Using an iPod with a home or car stereo is easy to do and lets you listen to your iPod’s music in many situations. Perhaps the best way to do this is to use an FM transmitter so you can tune in your iPod’s music on your car radio or receiver’s tuner. If you do this, check out the following pointers:
- Don’t worry about other people being able to listen to your music when you use an FM transmitter. These devices have very limited range. If you are in a vehicle, someone might be able to pick up your iPod station if their vehicle is right next to yours; however, as soon as you separate even a few feet, they will lose the signal.
- Because you move around a lot when you drive, finding a good (meaning never used) FM frequency to use while you are on the road can be a challenge, especially if you are in a large metropolitan area. If a frequency isn’t being used directly, it still might suffer bleed over from stations on other frequencies. If you choose a frequency that is being used or has bleed over, your iPod’s music might be interrupted occasionally. For best results, select a station that you think is unused and listen to it for a while as you drive around. (Yes, you will feel kind of silly listening to static, but hey, it will help in the long run.)
- When you find a good candidate for unused frequency, set one of your radio’s buttons to that frequency so that you can easily return to it. If you use an FM transmitter in more than one car, you might want to set it on the radio in each one.
- Don’t be terribly surprised if you still have occasional static while using FM, even if you find a good unused station. Hopefully, you will be able to find a station where this is a rare occurrence, but it is likely to happen once in a while. If you can’t find a frequency/transmitter combination that works satisfactorily, try using wires or the cassette adapter method instead.
- Remember that as you move among different areas, there are different radio frequencies being used. You might have to use different frequencies in the different areas in which you drive.
- iPod can be a dangerous when you are driving, just be careful. Your life and your car is more valuable than your iPod. If you ignore this last advice, the all my condolences to you.
If there is one dangerous topic in this blog, this is it. Playing around with an iPod while you are driving is not a good idea. It is very easy to get focused on the iPod instead of where you are going, and your day can suddenly be ruined, even an aztec ruins would look better than your car. To practice safe iPodding while you are on the road, consider the following tips:
- Choose the music to which you are going to listen while you are stopped. The iPod’s screen is just not large enough to be able to see it clearly and look around you at the same time. Choosing music is at least a one-hand and two-eye operation. That doesn’t leave much left for driving. So fire up your iPod, connect it to the radio with a cassette adapter or configure the FM transmitter, choose your music source and play it, place your iPod in its holder, and then drive.
- Consider creating playlists for driving. You can make these long enough so that you never have to change the music that is playing while you drive.
- If you must fiddle with your music while you drive, at least use a remote control. You can’t change the music source with these devices, but you can change the volume, skip to the next song, and so on.
- Remember that you don’t need to change the volume on the iPod itself. Set it at a mid-level and leave it alone. Use your car radio’s controls instead.
- Keep your iPod secure, as explained in the previous section. Nothing is more distracting than the thought of your precious iPod flying around the car as you drive. If that does happen, remember that fixing you and your car (plus other people) will cost a lot more than a new iPod would!
- Remember the road rule of the day: Road first, music last.
Finding a good spot to place your iPod in your car is probably the most difficult part of using an iPod in a car. You need the iPod within arm’s reach, but you don’t want it sliding around or falling off the dash. So, you want it close to you, but you want it held firmly too. Let’s see, what is designed to keep something in place, but needs to be close enough to reach? Yep, you got it. A cup holder. It is likely that you have one or more of these near your radio and within your arm’s reach. The odds are that one of these is the best place to keep your iPod while you are driving. You can just drop the iPod in a cup holder.
Depending on the size and configuration of the cup holder and the size of your iPod, this might work just fine. However, in most cases, you should put your iPod in a holder or case before doing this to protect it from scratches and to keep it from bouncing around.
If you want to have the ultimate in carrying an iPod in a car, check out the Belkin TuneDok Car Holder for iPod. This outstanding gadget holds your iPod securely, enables you to change its height for better visibility, has wire clips to keep your wires out of the way, and works in almost any type of cup holder. The $29.95 investment is well worth it if you use an iPod in your car regularly (or even infrequently).
If you want to use an iPod mini in your car, it is a bit more difficult to hold it securely. The cup holder method is still your best bet, but it is likely you will need to add something else to keep it from moving around.
You can also power and charge your iPod while you are on the road by obtaining and using an auto power adapter. These devices plug into the 12-volt power outlet that is available in all cars (in the old days, this used to be where the cigarette lighter was installed). There are many of these devices available, and as you learned earlier in this chapter, some connection kits include them.
You can also use an FM transmitter to broadcast your iPod’s output. Then, you use your car’s tuner to tune into the frequency you are broadcasting on. At that point, you can play your iPod and listen to its output over your car radio.
A couple of the connection kits described are especially useful because they include a cassette adapter. These devices look like a standard cassette, but they also have a wire coming from them that ends in a mini-jack. You connect this plug into the iPod’s Headphones port. You then insert the cassette into a standard cassette player that is installed in many cars and use the car stereo’s controls to play it.
When that is done, you can control the music from the iPod, just as if you were listening to it with headphones.
After you have installed or connected the components necessary to send your iPod’s output to a home receiver, listening to your iPod’s music is as simple as simple gets (however simple that is). On the receiver, select the iPod source, such as an Aux input or the FM tuner tuned to the frequency on which you are broadcasting your iPod’s output. Then use the iPod controls to play the music and use the receiver’s controls to set the volume level. Typically, you should leave the iPod’s volume set at a mid-range point when using it with a home receiver. That prevents any distortion that might occur when the iPod is using its maximum output level.
Using an iPod in this way is no different than other sources, such as a standard CD player.
You can use an FM transmitter to broadcast your iPod’s music on standard FM radio frequencies. Then, you can tune in the frequency on which you are broadcasting on any receiver, such as the tuner in your stereo system’s receiver, to listen to your music.
Choosing an FM Transmitter
In order to broadcast an iPod’s output over FM, you need an FM transmitter. For help choosing, configuring, and using an FM transmitter.
Broadcasting iPod Music
Depending on the type of FM transmitter you use, setting up an iPod and FM transmitter so you can tune in your iPod’s music requires from little to no work. You simply plug the transmitter into your iPod’s Headphones port and play your iPod. Then, you set the tuner you are going to use to listen to the same frequency over which you are broadcasting your iPod’s output.
Pros: Easy to use an iPod with any audio device that can receive FM; simple setup and use; no messy wires.
Cons: Subject to interference; it can be difficult to find an unused FM station in a metropolitan area.
The best way to connect an iPod to a home stereo is to first use a Mini-jack to RCA cable to connect a Dock to the stereo and then use the FireWire cable to connect the Dock to the power adapter. Then, you can connect the iPod to the stereo by simply placing it in the Dock. When connected, your iPod also charges, so you don’t have to worry about running out of battery power.
Pros: Easy setup; clean installation because you don’t have loose wires—once it’s set up, you only need to have the Dock exposed; easiest to use because you connect the iPod to the stereo by placing it in the Dock.
Cons: Relatively expensive because to be practical, you need to have a Dock and power adapter dedicated to this purpose, which means buying at least one more Dock and power adapter or purchasing Apple’s Connection Kit.
To connect an iPod to a stereo receiver, simply plug the mini-jack end of a Mini-jack to RCA cable into the iPod’s Headphones port. Then connect the RCA connectors to the audio input ports on the receiver.
Pros: Easy setup; inexpensive.
Cons: Somewhat messy because you need to have a cable connected to the receiver, whose input ports typically aren’t accessible, so you leave the cable connected and “loose”; you need a separate power adapter and cable to charge the iPod while using it with the stereo.
You can connect your iPod to your stereo system using cables that are very similar to those you use to connect other audio components, such as a lowly CD changer. After you have connected the iPod to your amplifier/receiver, you can listen to it just like that CD changer.
The only challenge to this is choosing and connecting the proper cables to get the output of your iPod connected to the input of your receiver. Fortunately, this isn’t all that challenging. You just need a cable that connects the Headphones port on your iPod to an audio input port on your home stereo receiver. In most cases, you need a cable that has a stereo mini-jack on one end and two RCA connectors on the other end. The mini-jack goes into the Headphones port on your iPod, while the RCA connectors go into the audio input ports on your home stereo’s amplifier/receiver. If you choose any of the kits described earlier in this chapter, you have everything you need to connect your iPod to a home stereo. If not, you will need to purchase the components you need separately.
There are two basic ways to connect an iPod to a home stereo using wires: You can connect the iPod directly to the cables or you can use a Dock. Each method has its pros and cons.
