]

I could see where the driving long distances would cause problems with the pre-selected FM station when operating wirelessly. But for my wifes in town use, there is no problem with the FM transmitter.

I also wanted to have a perfectly clean install with no wires visible, and I accomplished this very nicely. My unit does have a pre-out also, but the factory radio does not have an input for it. That would be the best.

Steve

[luckychunk]

I wanted to post a follow-up after a few weeks of use:

I recently switched cars, and I have to say that the FM transmissions have GREATLY improved. I believe that the static I encountered before was mostly caused by the radio in my other car. Since I switched cars, I have only encountered a teeny tiny bit of static, and that was driving through a 'problem area' with a lot of interference.

I am greatly impressed with the power of the FM transmissions after all.

[wiggo]

I was getting a lot of interference and having to change FM frequencies until it occured to me to remove my external antenna (on my Blazer, it just unscrews, mainly for car washes). All my interference problems are gone, and I can still get local FM stations, it just vastly reduces the range (and therefore the possible sources of interference).

Just a suggestion.

[Sheet Metal Man]

I have an Alpine head unit in my Pick Up that has Sirius, but we use the PNP2 in our home and my Wife's VUE. Yesterday we went to NYC and along the way I was constantly looking for a clear station, always had some interference. If I had a wrench with me I would have removed the vehicle's antenna to see if that would help. I have the AudioVox Box on backorder from Car Domains, so today I am going to use an old headphone cord with a mini plug and see how that works. I cut the headphones off and am going to plug into the FM out port on the rear of the unit. I read on this forum that someone had done this with success.

[Sheet Metal Man]

That experiment didn't work, but yesterday I was in CC and they had the adapter in stock. The plug to the dock unit is 1/32 and the Audiovox outlet is 1/8, so I went to Radioshack and picked up a mono adapter and is works great! It even over rides the powerful stations down here on every frequency. Now we are set to travel.

[reedl]

My Volvo S80 has a diversity dual antenna system, and I use the XM Commander in it. The sound is actually quite good. It is not as good as the casette adapter was in my Saab 9-5, but alas the Volvo has no casette or line-in adapter right now.

Whoever said that regular FM and AM reception is affected is quite correct. I get some static on fringe FM stations that had no static before, and AM is pretty bad now. I think it is because the Commander install requires the disabling of the diversity antenna setup. Since I rarely listen to AM now that XM has baseball, and FM is pretty useless to me anyways, I do not care.

Reedl

[RonDawg]

An update: although the wired modulator set up gave superior sound on my Altima's factory stereo, it also picked up a lot of alternator whine.

If you were cruising on a freeway at a fixed speed and listening to hard rock you couldn't tell it was there. But if you were varying speeds a lot (my Altima has a 5 speed manual gearbox) and were say, driving a mountain road, you could hear the rise and fall of the engine rev's, particularly if you came across a quiet portion of a song.

It got so annoying I had to send the car back to Best Buy twice to have them try to sort the problem. The first time the installer redid some wiring and it did reduce the noise, but not enough that I found it acceptable. The second time I paid them a visit (to also have the receiver and car cradle replaced when the unit suddenly died), the installer declared my problem "unsolvable" and advised me to go back to the unit's built-in wireless modulator.

While not as good as the wired version, the wireless still provides a little better sound quality than FM.