I just got a “ZUNE” for Christmas. I bought the FM kit to play it over my car stereo. I could not find a frequency in Portland that would allow it to come through without static. It seems to me that the Portland area dial is so full that FM broadcast devices are not going to work well anymore. I took it to Car Toy’s and they are putting in a “AUXBOX” and a port for the AUX on the stereo. I can then use that port for any other audio device I want to as well.

I guess my question to you Radio pro’s is this:

“Is Portland radio to cluttered for FM broadcast devices to be used and get good reception in Portland Metro Area? Has the new HD broadcast somehow become a factor with those devices?”

Try this:

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/vacant

Type in the suburb you're located in, because it CAN make a difference in the results. YMMV, but it's worth a try... Worked for me down here in the Valley of the Sun!

I tried eery channel available and only briefly got a clear channel but after driving a short distance it went away. Rather that hassle with this I am just hard wiring the car. I just seem to remember a couple of years back I had a CD changer that worked this way as well and had no issues then. Is there more congestion and overlap on the frequencies these days or could the HD be an issue as well?

I've been using an FM xmtr on my iPod for quite some time and although when driving long distances it is required to retune to a more advantageous freq. for that area, I've never failed to come up with a usable channel.

The problem is probably the tuner/radio in the car is not selective enough. Selectivity is the ability to reject off frequency material the presence of which manifests itself as "noise" because it can not be demodulated as intelligible signal.

Try your new toy in a different vehicle to prove this.

BTW, Portland's FM congestion pales in comparison to larger markets. It has gotten more crowded in the last 10 years, but it's not like NY or LA.

Also, remember that no channel is totally quiet, and that the less fundamental signal there is at any freq. the more exaggerated intercarrier and IM distortion may sound. After all, we listen to a channel and when there is a xmtr failure if you happen to catch it, all of a sudden you hear how noisy that channel is when the assigned carrier is absent.

Going hard wired is the best solution if it's doable and desirable.

There is definitely more congestion these days, largely due to the increase in the number of lower-powered rimshot religious broadcasters.

I'm sure HD has something to do with it too.

Andy.....

Just picked up the rig from Car Toys......hard wired in and works great!!!!

There are many markets in the US that have a lot more stations than Portland - many cities have every available space filled.

Selectivity may be the issue, but frankly, an FM transmitter is not a great way to connect to your car stereo. The only exception may be the type that plugs into the stereo's antenna jack, then plugs the antenna into the unit. The unit switches between the antenna and the second audio source, thereby, eliminating virtually all external signals. A direct connection is really the way to go.

Darktemper~
"I tried eery channel available and only briefly got a clear channel but after driving a short distance it went away. Rather that hassle with this I am just hard wiring the car."

That is what I usually end up doing. Rather than messing with FM transmitters (which I haven't had much luck with personally, B.T.W.) I have a cable with RCA plugs in one end and a headphone plug in the other. Just plug the device in, switch the car stereo into auxillary mode and turn the volume up on the device a bit.

And I must say the sound quality here is better than a transmitter, because it's a direct wire link like home stereo componentry.

At least, driving into Pendleton it makes the Evergreen Radio Reading Service sound a lot better than the tinny little speaker built into my SCA radio!!

Glad to hear it's working for ya.

Have a new model Envoy with XM built in but no AUX port. They make a kit called an AUXBOX that gives you red and white RCA. Then you just do like you said with the RCA to headphone....except I paid extra and had a clean dash port installed. Now can hook any device up that has a headphone port. Much easier than carrying all of my cd's around and fumbling with them!

Hmmm..
Can now watch DVD's on the laptop and jack in and have the sound on the car stereo. NICE BONUS!

Of course only use the "ZUNE" when out of range of "KGON"!!!!

Little plug their guys!!!!

In my truck ('87 Ford Bronco, diesel engine) I have a factory-stock GM radio/tape player pulled from my Mum's 97 GMC Yukon when she got a new Kenwood a couple years back.......in the Yukon it had a (also factory-stock GM) CD player connected to its Auxillary port.

Now I am listening to SCA on it (and Golden Hours on SAP when I have my other radio connected!)

AM Stereo sure sounds good on that rig, incidentally.

The new system is "GREAT"

The morning drive shows can sometimes get kind of old and not funny at times so this AM I played "Blue collar Comedy III" on the ZUNE over the stereo system. Although I did not watch it and just listened it was GREAT! Did not think I would ever be one to move towards replacing listening to the radio with a media device but I gotta say there will be times when I will fire it up. When KGON is playing music and I am in my vehicle I will still listen to them over it and the "ZUNE". Unlike the IPOD the ZUNE has a built-in FM Radio in it so I can listen to KGON mobile as well. These are great units and I guess from what I here the only drawback is a somewhat shorter battery life than the IPOD. Another feature the "ZUNE" has that I do not beleive the IPOD has is that it imports the album art as well. When a song plays it displays the album art....I know not necessary but kind of cool though. Also the ZUNE plays all video in a sort of wide screen as the display is rectangular instead of square and you turn the unit sideways for vid playback. Check them out...pretty nice!

Re: the "ZUNE"~

Isn't that Creative's MPEG3 system? And if it is, how much memory does it have, Flash or Hard drive, AA or AAA batteries or proprietary (i.e. nonstandard) battery, compatibility with Win98 and Mandrake?

Just wondering, because I am trying to find a device to supplement the CD player and it seems
memory type (hard drive players wouldn't hold up well while doing BMX, so flash is really my only reliable option)
batteries (if it's a rechargeable and it dies it would be merely dead weight...not fun in the middle of a run and your Muzak dies)
and OS (has to be easily upgradeable to the open-source Rockbox)
are the main things preventing this from happening.

*looks up toward the sky* Hopefully some nice engineer in this screwed-up tech industry has produced something standard, or is planning to do so........

I would appreciate any help/information I can get! And B.T.W., Apple I-Pods are NOT an option at all for me because not only do they not meet the standards I described above, I really have no interest in owning and using any Macintrash-based device, period.

"I do not beleive the IPOD has is that it imports the album art as well."

iPod's do handle the artwork. The first iPods didn't, but that was 6 years ago.

Moto ... even Microsoft no longer supports Win98. It is unlikely you are going to find devices in the future that support it.

Here's a device that probably debuted at CES this week:

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/11/23/wizpy_linux_media_player/

Good luck. The auto industry has accepted iPod integration on a large scale, and analog audio inputs to factory systems and after market systems are common, but I have read zero about the mobile electronics industry embracing Linux.

Zune is made by Microsoft! 30gb storage....flash style I beleive.

Take a look on their site or just google for specs:
http://www.zune.net/en-US/meetzune/

Ah, I'd forgotten Radio-Locator. It seems much improved since I last looked at it.

It recommended 98.1, and searching on that freq found the nearest non-LPs are Seaside, Seattle, Spokane. Looks good. But then I realized that's outside the range of both my SoundFeeders (stuck below 89.5). That leaves 87.9 (on the edge of ch.6).

90.3 and .5 weren't recommended by R-L but look kinda promising for Portland. I hadn't had much luck down there, however, and must therefore presume an overactive AFC is snagging 90.1 (Salem) or KBOO.

Will have to get out to the truck and give one of those two freqs another try. It still has a deck and I found my old cassette adapter which works fine, but if left connected the wire betrays the presence of an inviting accessory (in my case, a MiniDisc player) to outside view. (Well, so does a feeder in the corner of the windshield near the antenna.)

I originally got these gizmos to get signal from my SW portable to my desk receiver (and thereby my computer), as connecting anything other than my marginal outside antenna introduces more RFI. (The antenna, stapled semi-hidden under the eaves of the apartment adjacent to phone and TV cable, brings in tons of RFI, but a shade more signal.)

My aunt moved her stereo console away from the TV (there's now a doorway between), so my plan to connect the CD/DVD player I gave her to it became a proposition of cabling over the door (which she won't have, even white Cat3), drilling holes in the floor (nope), splitting and regluing the joint in the carpet at the doorway--or SoundFeeder. Though she's been happy enough to hear CDs on her TV, I hate to see the handsome vintage Electrohome become just a piece of furniture.

I thought this white-and-grey thing I'd gotten at Freddy's called "SonicImpact" was more powerful than the brand-name SoundFeeder (and it also has a jack for ext. 3v) but discovered it's "secret" of greater clarity is that it doesn't radiate a stereo subcarrier.

Anyone have any luck with these carrier-current in-house gizmos sold with the GE name on them? (The GE logo doesn't mean "made by GE" any more, and I have some doubts about about how trustworthy these cheap imports' isolation from line voltage might be.)

I just bought a Zune at Christmastime. The Zune itself isn't too shabby. The Zune software sucks on toast. Microsoft needs to make the software a bit snappier and simpler to use.

Jeffreykopp:
My Sirius receiver has only limited choices at the low end of the band, and I have been using 88.1. But since KBVM 88.3 has increased power, even this frequency is a problem when I get close to Portland.

I would bet that the R-L frequency finder does not take into account CH 6... 87.9 is a terrible frequency to use in this area.

I doubt if 90.3 will work well because of KZRI on 90.3 (EMF Welches) which puts a decent signal into the Portland area from a site near Timberline Lodge. It is only about 250W but is vertical polarization, so it hits most car antennas quite well.

You might discover a hole at 89.5, but this is because KPFR (Family Stations Pine Grove) which also transmits from the Mt.Hood site appears to be off the air (again, like they were last winter). This condition will not last very long, last winter they were off for about 2 months. This is great for me, as I am now hearing KTCB Tillamook (89.5) which repeats KMUN, Astoria, and my favorite Sat. night folk program (Shady Grove) has just started.

I have pretty much concluded that "hard wire" is the only way to go for an auto stereo add on.

There is also the cassette adapter. On most all decks, these things perform really well.

Somebody needs to invent a CD adaptor.

You could add a power amplifer to the FM transmitter adapter to overcome the noise, HD insects, band clutter and other interference.

Ya want to hear something interesting along these similar lines?

A couple of summers ago (2005, I think.....it was about the time I actually had a few dollars in my pocket) I bought a couple of the Belkin Tune-Cast II boxes at Border's.......popped both open, fired up the solder iron and attached a longer (and better) antenna to the devices than the little blue lead bundled within the headphone plug-in cable.

Both were powered off 12-volt AC adaptors (salvaged...they drain AAA's incredibly quickly) and signal fed from the line-outs of my VCR tuned to Golden Hours on channel 10.........thus effectively enabling me to set up a little makeshift "experimental" FM from my basement on 102.5.......needless to say I could transmit Golden Hours on the regular FM radio for about a good +/- 200 ft or so (probably exaggerating.)

Made the neighbours pissed-off as hell around channel 6 (made it all staticky, and sort-of splattered over onto KINK a little bit.)

But hey, aside from crossing an item off my "50 Things To Do Before I Die" list at least I can have the gratification of saying I had my own "radio station".......even if it was only for a couple days before the modulator in one of the boxes blew!!

Fun times.

A Christmas light display on Sunnyside Road in Damascus broadcasted music on 97.7 (sign out front told people to listen to the lights.)

Here's a study by the NAB on 17 different MP3 FM transmitters. 13 of them were alleged to be in violation of the FCC’s standards. Check out the one by Hobbytron.

http://www.nab.org/xert/corpcomm/NAB_Part15_Study.pdf

I'm hard pressed to have any sympathy whatsoever for broadcasters. The results in the study (I went through the whole thing) are only proof that these devices are within the ballpark and jiggling a few cables during the test could have probably brought the devices within compliance.

It's the age old question "Who paid for the study?"

... and I know all about jiggling a few cables to make proof.

Happy New Year Steve!!

Andy...Hope all is well with you.

GAVE UP ON FM TRASMIT! Installed hard wire and could not be more pleased with that. Thanks for all of the feedback.

Interesting article, the C Crane FMT was one of the few models that was within part 15 specs, but if you look at the reviews on Amazon, at appears that most people have figured out how to crank it up.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/B0000E6I1N/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/10 4-3745945-9658362?ie=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=172282

Steve:

I have read reports like the one you linked above, and the Tune-cast II's were alleged to be in violation as well.

(That's why I think for a temporary, itenerant radio installation, like the Christmas Light Music or a one-timer experimental FM like I had, those things rock.)

Set up your own radio station and play "DJ for a Day" for about 30 bucks!

Though for long-term listening/audio transport it does not even hold a candle to a hard-wired connection.....especially in the truck! (Massive signal overload when SCAing on the truck radio when the SCA is plugged into one of those transmitters and feeding the truck radio--this is a problem hard wired RCA cables have pretty much solved.)

The adapter I use was called an AUX-BOX made by Pac-Audio I believe. It comes with a harness that basically sends it in via the XM channels. It can be switched off by using the CD track up then down combination and it will go back to XM. VERY COOL! No cutting or splicing involved....they make these for most vehicles. Car Toys Jantzen Beach had mine in stock.....took about an hour to install!

Interesting....I have never heard of the AUXBOX system before. Is there a web page for it?

And do you mean it *uses* an XM channel/frequency to transmit and you need an XM receiver to hear it?

Nope. It's like a jumper harness between the XM module and the stereo. When the unit is on it plays whatever comes into it from the RCA cables over XM1 and XM2 and when switched to bypass it allows the regular XM back through.
I believe this is the site:
http://www.pac-audio.com/products/productsCatagory.asp?mmSearch=Auxiliary%20Inpu t