Traveling with your Nano - has anyone found a decent FM transmitter?
 

We thought it would be fun to take our Nano on our next road trip, but we have tried 3 different FM transmitters to try to make it work with our car stereo, and none seem to be getting a signal. Two of them were made by Griffin (Itrip) and one by Statix.

CNET gives the DLO Transpod a good rating, but I'd like some feedback from someone who lives in an area with lots of radio stations. Since we live in Los Angeles County, could it be that there aren't enough available frequencies?

Yes, I know this isn't Apple Tech Support, but any help or recommendations would be appreciated. Thanks!

TTT for any techies reading this morning.

I gave up on the FM transmitter and just had a new Alpine CD player with an ipod interface installed. Just talked to nephew in rural Minnesota and he has no trouble with iTrip--so I do believe that these FM transmitters do not work well in urban areas. I live in SF.

We just bought another transmitter at the Apple store - haven't used it yet. The first one didn't work anywhere - out in the boonies or in town.

I have a Monster Cable RadioPlay FM Transmitter, and found it to suffer from static and interference when in heavily populated areas of the East Coast (with lots of FM radio stations). I ended up having an iPod interface wired into my car stereo (CD changer). However, I do find the FM transmitter to be very useful when on a boat in the middle of the Cheseapeake, or when sailing down island -- it lets me effectively bring my entire music collection with me when I travel.

We too have the Monster one from the Apple store, but can't find a frequency high or low on the dial in the NJ/NYC area that doesn't have a station already on it.

No luck around here. :(

Thanks, all. You confirmed what I suspected. (I have also read that if the FM transmitter does work with your car stereo, the quality will only be as good as the radio, whereas if you have it wired into your CD changer, it will be more of the quality of a CD.)

I guess this fun little device is going to cost us lots more $$$. Has anyone had the Harmon/Kardon iPod interface installed in their car stereo? Any other brands I should look out for?

Thanks again!

We tried a few of the FM transmitters but didn't find any to work very well. We finally gave up and bought a Monster Cassette Adapter and it works GREAT!

If you had problems with interference, especially in metropolitan areas with many stations - did you try different frequencies on the transmitter? Most of them offer 4-8 various frequencies in order to find a "less crowded" part of the spectrum.

Yep. Tried all the device offered. Unfortunately in NYC area there are just tons of radio stations which virtually use every frequency available.

We also tried every possible frequency. We would have gotten the cassette adaptor, but our vehicles don't have cassette players. Since we're both due to get new cars in the next few months, we are hesitant to sink major dollars into a permanently installed interface.

I researched a number of aftermarket interfaces and picked the Alpine. I'm very very happy with it--I can choose between unlimited playlists, or artists, or albums, or even songs. I was fortunate (?) because my car was broken into and the CD player was stolen thereby allowing me to install an iPod interface. I had looked at just getting a CD face that had an aux output on the front which would allow me to play my iPod thorough my car system but use the iPod as the control, but eventually decided against it--thought it might be hard to see whilst driving.