Listening to a podcast in the car

**ScratchMonkey** · 06-22-2009, 02:23 PM

I've recently encountered a podcast I'd like to listen to, and the only time I really spend any time listening to audio-only media is in the car. So what's a good setup for doing that? What hardware do I need in the car to listen, that can accept the download from the author's site?

(The podcast is http://www.epicshardz.net/ which is from my WoW Horde guild.)

**Grunt 70** · 06-22-2009, 03:20 PM

I've been contemplating this very issue and for me I'm looking at replacing my car audio with a receiver that has an auxilary audio port. This allows you to plug your mp3 player into the radio and play your mp3 player through the car audio speakers.

The other alternative is to download the podcast and copy it to a cd...which can be played in the car cd player.

Someone else will post something more tech advanced I'm sure but I like to keep it simple :-)

**Spulat** · 06-22-2009, 03:26 PM

THough I havent tried it personally, streaming the podcast through your phone and plugging he heaphones into the AUX jack on the receiver would be the ideal setup. Same for streaming radio, as poor quality as it typically is (128kb or less)

Also, if you do download and save them, the USB ports on these headunits work pretty darn well. I have a JVC with an AUX jack and a USB port, and all I do is plug my G1 in and mount as a drive and viola. I can listen to my music and charge my phone too.

**peardog** · 06-22-2009, 05:27 PM

Originally Posted by Spulat

Also, if you do download and save them, the USB ports on these headunits work pretty darn well. I have a JVC with an AUX jack and a USB port, and all I do is plug my G1 in and mount as a drive and viola. I can listen to my music and charge my phone too.

USB sounds like the way to go... Disposable content and easy to rewrite and reuse... Beautiful!!

**jmaker** · 06-22-2009, 06:31 PM

Are you looking for an FM transmitter? I have something similar to this.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1218076080429

Just plug your player into the transmitter and match the station to whatever you have it set to.

**=Sarc=** · 06-22-2009, 08:10 PM

If you don't have an AUX jack, the FM transmitter is a pretty good solution. It's probably the next cheapest solution to the AUX jack. Try to find one that can select a frequency in case one station is already in use in your city.

**Anospa** · 06-22-2009, 08:54 PM

The FM transmitters work great, when they work. I can't find a station to use where I normally drive that will stay consistently clear throughout my whole time on the road. Hopefully you have more clear airwaves or a better FM transmitter than I did, then you should have no issues!

**ScratchMonkey** · 06-23-2009, 07:04 AM

The FM transmitter sounds promising. I have a 2005 Dodge Neon with the stock AM/FM/CD radio and don't know how much of an investment it would be to replace the radio with one with an aux jack.

**ScratchMonkey** · 06-23-2009, 07:13 AM

This FM transmitter, the iRiver AFT 100, looks very promising, only $12:

http://www.amazon.com/iriver-AFT-100.../ref=pd_cp_e_1

Now what's a good inexpensive MP3 player? I don't need video, and small and cheap would be the things I'd look for. After that might be capacity, perhaps using a microSD card or USB or Bluetooth to send it the data.

**=Sarc=** · 06-23-2009, 07:29 AM

If you're adventurous, you can try out this:
http://dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.10436

It's $15 for a transmitter and player. You can even hook up a MP3 player to it if the 1GB memory isn't enough. It also comes with a remote control.

People have had mixed feelings about Deal Extreme. I've bought from there once and the iPhone earbuds and mini-Bluetooth transmitter both worked. The quality on the earbuds wasn't awesome but it was $4.50.

I'd give it a shot because it's only $15 for the whole thing. Shipping is free but could take a couple of weeks because it's from overseas. I've also heard they are good about sending out replacements free of charge if it doesn't work. Although, sometimes people don't care because of shipping time and they're disappointed with the quality of the product.

**Spulat** · 06-23-2009, 10:37 AM

Originally Posted by ScratchMonkey

The FM transmitter sounds promising. I have a 2005 Dodge Neon with the stock AM/FM/CD radio and don't know how much of an investment it would be to replace the radio with one with an aux jack.

It's a reasonably sound investment seeing that you can remove the radio and put it in another car...

Plus, if it's the stock radio in an '05 Neon... it probably sucks by comparison. I wondered the same thing "if it was worth it" when I had the radio in my Jetta, since it came with the Monsoon system stock and sounded awesome to begin with.

Yeah, a decent aftermarket radio? Just made it sound even better, with the additional options of listening to HD radio and whatnot. Some headunits come with a Bluetooth option for handsfree calling with the celly, and I think some of them accept streaming audio from a device.

Seriously, it's not a big investment. You can get something more than decent if you spend $200 or a little less. The only way you WOULDN'T be making a sound investment, is if you bought a $99 radio. This is the headunit I bought: http://mobile.jvc.com/product.jsp?mo...thId=54&page=1 $159

**ScratchMonkey** · 06-24-2009, 08:41 AM

I took a closer look at my car and it has the AM/FM/single-CD radio. My older vehicles (pre-1990) had a fairly standard cutout for a sound system, and this thing is huge in comparison. (It's gotta have room for display, knobs, channel buttons, and the CD slot.) So is there a standard these days for the dash cutout? How would I even start to select a replacement? (I've not been into the car radio section of a stereo store in a long time, and my most recent visits were just to drool at the navigation systems that mount on brackets on top of the dash, perhaps 2 or more years ago.)

I'm not a big audiophile, but I wouldn't mind having satellite radio just for the greater selection of stations. And with an MP3 capability, I could grab stuff off the net to listen to. My biggest gripe with off-the-air radio is I don't have my TiVo "instant replay" button to listen again to something I just missed, like the beginning of a news story or something that was playing that I had to mute while I pulled up to the drive up window somewhere.

**CingularDuality** · 06-25-2009, 05:50 AM

Originally Posted by ScratchMonkey

My biggest gripe with off-the-air radio is I don't have my TiVo "instant replay" button to listen again to something I just missed, like the beginning of a news story or something that was playing that I had to mute while I pulled up to the drive up window somewhere.

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_130XMP3...p3.html?tp=897

I'm not sure how good the software/programming is, but this has the capability of recording up to a hundred hours of audio. If it's able to, say, record my favorite morning show every day and keep the ten most recent episodes, then I'm sold and will be subscribing to satellite radio in the next year. If it's not able to record a recurring episode, or able to pause and rewind "live" radio like my DVR, then I'm not interested.