What these called - stereo eaphone socket to FM transmit 12v

Sep 30, 2016 17 Replies

I'm looking to improve the stereo audio sound from the TV in my caravan. TV has a stereo earphone socket, the car type radio lacks any external audio input, so I would need to tune into an FM signal. What are these things called please, so I can do a search on Ebay? All I have found so far are bluetooth units.


Don't go there. FM transmitters are just crap.

Just rip the car radio apart and put a line in. An easy job.

Or buy a set of PC-type amplified speakers if you can't identify whereabouts on the radio's PCB you need to solder a line-in socket.

FWIW, I did this hack long ago, though this guy has done it a bit OTT.

Car Stereo Teardown, Analysis and Hack - Blaupunkt Car 300

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Except I disconnected the MW tuner to the input multiplexer, restored that input to L/R stereo and decoupled it using a couple of 10uF caps from the outside line in.

There are now a whole series of YouTube videos where the whole world and his dog are building bluetooth receivers inside mini hifi and portable audio products.

FM transmitters

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eBay- Sound & Vision- iPod and MP3 Player Accessories- FM Transmitters

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Owain

Actually all you need to so is find the volume control and insert a breaking 3.5mm jack socket inline with the 'hot' terminals

The Natural Philosopher submitted this idea :

It is a very modern Sony CD/radio set, with no volume pots, just volume up/down buttons.

Can't be that modern if it doesn't have a line-in socket! ;-)

Tim

The most common one seems to be the Belkin tunecast, got one years ago that now lies in the junk drawer. Loads on ebay bt the older cheaper ones often don't have the car socket adapter included. The FM band is often too full of stations to find a clear frequency so interference and hiss end up being a problem. And it is another device that either eats batteries or needs the cable with power supply adapter to it. You can tidy that up of course but need to drop the voltage to 3 Volts.

I'd find another way .

G.Harman

generically "iTrip" FM transmitters

I was thinking the same. Most sets have some sort of provision for hands free phones and pugging in MP3 players etc etc.

It will have an audio in connection then.

Bill

Yup, will be. The source multiplexer will be the injection point. Have a google for data for on the board chips.

Have you ever done some fun 'reverse engineering' for radio equipment?

Let us know the model number. Might dig up a schematic.

Bill Wright wrote on 01/10/2016 :

Nope - Check for yourself Sony CDX-L480X.

I bought one of these to use with my new to me Iphone 5s ( my previous model used with 3GS had a different connector)

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£3.59 inc post arrived in a few days not typical Chinese delivery times

It has an internal rechargeable lithium cell which lasts for more hours than I wanted to drive in a day (at least 6h) and can be continuously powered by a USB lead supplied.

Gave no trouble at all on a recent holiday in France only needing to move channel on the odd occasion where there was a conflict with a local transmitter.

This might be an old tech way of doing it but it is perfectly viable still IMHO

Maybe don't use blue tooth as the latency is too great. As for the stereo fm devices, they may be ok and may not but no probblem with outof sync lips with them. Putting an input in, well, not sure that is easy. If it already has one fed, say by some other unit, then get a cheap audio switch box and just get the leads made to fit. Brian

Copyright on instructions for that seems to be 2003.

Harry Bloomfield brought next idea :

I have found a forum where it has been suggested that someone tapped across the audio output/input from the CD player section. You just play a CD to select that as the source and the CD decks output is swamped by external input.

A job for when I get back home, on my workbench.

Thanks for the responces..

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