FM Transmitter for home stereo

[silentC]

I've got an idea to use my old PC and some sort of FM transmitter so that I can take a boom box to anywhere in the house and tune in to MP3s, Internet radio etc. Does anyone know if that's viable and what's available in the way of transmitters. I'm after reasonable quality, but I don't expect HI FI quality of course.

[AV Elec]

I've got an idea to use my old PC and some sort of FM transmitter so that I can take a boom box to anywhere in the house and tune in to MP3s, Internet radio etc. Does anyone know if that's viable and what's available in the way of transmitters. I'm after reasonable quality, but I don't expect HI FI quality of course.

There are heaps on ebay, jaycar, dock smith, etc. make sure you can change the frequency manually because the preset frequency could be used by a local station. This is also necessary when travelling and using it in your car:2tsup:

They often don't have a great range though... How far do you want to transmit it?

[Bleedin Thumb]

This is the next thing in home entertainment - your PC wirelessly controlling the receiver ...TV, stereo, vibrating water bed...

[tameriska]

Well, the wired home tech bed is here (http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23020128-11869,00.html)

[silentC]

There are heaps on ebay, jaycar, dock smith, etc. make sure you can change the frequency manually because the preset frequency could be used by a local station. This is also necessary when travelling and using it in your car:2tsup:

They often don't have a great range though... How far do you want to transmit it?
Yeah I was hoping there might be something a bit more high tech than those little plug in dongles. The missus has just picked one of them up on the way to Wollongong, so I guess I'll give it a try when she gets home. It would be great if it would work out to 10 or 20 metres. I know the little ones are really designed to be used right on top of the receiver.

I had look at Sonos but it's $1,800 or so. That's why I thought of FM because then any radio can be a remote receiver.

[Bleedin Thumb]

Well, the wired home tech bed is here (http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23020128-11869,00.html)


Bloody Hell Bill Gates has stolen another one of my ideas.....

I invented window BTW.:D

[soundman]

there are some 2.4Ghz av senders about that do the job very nicly as long as you place isnt steel or concrete block or internaly sarked in foil.

there are some smaller domestic jobs that go 20 30 metres fine and have fixed antennas, stereo & video and lots of them have a remote control extender as a back channel.

then you can move up the range to the commercial ones that have removable antennae... although some of them are mono.

I had a play with one of those and got 500 metres out of it with 6db antennae and a clear open padock..(1/2 the main straight down at a race track)..... you can do what you like on the reciever but 6db on the transmitter is a bit naughty.

forget anything on the FM radio band....PITA.... and the FM band is pretty full these days.

cheers

[AV Elec]

there are some 2.4Ghz av senders about that do the job very nicly as long as you place isnt steel or concrete block or internaly sarked in foil.


Yeah, 2.4GHz is an option, but you will need a dedicated receiver at the other end, not just use a radio to receive it. It is also becoming pretty full, and they don't like microwaves.

5.8GHz doesn't get effected by microwaves. They are actually illegal to use, however jaycar does sell them...

[silentC]

Yeah I looked at those. It defeats the purpose a bit because I'd have to buy a receiver for every radio in the house.

The one the missus brought home is actually pretty good and you can power it off the USB port, so no need to change batteries all the time. The range is pretty good too. I grabbed my little radio walkman and went for a wander outside last night. Pretty surprising considering the size of it, but it was $70 which is exy for these gadgets. It allows you select any channel in the FM range.

The only problem with it is that the sound quality is not that great when the transmitter is not sitting right next to the receiver as it would be in the car. I get a lot of that whistling sound at night and there's a fairly high level of white noise in the background. It disappears when you turn it up. Certainly not Hi Fi sound, but then I don't expect that.

There's no worries about finding a free FM channel here. That's part of the problem I'm trying to solve - we can't pick up a decent radio station.

I found a transmitter in the US called the WholeHouse FM Transmitter, which gets good reviews, so I might pick one of them up.

[soundman]

Yeh if you but a 2.4Ghz styyem you do need a dedicated reciever.....but most of the systems come as a set of transmitter and reciever..... and lots of the suppliers sell seperate recievers.
the audio (and video) quality on these baby microwave rigs is pretty good if used within specification.

if you arent in inner suburbia and especilay if you don't run a wireless network you shouldnt have tooo much of a problem with finding a slot.

As you have found the performance of the broadcast band FM transmitters is pretty pedestrian......

if you are having difficulty getting good FM reception think about connecting your FM tuner to your TV antenna.... that brings a whole world better signal strength....unless it has been specificly filtered out there will be FM radio in yourTV antenna system. especilay if you have some VHF television in your area.

If AM is the problem you will need to run a seperate coax to the roof and rig a dedicated antenna.....I genelraly use a CB base & whip mounted of a mirror bracket either on the tp of the bast or on a jib off the side.

It will then depend on the reciever what you have to do to get the signal into it.

[silentC]

Yeah it's FM that's the problem. Hadn't thought of the TV antenna - we have both UHF and VHF stations here.

I suppose I could get one of those microwave setups for the back deck sound system and use the FM for the little portables, clock radio etc where quality isn't as important (cause they sound like crap anyway with the pissy little speakers and cheap electronics).

Are they line of sight, or do they work around corners? I know the microwave link we had at Commbank in Burwood was line of sight to a building in the city.

[soundman]

line of sight more or less......thin walls and soft materials dont matter unless you are pushing the range.

Most people don't make the connection between TV & FM radio......most of the FM transmitters are sited at the same places as TV transmitters... which helps.....
If you are close to the transmitters of you have an strongly amplified antenna system you may have to attenuate the FM slot...... but mostly just split it and away you go..........Dont bother with TV/FM diplexors...particulrly the ones on a wall plate thay are as lossy as a straight two way split.

of course you could have two bob each way with the links.
remember you can squirt video with the audio if you want and you can get a remote control extender in the deal too.


cheers

[silentC]

Thanks for the info. :2tsup:

[noodle_snacks]

There are plenty of elaborate solutions here, but what is wrong with an ipod or similar and a dock? Far less complicated, you can choose what you are playing on location, and take it with you wherever. If Internet radio is of particular attraction, use stream ripper and download in advance, or perhaps get a cheap secondhand laptop to play music instead.

[AV Elec]

These look like interesting devices. I have been interested in them since before logitech bought them out.

http://www.lordpercy.com/logitech_wireless_music_system_review.htm

http://www.slimdevices.com/

http://www.cnet.com.au/wireless/streamingmedia/0,239028928,339280539,00.htm

[silentC]

what is wrong with an ipod or similar and a dock?
Too low-tech for me!

No, actually that works fine for being able to take music where you want, but I'm not excited about the sound quality you get out of those things, so I wouldn't want it as the main sound system.

Here is the dream:

I've got a reasonably good amp and a pair of nice mid-sized Mordaunt Short speakers, which is what we usually listen through. At the moment it's just based on a CD player. What I would like to do is add a music server into the system so that I can burn all our favourite CDs on it and set up playlists so that we don't have to constantly change the CDs. The output is still through the stereo, so we still get the good sound.

As an extension of this, I got the idea of connecting an FM transmitter so that we can also listen to it elsewhere in the house, or out on the deck without having to run speaker wires.

Then I thought I could connect the music server up to the ADSL modem so we can listen to Internet radio. And if I take the input for the FM transmitter from a line out from the stereo, we can also tune in to the Austar radio channels and listen to them.

That's how I got to this point. It's part of a larger plan, so the portable/FM business is not the main objective. I'm still working on it.

[noodle_snacks]

The sound quality would most likely be poor because the mp3s on it are of poor quality or because the EQ is turned on (which causes digital cliping).

The former issue is also relevance if you are ripping to play from a PC. I'd suggest either FLAC or LAME set to -V0 --vbr-new with Exact Audio Copy. Its all free.

Your criticisms of the iPod sound quality would also be quite applicable to FM radio. Why not just go with wi-fi and stream your music digitally to where you want it?

You could consider something like this box: http://www.pccasegear.com/prod5534.htm. Or you could probably buy a little 12in laptop for about that cost, and the system requirements for playing audio files are tiny.

Enlightened Sound Daemon is one option for streaming audio over a network, but I don't know what the support is like for your platform.

You can input Austar radio to just about any PC if it has RCA outputs or similar.

[silentC]

I find the little speakers on those things a bit tinny, that's what I was thinking of. They're a bit of a compromise. Yes I realise you lose a fair bit of quality when you rip a CD, which is why I want to keep it all integrated with the stereo so that I can play straight from CD too if I want to. The music server idea is just for parties or when you want background music.

I'm trying to avoid going for anything that requires a special receiver. If I can't do what I want with FM, I'll probably just run speaker cables out to the deck and put some speakers out there and then just use the portable MP3 player and a dock elsewhere. I suppose I'll just have to get used to 10CC and Air Supply on my clock radio if I go that way.

I'm still holding out hope that I can get the FM broadcast thing working satisfactorily so I can use my existing radios to receive.

One thing I've noticed is that PCs introduce a fair bit of interference on radio, I wonder if there is a filter or something I can get for that. It's a sort of low pitched crackling that is only there when the PC is on.

[noodle_snacks]

Fair enough, however if you rip with EAC (to ensure no errors) to FLAC (lossless) you won't loose any quality ripping to the computer, plus you get all the advantages that computer playback has to offer and your CDs don't get worn out, lost or scratched. I rip my cds to FLAC then store the disc away and basically don't use it again. You do have to work around software re-sampling by directx or asio output from your audio player though.

The rest is fair enough, but I would argue that in this day and age that wifi is very common.

If the radio is connected to the PC in some way, then the noise could be an earth loop. The easiest solution is to switch to an optical cable between the PC and radio if thats the case, most other solutions are fairly fangled. The other possible problem could be a crappy soundcard, this would be the case if it didn't go away with headphones on.

[silentC]

I must look into CD ripping a bit deeper. We're only using Windows Media Player at present.

I've seen these advertised on TV: http://www.smarthouse.com.au/Real_Sound/CD_Players_And_Recorders/E4A9D8G6
I gather you need a WiFi transmitter for the PC as well. At $1,300 it's not exactly a budget option (not my budget, anyway).

Yes WiFi is common, apparently, although not in my house. I have had no need for it so far because I like to leave my computer where it is when I knock off. I've got no interest in roaming the house with it. Also, I've got all these FM radios around the place and so I'm trying to work with the technology I've got. I imagine something wonderful will come out one day that does exactly what I want, but I don't even own a plasma or LCD TV, so I'm not exactly the Gadget Guy.

The radio is in the next room. The set up is that I have the MP3 player transmitter connected the sound card line out and it is powered from the USB port, so it is connected to the PC by two paths. If I disconnect the USB and run on batteries, the interference is still there.

Where I can hear the interference is out in the next room when I tune the FM receiver into the MP3 transmitter. I also get the same interference on my walkman radio running on batteries. I haven't tried different FM channels yet, but I will do.

I haven't tried the MP3 transmitter on a different audio source yet either but will give that a shot tonight too and see if I can eliminate the PC as the source, but I'm pretty sure that the interference is coming either from the PC or the broadband modem, because I have the same problem here in my office with my work PC and my FM radio - although admittedly they are on the same power circuit.

The trouble we go to for music... :rolleyes:

[zen monk]

This may be out of your range but it is worth looking at for future reference.

http://www.apple.com/au/airportextreme/

http://www.apple.com/au/airportexpress/

http://www.apple.com/au/imac/

Apple have wifi built into all their machines and it very simple to connect all you electronics via their airportexpress or extreme, even other macs in the house can have access at the same time.

You have access to the largest music library in the world through iTunes (available for Microsoft PCs too) and you can buy one track at a time or the whole album. You will soon be able to download (hire or buy) the latest movies and tv programs. You can watch YouTube, and podcasts etc on your tv. You can rip your CDs into iTunes and play them throughout the house from your Mac, or you can burn your music downloads from iTunes onto CD, easy peasy.

The latest Mac’s can run both Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows, XP and Vista. And it is easy to switch between both if you need to.

In the attached photo you can see a small remote controller that comes with every Mac (on the left), it’s about the size of a small pack of gum. That is the controller for all your music, ipod, tv shows, movies and much more stored on your Mac. There are only 6 controls so even a two year old can use it.

Cheers

["Makin Sawdust"]

Just my 2 bob's worth! I have "built" 2 FM stereo transmitter kits from Oatley Electronics, 1 for myself & 1 for a relative. Each is hooked up to an old PC & transmits beyond the boundaries of the property (normal house block), fair audio quality, certainly better than small FM radios & earphones. I find them quite handy. The kits have prebuilt PCBs & only need to be fitted to the supplied case. Cheers, Les.

[zen monk]

sorry, image did not carry across. I will try again.

[noodle_snacks]

Five bucks says zen monk works for apple

[SilverSniper]

I don't think your aim of having good sound quality, with ripped (loseless) audio, transmitted over the airwaves is achievable.

I'm no audiophile, but I know that good sound starts either a minimum 16bit (cd quality) digital source that is passed through the best possible Digital to Analogue Convertors (DaCs), or an analogue source, then through the most accurate speakers you can afford. Every other component in this process will reduce your sound quality. So if you plan on transmitting wirelessly, then expect reduced quality from the outset, then factor in your interference and your drop outs.. get the picture? (no.... its gone fussy.... wait..)

There are PLENTY of options that don't involve spending big bucks on squeezebox sonos etc. For example someone mentioned one of these units cost $1800. SWEET that will buy a new pair of Paradigm Studio 20 Speakers. Sex on toast. Put them in another room, hook them up to your amp and you have your additional room kitted out with sound. No interfence, plus it sounds fantastic!

If changing CD's all the time is an issue, then using a hard drive head unit to store digital music (like an IPOD) is an option, as is a media PC. As long as you rip your music in a lossless format, I don't think you'd notice much less quality than your CD player. Again, this is not that hard, and connecting these devices to your amp doesn't require expensive special connectors - your amp will have RCA and/or 3.5mm inputs that you could use for this purpose.

Once all that is said, I think you'd get enjoyment out of meeting those goals than trying to convince some whiny, scratchy little transmitter to broadcast music to your amp in an acceptable way. I think one day we may see wireless music servers introduced, but for now there are definitely cheaper, more reliable and ultimately more satisfying ways of achieving those goals.

[zen monk]

Thanks for the $5 Noodle Snacks.

I am retired, and live in a Housing Commission flat, and try to live on a disability support pension. I do not have any where where I can go to do any woodworking unfortunately. The closest I can get to anything that looks related to woodworking is to come here and see what others are doing and be very, very envious.

I do have an Apple iMac and it is brilliant, however I cannot afford broadband so I cannot use the wifi features of my Mac (the iMac requires broadband to download from iTunes music store). I can wirelessly connect to my two printers in my bedroom though, and to other devices if need be.

PM me and I will tell you where you can send me the $5, I need it.

Yours was a very stupid comment. The Macs are brilliant.

[noodle_snacks]

Haha, I use regularly macs as well, I just don't think there is any reason to be fanatical about them. My comment was simply that your post read so much like an advertisement it made me chuckle.

[JD-F]

I agree with Makin Sawdust - I've built two "Micromitters" from Jaycar for myself and my Dad which can certainly cover a large house and yard...They're probably similar to the Oatley units but I think you have to solder the parts in...I don't recall...but good instructions, everything included etc...

The sound quality is as good as any of the other FM stations (and far better than those little plug in ones!)...they're $49.95,

Cheers,

Jesse