I bought this with the assurnace of the salesperson that it would work well. It doesn't!! I have yet to use it in my car or home that I don't experience static and poor reception. I live in a rural area so station interferance isn't even a problem.

If you live in a locale that has a multitude of radio stations that come in relatively well, this puppy doesn't work at all, it isn't powerful. You end up spending hours just trying to adjust the damn thing so it will be picked up by the radio. When you finally find the "sweet spot" in your vehicle, the sound quality is so awful (LOTS of bass distortion) it's not even worth listening to. To top it off, it eats batteries like a mofo.

The Belkin Tunecast is a decent performer as a no frills, small FM modulator. It is one of the better portable modulators you can get because it has a relatively high power transmitter. The FCC may cause that to change, however. Many fault this unit for not performing as they expected, but I don't find those critiques to be very valid. The unit performs fine, even in the clogged airwaves of the Los Angeles area, as long as you position it properly and have charged batteries installed in it. I have used it with my iPod and my Sirius satellite unit (which is necessary because the FCC forced Sirius to reduce the built-in FM transmitter power of new units to the point that the built-in transmitter is essentially useless).

The one big downside is that the Tunecast eats batteries for breakfast, so if you're considering purchasing it you'll want to get rechargeable AAAs. I suspect that many of the people who were unhappy with the unit's performance were using older, partially discharged batteries. I was astonished when the Tunecast seemingly ate through the battery power of newly purchased duracell rechargeable batteries in less than two hours, but when I charged them over night and tried again I got solid performance for many hours. If I had seen or known about the Tunecast II when I bought the Tunecast, I would probably have purchased it over the original version just to get the wider tuning options and the LCD. On the other hand, it's likely that the Tunecast II is even more battery intense. FM transmitters are not the greatest solution, but you can make this one work for you if you give it a chance. Do not be dissuaded by the negativity on Amazon: This is not a bad product.

Does not work in the car. Works only with a fixed fm radio and very near. DON'T buy this garbage.

If you are living in a big city whit lot of FM Station... maybe will not work clear... and the sign lost quality, remenber is a FM sign... not a Digital Sign... If you can, use a cable...

This transmitter is primarily a short-distance adaptor between your audio device (with 1/8" / 3.5mm mini-plug) and an FM-radio equipped device. It is most helpful when stationary--not driving through town or country--as a cheap way to skip the need for audio-in ports on a boombox.

My family uses it for watching video by tying my DVD-equipped computer's audio port to our room sound system. Sound is decent but there is a slight hiss, especially as batteries diminish. The hiss is more noticeable on some output devices than others. My computer's broadcast sound was great, but a friend's VCR was terrible.

IMO, don't use it in a car. Travelling past FM stations WILL override the low-power transmitter's signal.

Battery life is not good, people. Expect about 4-6 hours from the AAA batteries. That's two movies back to back. Grrr. At the end of the battery life the sound gets REALLY messy, fading in and out.

The transmitter has decent signal for a medium-size(1600ft2) house to send sound throughout the premises. We broadcast music from our computer's playlist and can turn on any FM radio in the house to enjoy the tunes. The cheaper radios do struggle to pick up a clear signal, but the better quality receivers are great.

Essentially this transmitter is a cheap way to connect a low-power audio device to a larger set of speakers. I like mine, but it has its faults. Please excuse me while I go to get more batteries...

With only 4 fm channels to choose from, this unit does not have the best reception. It works best in the country, away from the crowded fm dial you find in urban areas.

This product will work with only four frequencies where most of the places already had FM radio's available at those frequencies. The battery life also not good as it specifies.

This thing is very bad and do not work at all

I saw this in the store for $20 and couldn't be happier that I bought it. My reasoning for buying it was to play my new Zune in my SUV which doesn't have a line in connection. Well, it allows me to play my music through the stereo. Pretty good too.

The first day I used it on the interstate driving to work. On three occassions, when large semi's drove past, I did have some bleed through of another radio station. That hasn't happened since and I'm actually using one of the freq's that has a station on it.

Distance: I can't comment on the distance it will work from, because I plug it in and put it in my change holder right below my stereo. So, it's about a foot away. When I go to change songs, putting my hand near it does cause some static, but it doesn't matter, I'm changing the song anyways.

Battery life: I've used it to and from work (about 30 minutes each way) for the past three days using the included batteries. Still going strong, so not sure why everyone is having so much trouble with the batteries. I may go to Radio Shack and pick up a cigeratte lighter adapter and wire it to it (don't try this at home if you don't know what you are doing) just so I never have to mess with batteries. But for the time being, the included batteries have been more than enough.

Quality of sound: Pretty good. Someone said, "it's FM quality" and I would have to agree. But I'm not surprised as it is using an FM signal. If I wanted great quality, I'd get a new stereo that allows line in input. But for my commute to work, it more than serves it's purpose.

I may try the trick of adding in a headphone extension to see if the quality goes up, but it works good without it.

So, for 20 bucks, I say it is a good solution to not having a direct connection.

This piece of CRAP absolutely blows. Simply put. Avoid it at all costs. If you want to throw your money away and listen to loud hissing noises, then i'd advise you purchase one of these useless devices.

I use it for my Zen MicroPhoto and it does not work at all. It has the lowest battery life, used it for twenty mintues and it started to get worse and worse. There is no possible way of getting rid of the static unless you are the MP3 player below the transmitter, which is obviously dangerous while driving. You can only tune it to four stations which are 88.1, 88.3, 88.5 and 88.7 which is absolutely pointless approach to an FM transmitter. I seriously regret every buying this transmitter.

This is the worst buy I ever made. Years ago I bought another brand of FM transmitter for $30 from Amazon and it worked great. After I lost it, I decided to buy a replacement and this unit seems to be the brand name and have the basic features that I need.

I was wrong. The sound is horrible, and I can only get 3 feet of distance if I am lucky.

AFter seeing some reviews of this thing here and CNET, I was worried, but the thing does work. There is the occasional static, and the occasional need to switch the transmitter to a different band, but I live in Boston, where the airwaves are hella clogged, and I am still happy with it.

PRO:
Does the Job, Very Cheap, I use it all the time when I am travelling in my parents Car.

Con:
For your own car try to plug your mp3 player directly into your stereo. Fm by it's nature has a very low quality.

We purchased this the other day and have tried it on our home stereo as well as in my VW bug and it works great in both locations. It doesn't work that well in my fiance's truck though (F150), but we have only tried it once. So far, no issues!

Just bought this at WalMart ($20!) and will be returning it tonight. Only one of the 4 88 stations is empty here but still couldn't hear the music over the hiss and static. I vaguely knew of this products reputation but bought it anyway...big mistake.

It'll do in a pinch....but I hope there are better options.

At times the sound is clear, however, most of the time the static is either 1) just annoying or 2) the static is so loud and piercing that you have to turn it off.

I hope there are units that broadcast a stronger signal, or have another way to connect, in order to provide a constant tolerable sound quality. I would recommend spending some more money to get a reliable device.

I had an iRock! Model 400 for a long time, and it worked GREAT. It worked for the 30 feet as advertised, and then some, and reception was stable.

My father wanted one, and I found that suddenly I couldnt find the iRock! in stores near me anymore, so I bought this Belkin. It didnt work as well. In fact, it barely worked at all. If you move the unit 4 feet from the radio--any radio, the signal becomes pathetic.

My iRock! finally crapped out, so I bought a Belkin, model up from this one. I threw it in the trash moments ago, after I brought in the house to run some tests. Using the signal strength meter on my Pioneer TX-9800 tuner, I was only able to get a signal strength of ONE out of 5, WITH THE UNIT PLACED DIRECTLY OVER THE TUNING CAPACITOR. As in 2 inches away.

It did marginally better when I hooked it up to a 9V battery instead of the 3V it normally runs on. I thought about hooking two deep cycle batteries up in series and throwing 24V at it to see if it either worked well or fried like bacon, but figured that walking around with two car batteries kind of ruins the portability factor.

My father's unit doesnt work at all any more.

This thing stinks. Get a better one, and avoid the Belkins, they are junk.

It works great at home on my little stereo but in the car it is another story. I live in Az and most of the 88 stations are filled with mariachi music so I could not get a clean station. I had to hold the unit in my hand to get a signal that was less dominated by static while my iPod was playing (I guess I have enough electricity in my body to give it more power). Even then sometimes the weirdest thing would happen, if I was stopped at a light and someone pulled up beside me sometimes I would pick up their station all of a sudden (not always but still...) I decided to keep it in the house for my stereo and I am purchasing the iRiver AFT 100 Mobile FM Transmitter to try in my car. It seems to have more power and choice of stations. EDIT:(I did buy the other transmitter and it works wonderfully!)

I have used this product for about 2 months now. It's a great product with almost no interference with my local channels. The price is perfect ($10) for this product.

I use this device to listent to my books on my Zen Nano. It is an inexpensive device that works fairly well. I did notice however that you need to replace the AA batteries when they are only about 60% used.

They works great - I bought 2
I have my computer wired to my stereo and that is better sounding.
Range is as advertised. -
From reading past reviews (distance), I dissembled one to put an added antenna (ear bud wire) and couldn't find any obvious "ferrite" type loopstick to wind around - reassembled and just placed the tiny wire under one of the batteries - better signal strength - positioning the extended wire in different planes must be tried.

Battery life - Just got but suspect they last the advertised time -not for long term listening, but an hour at a time - so audiophile or adolesents needing 24/7 acid rock at MP4 quality - never hardly needing batteies - forget it.

Do I wish it longer distance like WLS in Chicage to clear channel broadcast to my neighborhood, region, state, east coast U.S.? - No

Got them today and gave one to a friends in a new 5th wheel travel trailer at a local camp site who have only a laptop with many compressed songs - and imagine the contrast from the "pizzo" sound speakers to FM quality on their installed stero. They will be leaving their previous home in their new "Montana" 5th wheel in retirementfor the longest vacation of their life - and this simple crystal controlled (synthised) device will avail them of decent music listening, with (their) limited space to spare.

Will use, share, give my 2nd unit for any 10-30 foot wireless FM need.

You get what you pay for - a good value.

Keep Happy,
Just Mike K.
Elstonville, PA

This fm tramansmitter gave me the worst results ever. This is the first FM transmitter that i bought and the quality of the transmission was terrible. i think i lost my money buying this product. it dosent even work good with my home theater system, which has the best antenna.

In my area the preset FM stations all conflict with existing FM radio stations. It does not work well enough to even use. Even if there were no conflict with existing stations, the quality of the sound did not seem very good. For me it was a waste of money.

Maybe in a car a long ways from other FM radio station it might have some value.

Just had to add my two cents as I'm so thoroughly disgusted with this. Strong signals on stations near any of the choices seem to cause interference. Any movement near the unit (i.e. moving the gearshift) affects the clarity (sometimes improving it!). Altogether too unreliable to bother with.

The title of this review says it all: an inexpensive product will yield unsatisfying results. This transmitter works, but I would not say that it works well. It has only four station settings, which limits the playability and clarity of the sound (when a radio station uses the same frequency that you are tying to play your iPod on, the sound is scratchy if there is any sound at all) For the price, the transmitter is useful on highways, but not on surface streets.

I've gotten good performance using this device in small cities and towns where there are not a lot of competing radio signals in the 88.0 - 89.0 MHz range. I've gotten the full 30 feet range as advertised. But if you're in a large urban area with lots of strong radio signals all over the place, this device is often next to useless. It's just not powerful enough to overcome the interference. You will probably need one of the units that you can tune to the entire FM spectrum to find a frequency that's quiet enough get decent results in the city. I haven't tried one of those yet, so can't comment on whether those units work or not.

I recently bought a TuneCast Mobile FM Transmitter to use at work when I'm away from my desk. The transmitter is connected to my computer's audio output & it broadcasts to my GE AM/FM radio (which I also wrote a review about on Amazon) and up to 15 feet, the sound quality is pretty good, but I was hard pressed to get any reception beyond that (at least to 30 feet, which is what it is supposed to reach). That might have something to do with the way it consumes batteries. During the first day of using it, I forgot to turn it off prior to leaving for the day. The next day, the alkaline batteries that were in it were COMPLETELY SPENT! I couldn't believe that a device could use up batteries that fast. In summation, the Belkin FM transmitter is pretty decent device, but if you buy it, beware of the cost in batteries that you'll have to bear. Of course, if you buy re-chargable batteries, then the problem is negated altogether.

If you're planning on listening to podcasts of lectures, audiobooks or spoken-word, this is an excellent, cost-effective choice, especially if you don't live near a large urban area with high station density in the 88.1-88.7 FM range.

Unfortunately, I live and commute near large cities with college radio stations that infest the 88.1-88.7 range. I thought I had found the answer for a car without a tape adapter. This has been a tremendous exercise in frustration! Sadly, at home with my stereo, and the FM antenna **WRAPPED AROUND THE TRANSMITTER**, there is still an ugly hiss that makes listening to music painful...definitely NOT calming to my savage [...].

I haven't tried the digitals that allow you to surf the entire FM spectrum, but after this I'm not sure. I strongly recommend you do a little research before making a purchase. I'll definitely sell this on the "used" side. It just doesn't work in my geography...but maybe it will in yours.

This is a total waste of money IMHO. The main reason I bought this is so we could have an inexpensive way to listen to an IPOD in the car, of course I thought it would be nice to play it through the home stereo so I tried it there 1st.
On a radio that does not have a digital FM tuner good luck finding the EXACT station you have to, even when I did get something, sounded horrible. But it was an old radio so I wasn't expecting much to be honest.
At this point I went to play it through my home stereo. 2 of the 4 FM frequencies that you can use were free in my area but the quality was still so-so. Even with moving it around, draping my antenna over the unit, changing frequencies and just really playing with every possible combination it was difficult to get a non staticy signal, even then it was a very poor signal and I had to crank the stereo up to get any kind of good volume.
Finally, I tried it in the car and after the 1st 2 experiences I wasn't expecting much. Unfortunately, I was right. The ONLY way I could get it to come through my car stereo at all was to lay my Ipod and the unit in the top right corner of my dashboard. (The cars FM antenna is located on the hood of the car on the right side like a lot of cars) Again, I tried all 4 frequencies, fiddled, adjusted, etc. It was just absolutely horrible, I don't understand how anyone could get this thing to work at any kind of acceptable level.
This is going back to the store and I would recommend against anyone spending even $1 on this unit since it just doesn't seem to work. Also, I have a Sirius radio that I play through my car through FM modulation so I am aware of what to expect and how it works. This is not user error. I understand this unit is low cost but the old adage rings true, you get what you pay for and when you spend close to nothing you get close to nothing... at least in this case!

I bought this model of the Belkin Tunecast primarily for listening to my Ipod in the car. My experience with the Tunecast is that it works great! There are a couple of things to keep in mind though. For the best results find a place for it somewhere close to your radio and more importantly you must have a free spot on your radio dial around 88.1, 88.3, 88.5, or 88.7. These are the 4 selectable frequencies that this model of the Tunecast can transmit on. If you don't have a free spot around these frequencies you won't be happy with the product. Strong radio stations will overwhelm the Tunecast's transmitter signal and decrease the quality of what you hear. The transmitter itself is light weight and fits nicely in my pocket. It runs on 2 AAA batteries which last a long time if I remember to turn it off when I'm not using it. A green LED on the side of the case indicates when the unit is on. The cable that connects the transmitter to my Ipod is a little over 6 inches long. It wraps around the case and clips in place for storage when not in use. The product seems pretty sturdy. I even dropped it once (one bounce) and it still works fine. This "no bells or whistles" version of the Belkin Tunecast is a nice product at a bargain price. I was happy with my purchase and would buy it again.

I didn't believe that it would work. It is so great we had to order a second one. My whole family would recommend the Belkin Tune Cast Mobie FM Transmitter. It's the greatest.

If your setup is perfect - ie the transmitter to antenna distance is less than 3-4 ft, there are no interfering radio stations, and the volume on your audio out device (cd player, mp3 player) is at maximum - you get FM radio sound quality. However, as the distance from transmitter to antenna increases or if you're in a region with a lot of interference, static overwhelms this transmitters low output. A lot of times I needed to lower my car's antenna to hear anything at all. Additionally, the power button is not only easy to accidentally turn on, but there is no auto off feature and the "on" light is not bright enough to warn that the device is still on. On my last road trip the device was accidentally turned on and the batteries died. I won't be buying replacement batteries for this device.

I was not satisfied with the product. It does not work well. It has a very short range. Does not work good beyond 4 ft even in my car. It's a waste of money.