markpy

I'll be doing some driving in the Loire and would like to have my ipod for music during the drive. Unfortunately the rental car does not have a cassette and this precludes me from using my cassette adapter. Will an FM wireless adapter work in France and permit me to listen to my ipod through the car's audio system?

lvktravel

The adapter that we use in the states is against the law in Germany and more then likly in France. It will work, but you are taking a chance. I posted a question about this just a couple of weeks ago under Germany. My brother was in Germany last week and he was able to pick up an adapter for about $42.

AGM_Cape_Cod

We took our FM wireless adapter to France last year for use with our iPod. The way our adapter works is that you tune it to a frequency that doesn't have a signal and the iPod plays on that frequency. The Renault that we rented would not tune to an unused frequency. We even stopped at a Renault dealership and asked in our halting French. I am sure that the guys went home and said 'you can't believe what those crazy American came in and asked for today.' It might just be a problem with the Renault though. Let us know how you make out.

kerouac

Some of my recent rental cars had an MP3 plug next to the CD player.

But there is also something known as a radio which might be of interest for listening to music in a foreign country, rather than "your" music brought from home.

walkinaround

>>>>>
But there is also something known as a radio which might be of interest for listening to music in a foreign country, rather than "your" music brought from home.
>>>>>

i think you will be happier with "your" music from home. i have very bad memories of a certain 50-cent song that was played about every 10 minutes on most of the available radio stations during a very long car trip in france a while ago. if you don't like radio at home (and people increasingly don't), then chances are you will not be happy with it in france either.

celticdreams

I've used my FM wireless adapter in Germany, England and Italy with no problem. If you don't have one yet, I highly recommend getting one with the most possible frequencies. I've found that, in these countries at least, they use the low end frequencies more than we do. My first adapter only had 5 choices of frequencies and it was hard to keep it on just one frequency that had little or no signal. I upgraded and had no problems.

kerouac

Wow, walkinaround, that's really amazing since there are only about 3 or 4 radio stations in France that would play 50-cent regularly (NRJ, Skyrock, Fun Radio, Le Mouv'), plus no song is played more than once an hour, and also there is a law in France that a minimum of 50% of the programming must be in French, so you must have been traveling in an alternate universe.

walkinaround

kerouac, thanks for the detailed explanation but obviously, i was exaggerating. that song was played over and over with such frequency that it was a lasting memory of that trip. i have never heard a song repeated so often in two weeks anywhere else in the world.

maybe it's the product of the xenophobic quota system that you describe...they fill most of the available english language time with their favourite song of the moment. anyway, most of my trips to france are now business related and do not involve car travel so i am spared from the radio.

prolepsis

I have clearly misunderstood something here. A system that permits 50% foreign language programming would be xenophobic, while the use of canned music brought from one's home country would not be?

walkinaround

listening to music stored on one's own ipod = personal free choice

requiring a quota of home language programming/journalism/art = xenophobia. much of the world's programming/art/journalism is in english as this is the world's language. even some programming/art/journalism produced by the french is in english. if there is demand, someone should be able to create a station that broadcasts entirely in spanish, arabic, english or whatever.

anyway, the internet is the saving grace for those who live in countries that don't allow freedom of the press. broadcast media is becoming irrelevant. governments like china and france can easily control traditional broadcast media with a heavy hand but the internet is more difficult to control (although they try). over the internet people can get what they want with less government imposed restrictions.

kerouac

There are plenty of stations in France that broadcast in Arabic, Tamazight, Portuguese, Mandarin, etc. But I do enjoy the wild abandon of putting China and France in the same basket; it is a great indicator of the level of political analysis involved. North Korea, anyone?

annhig

Anyone cracked how to get the cricket commentary on the radio in mainland europe yet?

kerouac

BBC longwave? You can pick it up on the LW/GO band in most of France.

annhig

it was a joke!

Tulips

I think you should do a France playlist, with Piaff, Aznavour, Patricia Kaas etc, so you don't have to listen to any French boybands and such, but still get into the right mood for driving in France. I can just picture myself driving along the Corniche in a convertible, listening to Charles Trenet's La Mer.

kerouac

Wow - totally out of date! There are no more French boy bands. The last one died out at least 5 years ago. There is quite a bit of interesting French music available to non xenophobic listeners, however. And let's not forget that France is the capital of world music, from all of the continents of the world. Uh-oh, I forgot -- English is supposed to dominate world culture, and if one disagrees, one is a retrograde Chinese communist. Can't we all get along and eat some freedom fries?

markpy

I'm the person who originally sought information about using the i-pod in France. I don't know why certain people came to the conclusion that I wanted to bring the i-pod with me on vacation to listen only to American music. I happen to have in my i-pod at this time music by Cabrel, Serge Lama, George Brassens, Jean Ferrat, Lara Fabien and even some Québecois singers not to mention the Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, Mozart and Beethoven. Plus, I have the possibility of uploading
whatever new music I purchase in France into the i-pod. The person
who spoke about choice said it best. Indeed, we must now cry out not just "Vive la différence!" but also "Vive la plénitude!"

walkinaround

>>>>
And let's not forget that France is the capital of world music, from all of the continents of the world.
>>>>

i haven't forgotten. in fact, i'm listening to souad massi (algerian living in paris) right now. she sings in arabic, french and english...i can only imagine the crusty civil servant trying to categorise each song to see if it can be used to meet the french language quota. laughable and hardly a suitable approach for today's world where you can hear more than 10 languages in a short walk around london or paris, much of the US speaks spanish, almost all asian businesspeople outside of japan speak english, etc, etc. let the french government worry about quotas and trying to catagorise art, literature, journalism, etc into languages silos whilst the rest of us get on and enjoy this multicultural world with more international exchange of art, culture, etc than ever before in the history of the world.

as for xenophobia, it's ironic that the "enlightened" multiculturalists on this board would be appalled if an english speaking nation like the US, UK or australia initiated a quota system to minimise foreign language broadcasts. it would certainly be seen as a xenophobic attack (as it should) on people who don't fit into the neat world of those who speak the native language exclusively.

i'm surprised that anyone would disagree that english is the dominant language in the world. i've worked in about 20 countries and have visited many more and this is certainly news to me. i also work around the world with french people who use english to conduct business in almost every european country outside of france, asia and wherever else we end up working. learning english allows people from all countries to better participate in world culture, business, science, etc. i have to laugh when people from native english speaking countries get "enlightened" and want to "protect" the world from the evils of english. meanwhile, most people from non-english speaking nations (especially smaller ones) welcome the opportunity to participate in the world outside of their country by learning the world's language. good luck to the frenchman who wants to speak french in european countries outside of france, asia, and non-french speaking african countries. he won't get very far.

you can also skip the "freedom fries" argument. besides being predictable, irrelevant and yawn inducing, i am not even from the US so you can direct your "freedom fries" witch hunt elsewhere.

Nikki

One of the things I really enjoy about traveling is listening to music from other countries and in other languages; however, driving in the French countryside it was very frustrating trying to find anything other than American pop music on the radio. I had heard of the law requiring a certain percentage of French language programming, but I did not see how that could be true on the stations I found. In any event, even if only 50% was American pop music, that's much more than I want to hear, especially on vacation.

It is another story in Paris, which has such a wonderful variety of radio stations that I entertain myself during periods of insomnia by listening to each station I find, no matter what language or type of programming, and switching every few minutes until something really grabs me.

I have found a couple of French stations that I really enjoy, including a jazz station from Paris and a community station from Albi, and I listen to those on my computer at home.

When I hear something I really like, I google the lyrics, try to find the CD on Amazon, and buy it. I have made up CDs mixing these things and that's what I listen to in the car. If I had an ipod, I would take it in a heartbeat to cover over those stretches of road where local radio is unappealing.

robjame

<<multiculturalists on this board would be appalled if an english speaking nation like the US, UK or australia initiated a quota system to minimise foreign language broadcasts>>

Be careful of overgeneralizations and assumptions...Canada has a Canadian content law regarding radio broadcast. Perhaps there is more to do with size than multiculturalism.