Travel Technology - Effective way to play iPod through car stereo?

I was given a Griffin iTrip for Christmas, which after evaluation is going back.

It relies upon the user finding a clear station without static/crosstalk. I don't know whether it's my area, my car stereo or what, but such a station doesn't exist as far as I can tell.

Anyone aware of an option to play iPod through a car stereo that doesn't involve pulling the dashboard apart to put in a hard-wired connection (which I will do but only as a last resort)?

Thanks and Happy New Year.

I think it depends a lot on the strength of the FM transmission. I bought a cheapie FM transmitter for my Ipod and although it only uses 6 different stations I can usually get one to work unless the car next to me is broadcasting on that same station.

My Garmin has a built in FM transmitter that will search for and transmit on a free FM station. With that one I have problems with stations that are no problem with my $14 FM transmitter.

I have the same problem with a Belkin TuneCast II. I can't find a unused station to get a clear connection. My son uses a cassette tape player adapter that has a wire to connect to his iPod and it works fine. Unfortunately my car only has a cd player.

The Monster iCarplay cable has pretty much the most powerful signal of all transmitters I tested. But really; in the end you are better off hardwiring it into the car. Either see about a dedicated iPod interface for the radio or get a Harman Kardon DrivePlay and hook it up to the line-in or use the transmitter with FM modulator so it's hardwired into the antenna. You should be able to get something installed at your local car audio shop for around $200.

Kensington also makes a transmitter for the iPod that scans for open frequencies, but as good as these are, sooner or later you'll be driving and will lose that open spot to some crappy station and will have to scan again.

I was given a Griffin iTrip for Christmas, which after evaluation is going back.

It relies upon the user finding a clear station without static/crosstalk. I don't know whether it's my area, my car stereo or what, but such a station doesn't exist as far as I can tell.

Anyone aware of an option to play iPod through a car stereo that doesn't involve pulling the dashboard apart to put in a hard-wired connection (which I will do but only as a last resort)?

Thanks and Happy New Year.

Depending on your vehicle, it may not be that hard. I put an aux input from PIE into my Silverado last week. Pulling the bezel off the dashboard and popping the radio/cd player out to get at the aux connector only took 30 minutes or so. If all I'd wanted to do was wire a 1/8" jack to plug into my MP3 player, I would've been done inside an hour. I wanted to dress things up a bit, though, and installed a 1/8" female connector in a blank-off plate beside the air conditioning controls. That took some drilling and dremeling, but it came out looking like it was designed that way :)

Buy a Honda Element. It comes with an AUX input that I plug my MP3 player into. Some of the other Hondas and a few other car companies are adding an AUX input that can be controled via the car stereo.

You can also buy a new stereo for your car that has an AUX input built in. None of the transmitter style adapters work very well. So go to your "Last resort" and install a hard wired AUX input.

I commute about 2.5 hours total a day in my car. I listen to the radio for about 2 minutes in the morning to make sure all the roads and bridges are still there. Then I'm off to podcast, books on MP3 and MP3 music heaven. I even get my news via podcast now. Since most news radio is on a loop anyway I'm pretty close to up to date.

Good luck. A new radio may be easier to install than you think.

Buy a Honda Element.


Now there's a solution.

:D :D

Depending on your vehicle, it may not be that hard. I put an aux input from PIE into my Silverado last week. Pulling the bezel off the dashboard and popping the radio/cd player out to get at the aux connector only took 30 minutes or so. If all I'd wanted to do was wire a 1/8" jack to plug into my MP3 player, I would've been done inside an hour. I wanted to dress things up a bit, though, and installed a 1/8" female connector in a blank-off plate beside the air conditioning controls. That took some drilling and dremeling, but it came out looking like it was designed that way :)

Sounds from the other posts that a simpler solution may not be readily available, so I'll probably do something like you suggest above.

What make, model, year and is the radio factory?

Somebody here will know if it's got a cd changer port or something you can just connect it to without tearing it all apart.

Buy a Honda Element. It comes with an AUX input that I plug my MP3 player into. Some of the other Hondas and a few other car companies are adding an AUX input that can be controled via the car stereo.

Over here in Europe it is not particularly well advertised, but many new cars are fitted with a 3.5mm AUX input socket (the same as for most MP3 headphones) that links to the car stereo. So all you need is a 3.5mm male to male lead, which costs next to nothing.

We have two 2005 Fords and the AUX socket is in the back of the pax side glove box, I have mentioned this to a number of folks and a bit of Googling, or a search around the car has found the socket. There is no mention of it in either of our cars manuals, we just had to go hunting.

I havent had time to get organized and get a professional install for an IPOD and Sirius which I want to do. The real problem is that I have been flying almost every weekend ;)

But as an interim solution I got one of the cassette adaptors. It works pretty well, once I figured out that I had to flip the direction of tape play on my unit to get it right (it opted automatically for the wrong tape direction which sounded dreadful).

I swapped out he stereo in my F-150 for a $99 Dual CD player that has an AUX jack that screws into the dash. It won't charge from there, but is a direct line in. I use an iTrip in my Expedition, which works fine once I foudn the right station to broadcast on. I also use an FM modulator for my XM radio, so it took some time to find frequencies that weren't interfering.

I too have a griffin iTrip here in Oz (SYD) and near my house its fine (ish) - but as soon as I drive through the city its crap basically :( I just bought mrssimongr an ipod for Xmas so when she is back to work I migth be looking for a similar solution.

I migth have to hunt out those Aux ports...

I have an iTrip Nano, since I'm too lazy to rewire all 4 of my cars to have AUX inputs, and at least one would require me to disable the CD changer or replace the head unit to free up an input.

What I've found works well is to set the iTrip to broadcast on a non-US frequency (since I'm in the US). 87.5 is what I use, and all 4 of my car stereos (BMW, Porsche, Honda, and Sony after market) can be set to tune to the wider south american or European frequency ranges, which go below 87.9 down to 87.5 or lower.

Since no US station broadcasts on 87.5, I very rarely get any interference.

If your car stereo supports a non-US setting, this may solve your problem.
I agree that using the iTrip on a US frequency is a non-starter, at least in a major metro area like San Francisco.


Bob

I have an iTrip Nano, since I'm too lazy to rewire all 4 of my cars to have AUX inputs, and at least one would require me to disable the CD changer or replace the head unit to free up an input.

What I've found works well is to set the iTrip to broadcast on a non-US frequency (since I'm in the US). 87.5 is what I use, and all 4 of my car stereos (BMW, Porsche, Honda, and Sony after market) can be set to tune to the wider south american or European frequency ranges, which go below 87.9 down to 87.5 or lower.

Since no US station broadcasts on 87.5, I very rarely get any interference.

If your car stereo supports a non-US setting, this may solve your problem.
I agree that using the iTrip on a US frequency is a non-starter, at least in a major metro area like San Francisco.


Bob

Heh, that is a very good suggestion. I cant believe I havent come across it before. Thanks. Time to check the Acura and Alpine in our two cars.

I have a unit for my VW GTI that hooks in to the CD Changer wiring harness and allows me to run my iPod through the CD controls or directly from the iPod. I got it from Crutchfield and really enjoy the sound quality and lack of addition wire running around my console.

Buy a Honda Element.

Or a Toyota RAV4. :)

If you Google...

"itrip hack"

and/or

"hacking the itrip"

...you'll see a number of articles about improving the iTrip.

Cheers,
Geoff Glave
Vancouver, Canada

If you Google...

"itrip hack"

and/or

"hacking the itrip"

...you'll see a number of articles about improving the iTrip.

Thanks gglave. I have a TuneCast and Googled "belkin tunecastii hack" and found this:

http://www.jiggybyte.com/tunecast.php

Simple to add a longer antenna and it works great. ^