Accent cd player input

you go to

and buy a new am/fm/ cd/mp3 player

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To my knowledge, there is nothing.

If it does have a pair of inputs, that would be the desired route. An adaptor would be needed to drop the headphone outupt to the lower level required for the car stereo. Typically, these adaptors are built into patch cords sold for this purpose.

Failing this, I'd like to see a product that inserts in the antenna line: this is the correct way to do this if you don't have a switched audio input. In other words, a modulator box that plugs into the Hyundai radio's antenna socket.

What such a gizmo does is:

- Generates a carrier wave in the FM band.

- Modulates that carrier wave with an audio signal.

- Generates the subcarrier wave for the left stereo channel and mixes the L+R signal to the main (mono)channel plus left-only to the left channel. This multiplexed signal is then pulled apart in the car radio. This is what the present commercial devices do, only they add more power and an antenna to transmit this signal for a short distance.

In the device that I'd favor, you'd plug the antenna into the new contraption. This would be nice and tidy -- the amount of power that this would consume would be so minute that it could be hard-wired into the car's supply -- such as in the radio or the cigarette lighter line. The device could be tucked behind the dashboard.

Logically, too, there'd be one physical switch so that you could go back and forth between the antenna feed and the external sound source -- this would be the only thing that would require a neat installation: one switch. The sound source could be anything with a headphone output -- MP3 player, Ipod, CD player, industrial radio scanner -- whatever. Strange thing is that I don't think that I've seen a product like this. I recall that some years ago, there was some sort of product that inserted into the antenna line; I just can't recall what it was. Perhaps it was a simple antenna amplifier.

I'm seeing the little transmitter gizmos here and there. But what's not so sensible is that the only reception point for the car stereo is the antenna that's _outside_ the car. The steel roof posts and body panels will block most of the signal from those things, so reception could be poor from the transmitter to the radio that's right next to it.

Richard

Are you talking about something like this?

Tom Debski

Bingo!

That's exactly it. The concept is perfect. What we still don't know is:

- Is the thing any good?

- Can you tune it to a blank spot on the dial in your area?

- How is it powered? Batteries would be a bummer.

- Is it designed to be easily fastened to something?

- Is the switch on the end of a cord and can you mount it in an accessable spot in the Hyundai? (Hint: in my 2000 Sonata, a logical place is in the blank switch bank by the accessory socket).

- Is it sensitive to interference? (This really should not be a problem).

- Does it generate noise of its own?

- Does it provide some way to adjust for the output level of the player? (it probably doesn't, so you'd adjust the volume on the player itself -- my experience with my new MP3 player sounds like this should not be an issue -- the sound of the unit is surprisingly clean, that is, given that MP3 robs fidelity from the music no matter how good the encoding is set).

- What part of China is it made in? (The good part or the bad part?)

And, finally: Who wants to buy one of these to try it and give the rest of us a report?

Richard

By the way, I just fired off your link to my friend Gary. He's got himself a couple of Mopar 70s muscle cars with AM radios. He found a factory Motorola AM/FM on eBay for a whopping $200.

The thing was prounounced DOA by the tech at a car stereo shop. I gave the controls a hell of a cleaning, applied preservative, cleaned the filthy wires (someone had just cut the leads really short and filthy). And the thing sounds good-as-new. The surprise was how good the old geezer radio sounds on FM, and especially the AM. I estimate the output power at about 3.5 watts, which is plenty in a car.

Hopefully, he'll be able to play CDs in his Dodge Dart. Cool.

Richard

This type of device may have been more popular in the past, I think I even remember seeing one in Radio Shack a decade ago. I've had an in-line modulator installed on my motorcycle as part of the CD changer for 10+ years and never noticed a FM signal reduction or noise. I don't remember if I hot wired it to the battery or if the power is delivered in the cable with the audio. I think there is a choice of three frequencies and I've travelled across the country with it set to 89.1 with no problem. Here's a selection from ebay.

Tom Debski