A must-have for iPod-equipped travelers
Written: Nov 25 '03 (Updated Jan 14 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Incredibly cool and potentially useful
Cons: 60 second shut off problematic, FCC-mandated pathetically limited range
The Bottom Line: At the price, a necessary part of any iPod kit.
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| chimmy's Full Review: Griffin Technology ITRIP FM TRANSMITTER FOR NEW (4... |
An iTrip sets up a very inexpensive, exceedingly local radio station without the annoying brain-dead banter of the DJs or the commercials. It's a station that always plays exactly what you want to hear. You can play the music anywhere and everywhere in the house or in the yard without any wires. It's a radio station that you can take with you when you travel.
It used to be that rental cars had cassette decks that you could insert a cassette adapter into and play your MP3 library when on the road. Nowadays, they've all got CD players. With an iTrip transmitter on your iPod, you just set the car radio to the iTrip's broadcast frequency and you're jamming even when driving through nowhere.
Unfortunately, there is a problem in that, in the USA, the FCC restricts unlicensed FM transmission power to almost nothing. Licensed broadcast stations run 100 watts and more and transmit about 20 miles. A one watt station can transmit about a mile. FCC regulations restrict unlicensed FM transmissions to be less than 0.00000001 watts. A cell phone has five hundred times the power of an iTrip. Microwave ovens transmit 300,000,000 times the legal FM signal. Licenses unfortunately run in the tens of thousands of dollars and are often hotly contested.
What this means is that you're not going to get much range or obstacle penetration from the iTrip. It means that, in ideal conditions, at around 8 to 12 feet most receivers will sporadically drop the signal from stereo to mono. At about 12 to 20 feet a significant amount of hiss and fade becomes painfully evident. Beyond 25 feet reception becomes sketchy at best. Griffen's claim of 30 feet can only be accomplished in a laboratory environment. If there is something, such as a body, wall or windshield, between the iTrip and the receiver's antenna, expect the range to drop precipitously. You can expect the same difficulty from any consumer-targeted personal FM transmitter as they are all under the same FCC restrictions.
A good bit of news is that you can dramatically improve the range of the iTrip by simply rubber-banding a length of wire hanger to the top of the iTrip/iPod. Cut a 30 inch piece of wire for frequencies between 89 and 95, a 28 inch wire if you're planning on transmitting in the 96 to 102 range, and cut the wire to 26 inches if you want to transmit between 103 and 108. Then place it on top of the iTrip and wrap a rubber band around the whole package. I got a 700% improvement in reception with this very simple antenna system. The receiver reported a signal strength of 40 db with the wire and only 5 db without (at 10 feet.)
Setting stations
The iTrip uses binary files inside an iTunes playlist to program the iTrip to a broadcast frequency. To change your transmit station, simply "play" one of the frequencies, such as "88.9" from the iTrip Frequencies playlist, and it's done. Three bits of warning: first, be sure the volume on the iPod is turned up pretty high before trying to program a new station. If the volume is too low, the iTrip will not reprogram and will likely shut off. Second, be sure to pause the playback of a station-programming "song" before it ends or the next song (station) will play and over-write your desired station. And third, if you aren't careful, the iTrip station-programming "songs" can get included into a regular song playlist (such as "Frequently Played".) This results in the iTip changing broadcast stations at random; as "playing" the song, "88.9" will change the station to 88.9.
Finding holes
Aside from boosting effective range using the wire hack noted above, the next most critical element of getting great sound from the iTrip is to locate an unused frequency for your location. This is most easily done by listening to the radio while tuning it up and down the spectrum. The larger the gap between stations and shadows of stations, the more likely the iTrip will transmit clean music. Look for nothing but hiss for at least two tenths of a frequency in either direction. You may need to repeat this procedure several times during a long-distance drive.
Music volume
A problem with most digital music collections is that the play volume of the songs can vary wildly. Even if you've used the same software to rip all your CDs, the CDs themselves play at different volumes. This is a somewhat minor annoyance when listening with headphones of over wire-based systems, but with the iTrip, both long quiet passages and super-loud bursts become much more of a problem.
The iTrip turns itself off after it senses 60 seconds of silence. If a song is too quiet, the iTrip will turn itself off in the middle of a song. If the song has a long rest, such as the Beetles "Revolution #9" the iTrip will turn itself off. If there's a long fade at the end of a song or blank at the end or beginning, the iTrip will turn itself off. At the end of a playlist or album, the iTrip turns itself off if you can't get to it fast enough. What gets pumped out of the speakers when the iTrip turns itself off is an awful, sudden, loud, disruptive hiss and distorted shadow station music.
If the song volume it too great, the iTrip will distort and overdrive the receiver. This sounds something like a kicked-in speaker and occurs on the bass and bass drum parts.
The iTrip will drive you to being very careful with your music library, if you weren't enough already. The Auto-power off is billed as a feature, but I would like to be able to change the settings using the same mechanism as changing the station of LED status.
A very nice feature is that the iTrip requires no batteries. My life is already full of rechargeables, AA, AAA, D, C, 9-volt, Ni-cad, Specialty, NMH batteries enough. The iTrip uses only a tiny amount of the iPods battery.
Clearly the iTrip was made specifically for the iPod as it does not protrude or diminish the pocket-sized-ness of the iPod at all. The iTrip can be plugged in side-ways to allow access to the FireWire port for charging, "hold" button or iTunes access (for the older iPods.)
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 35
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Epinions.com ID:
chimmy
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Location: Bear Flag Republic
Reviews written: 20
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
Chromis cyanea, i.e. Blue chromis
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