I need a new FM transmitter for my phone after I threw the last one out of the window out of frustration (ok, I didn’t litter but it went into the WEEE recycling at the first opportunity).

Can anyone recommend one which actually transmits a clear signal to my car’s radio? Most I’ve used are pretty bad, and don’t want to waste more money on rubbish…

I use a Belkin one that seems ok. The trick I found was not to put it next to the radio but rather put it close to the antenna. For me this was at the back of the car so I needed a small extension cable. It after that it was faultless, before that it was pants

Cheers, good tip. Just bought a Belkin as I don’t trust other brands. Paid more than a tenner for it so hopefully it’s half decent!

You’re in glasgow IIRC – you’ll generally struggle with a transmitter as there are almost no free channels, especially if you are going through glasgow and out along towards Edinburgh – there isn’t a free channel that stays free if you’re on the move along that route

Really the solution is to buy a new head unit with a minijack rather than buy a pricier transmitter – the head unit will probably be cheaper.

Many standard fit modern head units can be adapted to accept a line in. Might be worth investiagating?

It’s a bit of a crappy concept tbh. Are you sure you can’t bodge an aux-in for your car stereo? On many you can, by means of the CD changer connection. Sometimes you need to join two pins to fool it into thinking there’s a changer, sometimes you can fit a widget to it, and sometimes you can fit a digital CD changer that takes an SD card, and also provides aux-in. I’ve got one, and despite the company looking like a dodgy Chinese knock-off outfit the device is rather nicely made and it works really well.

What car or stereo is it? I’ll take a look.

I use one of these:

Belkin FM Transmitter

It works pretty well, I set the lowest freq as preset 1 and the highest freq available as preset 2 and just alternate between the two. I rarely find that both frequencies have interference, even when in central London.

Some cars also use the rear demister as an antenna if the don’t have an obvious one (I believe). You can always try comparing putting the transmitter there with in the front before having to hunt out a cable. A new head is a better idea but in my car (Peugeot) it was going to be 100 quid so that was a no goer

I’ve got a Belkin one sitting upstairs. I gave up using the bloody thing when I found that there was hardly anywhere locally I could drive without interference from BBC or commercial radio stations, in particular BBC Wales swamping it when driving to Bristol on the A420, and Bath, by a commercial station. Trying to retune when driving is obviously not advised, so I bought a head unit with direct input.
Such things are really pretty cheap now, and a vastly superior.
Oh, and trying to drive into That London with one is pointless, because of all the pirate stations.

maccruiskeen – yes I’m in Glasgow. So that’s why I have problems getting a good signal!

Our car’s an 02 Civic which is a bit too early for aux in connections. The head unit is the stock Honda one with no memory card or aux in sockets. However I remember seeing a CD changer connection under the passgener seat, but hadn’t thought of using that. Thanks for the tip, I’ll look into that!