icblog

My Jeep has been in the Shop for a week now, so I’ve been driving a rented Sunfire. This left me with one small problem. How do I listen to the runes on my ‘Pod in this car which provides no direct (aux) input on the radio’s front panel. I’m pretty sure that most rental companies frown upon user modifications of the factory radios, so i was left with finding an alternative. Headphone listening is not safe, so that’s out. My cassette adaptor would have come in handy, but most rental cars these days have built in CD players rather than cassette decks the one I rented was no exception.

This left me with only one option, and FM transmitter. I’ve recommended these to friends before and I thought I knew a bit about the subject. Rather than follow my own advise and do a bit of research over lunch I when directly to Radio Shack and picked up an irock Wireless Music Adapter.

The irock isn’t a bad unit, it operates over 4 FM frequencies (88.1, 88.3, 88.5, 88.7 MHz) on 2 AAA batteries that see to last a while. I have a few issues with the unit, most of them can be worked around.

• Limited frequency selection - in NYC suburbs , this can be a bit of a problem.
• Limited "Range" - The unit likes to be very close to the radio it’s transmitting to. This is nothing that some velcro attached to the rear of the transmitter and the side of the car stereo won’t fix.
• Sensitivity - this isn’t a bad thing, I’m used to keeping my iPod on 11 when it’s plugged directly into my Blaupunkt. The irock seems to like it at 7 or 8 for optimum sound before clipping it’s input section.

All of that being said, I’m now able to get satisfying sound out of my iPod in a rented car which should come in handy next time I travel and is the subject of my next rant: iPod travel necessities