Basically I wanted my iPod to play music in the car instead of listening to the radio and commercials.
Went to Best Buy and found this Belkin Tunebase that did NOT need to be plugged with the car charger to work (I use GPS as well).
I didn’t want to go too cheap and have to plug it in, nor too expensive so that I’d have to cry every time I played my iPod.
This apparently works by overpowering a staticky radio station frequency and putting your music there instead via a little device at the bottom of your iPod.
Kind of cool and I wanted to see how it worked in real life, not theory.
There was another version in Canada that didn’t give us the cradle. All it gave me was the Tunebase piece you see at the bottom and the car charger piece. No cradle.
That saved me $30 not having that cradle, and it is a good time to try this thing out while I am driving an hour and a half on the road and switching many cities.
Their Blurb
Belkin’s TuneBase FM provides an exceptional, all-in-one solution by seamlessly integrating an FM transmitter, car power adapter, and base that secures your iPod and features an innovative, flexible-steel neck for easy repositioning. TuneBase FM also features ClearScan technology that quickly scans to ensure you’re accessing the best available frequency with one touch of a button. Now you can always have clear, crisp sound when listening to your favorite tunes.
Features
* Line-out for use with car-stereo inputs or cassette adapter
* Integrated auto power charger to charge your iPod
* PRO setting optimizes audio and boosts volume
* Antenna integrated into flexible neck
* ClearScan technology to scan for the best available frequencyIn the box
* Belkin TuneBase FM
* Multiple cradles to support different iPod models
Anyway.
I read up on it, and on the Apple site I heard a lot of negative feedback about it, saying how it was too staticky and how it kept coming in weird.
First Test
Plugged it in.
It didn’t work, or so I thought.
FB: What the hell?
I can still hear the radio station. I WANT MY MUSIC!
I must be doing something wrong.
*insert fumble for instructions*
Forgot instructions in my hotel room.
Realized I was taking cue from men in general by not bringing instructions with me or reading through the manual carefully before trying it out.
Cursed as I ran back to the hotel room to get the instructions.
Realized I needed a STATICKY radio station frequency that the iPod could overpower and play through that station.
Ah-hah moment.
Found a staticky radio station.
It seemed to work fine, except for (ironically) when I played Janet Jackson’s – “Feedback”. I got a LOT of feedback and static noise.
I tried angling it differently, placing it differently, wondering if my movements would affect it.
Looked like it was OK. Turned it off, happy that it runs on my iPod power instead of the car charger.
Second Test
Actually put the thing to use.
Kept getting staticky on some songs even though it was clear on others, but the static would come in and out intermittently.
I wondered why.
By accident, I passed my hand over the iPod. It got clearer.
I removed my hand. It went staticky.
I repeated this exercise about 15 times to make sure I wasn’t crazy.
Realized that if it’s on the dashboard facing up it doesn’t seem to like being on the bottom, or it wants a little tent made up for it to block the frequency if it’s on the dashboard.
For a fleeting moment, I wondered if I would get cancer from all these invisible frequencies being pushed towards my body, because if I was able to block the frequencies from reaching my iPod, the frequencies must be all over the place!
Then I understood that other frequencies (or some other magical force fields) were interfering with the signal the Belkin was trying to push out towards the radio station.
So I placed my iPod into that little section where people throw change and gum just underneath the console of the car.
Worked perfectly fine after that.
Drove all the way to work (about an hour) and tested the thing out. Seemed to be OK.
The real test will be driving to Toronto with it and passing through all the little cities.
Third and Final Test
Drove all the way from Hamilton to Toronto Airport with the thing, and it worked all right. About 80% of the time.
Verdict
I returned it. It just wasn’t worth the $80 with the static problems I kept getting and the having to find a “clear” radio station to hijack with my iPod.
It was too expensive for what it did, kept acting kind of weird and made me wish I had burned a CD instead.
I guess the best thing is that once you get a car, to put in a good radio system that will let you plug in a USB cord or some sort of cord that hooks up to your iPod instead of wasting money on these gadgets that will just frustrate you because you like having DECENT audio quality.
Boo.
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margaret
on Dec 8th, 2008
@ 9:20 AM:
This would only work for people who have an older car that still has a cassette tape player, but I just have an adapter that I used to plug in a CD player before I got my iPod. It goes into the tape player and connects via cord to the headphone jack of my iPod. I got it for $15 at Wal-mart and it’s lasted for over a year with on problems.
stackingpennies
on Dec 8th, 2008
@ 1:11 PM:
Ditto on comment 1. I still have a tape deck, and it works like a charm.
New cars often have ipod plug-ins. But cars that are medium new probably have a CD player, which is becoming obsolete and I don’t know what the solution is there.
Sense
on Dec 8th, 2008
@ 2:06 PM:
Agree w/ Margaret. I used to drive/travel for work LOTS, and went crazy either trying to find a decent radio station in every city I went to, or figuring out a decent MP3 situation. NONE of those FM transmitters worked well for me.
The only things that actually worked was either the cassette dealie (I happened to still have my car cassette setup from my CD Walkman) in my own personal car, or the direct MP3 jack-to-rental car radio jack plugin.
so you either need an older car or a really new one for one of these to work!
Revanche
on Dec 8th, 2008
@ 7:54 PM:
Boo indeed, I was hoping you’d found my xmas gift for BF
marisol
on Dec 9th, 2008
@ 4:53 AM:
I travel a lot for my job so it means that I constantly have my ipod playing in my car. I tried so many different fm transmiters and none of them worked. I finally decided to change the stereo system of my car and have it wired to have ipod access. Best decision I ever made.
If you are going to be in your car for a long time, I highly recommend it.
jack + jill
on Dec 9th, 2008
@ 9:08 AM:
I agree with all three of them. I got the Belkin Tunebase a while back and had exactly the same problems you were describing. A friend told me about the tape deck adapter and I searched everywhere for it and found a discounted one (last one too!) in a computer store! Works like a charm!!
Rufus
on Nov 17th, 2009
@ 3:24 AM:
Well I thinking my tunebase is making the static. On any empty pièce of bandwith i get exactly the same static noise. If it was a question of not string enough signal then the static sound would be different on seperate parts of the bandwidth.
FABULOUSLYBROKE
on Nov 17th, 2009
@ 12:48 PM:
That must be it. It was really quite annoying and I was hoping for a clear sound.
Still, I don't want to have to deal with fiddling with that while I'm driving, so I returned it. Something installed in the car perhaps, would be a better solution!
Amanda Rane
on Jan 30th, 2010
@ 10:55 PM:
Alot of bloggers are not too pleased with this new iPad.There was 2 much hype regarding it and alot people got turned off.You see, I can actually see lots of the cool potential uses of the gadget. Third-party soft for working with music, games, newsprints and magazine and books, all kinds of awesome stuff, but IMHO they failed to sell it very well (aside from the books). It looks kinda undercooked