Every time I bowl up to collect my hire/courtesy car these days, they give me one with a CD player, they've gone past the stage of outlining to me beforehand what a priviledge it is to have this feature. When I book and ask for a cassette, increasingly it cannot be accommodated.

Frustration follows when I try and feed my cassette adaptor into that narrow slit to connect up my Empeg.

Surely, if we're living in a world with ever new formats: Minidisc, MP3 and MP3 on CDR and CDRW and that chewing gum shaped format of Sony's that says it's an MP3 - or even going backwards and playing a talking book on a cassette with a walkman, our wishes should be accommodated.

Should not car and aftermarket ICE manufacturers be encouraged to provide a 3.5 jack on the fascia, very few models do.

Perhaps a hire car only needs a radio with a jack in the front so you could make your own choice, but obviously it would be more trouble than its worth to supply hire cars with different kit in.

Of course if Hertz and Avis were serious about wanting discerning customers, each car would have an Empeg sled fitted. Then Rio would leap back into manufacturing them to fill all those slots!

It's funny you mention this. I had to drive from Las Vegas to LA (6-7 hours across the desert) last year in a rental car...alone. I had with me everything needed to listen to my TDK Mojo through a tape deck.

I am a member of National Car Rental's Emerald Club, so I can choose whichever car I want from 3 or 4 rows. Out of the 30-or-so cars available, not a single one had a tape deck. I was forced to listen to the radio. In the desert, there's only one station. Unfortunately for me, it's county. Between the rental car's lack of balls, crappy radio, and no scenery change for hours, I was about to go insane. I am making the same trip in January. This time, I will have an FM modulator (with iPod, not Empeg).

I wonder is the absents of tape decks has something to do with Pop Tarts.

I'm with robricc. FM transmitters are horrible quality and should never be considered as a viable way to use your empeg....UNTIL you hit the middle of that desert Then they can sound oh-so-sweet. I have one in my carrying case for that express purpose, along with a tape adapter.

I agree, the FM modultor doesnt produce the sound that we are all accoustomed to with the Empeg, but in a rental car, its better than nothing! I would rather listen to my empeg through an FM modulator than not have it at all. Its not like the Hertz cars have great sound sytems anyway! (most of them)

like VHS and oatmeal ?
big trouble comes when they reformat toilets to save TV remotes

Reminds me of the Denis Leary bit where his kid puts a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the VCR.

So there's a such thing as an FM modulator that's powerful enough so that it doesn't need to be plugged directly into the antenna wire? It just broadcasts from the passenger seat?

Seeing this, it appears that there is.

/me considers getting one.

they sell a unit at radio shack (aprox 20 bucks) that will work ok if you're in an area with very few available radio channels. when i got one the guy that sold it to me said that they get a lot of returns.
i don't care much for mine.
and yes, no wires.

Ideally, I'd like to find one that I could make run off of 12 volts. Then a simple cigarrete lighter adapter could power both the empeg and the FM transmitter.

Hey hey, here's a thought for a project: FM transmitter guts, running off of 12 volts, small enough to fit inside the casing of the empeg. If desired, on/off switch and/or frequency selector peeking out of the security slot.

2XAAA batts in the radio shack unit. can't say how long they last, I 'filed' mine after a few days.
I'll send ya mine if you wanna play with it.

I have one that runs straight off of the cigarette lighter, and actually sounds pretty good, doesnt have to be plugged into the antenna, and cars beside mine can pick it up. I got a it from a friend who had one of those nice portable cd player mounts in his truck. If yall remember those, it was just part of the base, so I ripped it off the bas hid it between my seats, and whenever Iwas on long trips had mp3s and movie sounds from my laptop. granted this was way before I got an empeg.

Actually, the guy that use to make the MP3Kits (www.mp3kit.com) made a pretty kick ass FM modulator board that required no wires, and was digitally tuned. No drifting and put out a pretty decent signal. He was going to sell them as kits, but I dont know what ever happened to him. BTW I have 2 MP3kits with 20G harddrives in them if anyone is intersted!

ED7

Here is the one I had. It served its purposes:

http://www.portabledvdstore.com/noname1.html

ED7

Do not try to use a cheep one in areas like LA. My friend bought one for the trip home after E3 for his CD player (His tape deck died), and we could never tune it to a frequency that didn't do weird things to the neighboring stations. Once he got out of LA, it was fine.

Sorry for the repost, but this is the one I considered using in my house to broadcast my music to inside and outside radios:

http://www.themindfactory.com/Products/DDT-1_FM/ddt-1_fm.html

This is the same guy that was building these a long time ago, but I thought I remembered him trying to build a "portable" battery-powered version of this some time ago....maybe im nuts

ED7

Here is the one I had. It served its purposes

That's the same one in the iPod kit. How long did the batteries last?

The 2 AAA batteries in the $20 transmitter from radio shack last about 2-4 hours IIRC. Also, don't leave your batteries in the Radio Shack transmitter when it's off...I had bad luck with things accidentally bumping the transmit switch and running my batteries down.

For a long trip you should be good with an 8pack or so.

Opposed to buying electronics? Try making one that runs off 9 or 12 v

or buy a similar one pre-made

Mine usually lasted about 4 hours. I finally rigged up a lighter adaptor for it using an adaptor for an old CD player. It worked pretty well.

reminds me when i used to do pirate radio in the downtown parking gradge, anyone driving into the grade with any station on would get my friend and i's broadcast. it was useless outside, we didt have enough power or big enough antena.

It's funny you mention this. I had to drive from Las Vegas to LA (6-7 hours across the desert) last year in a rental car...alone. I had with me everything needed to listen to my TDK Mojo through a tape deck.

Bah. No sympathy for you -- I made the trek from Toronto to LA. Before I left, I boxed up all my CDs to go on the front seat (this was before I'd heard of the empeg). Then I picked up my rental for the trip -- a 14' UHaul truck with an analog FM radio. No CD player, no tape deck, one working speaker in the passenger side door, which ended up being covered up with a variety of stuff.

If you think Vegas to LA has no scenery change, you should try driving through Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska. I drove part of Nebraska at night, and when I started the next morning, there *still* wasn't anything to look at but the road. Through most of Nebraska, I couldn't even find a country station! After that stretch, Vegas to LA was like heaven...

Hey Rob,

Is there any reason why this "Dr. Bott's iPod Connection Kit with FM Transmitter" wouldn't work with a Creative Nomad?

I'm considering buying one of those.

Actually I considered an iPod too, (the iPod was first choice even), but now I'm hesitant because of two things : it only comes with a HD of max 20Gb (I need double that - though this point is debatable). But I guess the main reason why I won't get one is because of the lack of good PC software for it. I don't own a Mac, not will I ever, and the fact that you've bought a Mac just because you could use your iPod to it's fullest potential then scared me.

Yeah, I know, you said you only need that Mac when 'things went wrong' and you need to re-initialise the iPod (or something like that, don't quote me on this), but the fact remains that Macs over here are practically non existant (I don't know of anybody who owns one, nor do I know of any shop that sells them) so if I was to own an iPod and something like that happenend to it I would be pretty much screwed.

Or am I seeing this wrong? Has the PC software been optimised since and is this not an issue anymore?

It's not so much a problem with the PC software, but with the user. You cannot just unplug the iPod from the firewire port without using the "Unplug or Eject Hardware" command in windows first. If you do, It's a good chance you will screw the iPod. This mostly happens if you get too excited after uploading a bunch of tunes.

That being said, I use EphPod and think it's the best way to sync (Mac and PC included). The (slight) problem is, you pay a premium for the iPod and you must buy software on top of that.

I think most of the things in that iPod kit will work with the nomad. I have not seen the kit personally, but it comes with a firewire charger. I am not sure if the Nomad is able to charge through firewire, but I don't think it does.

Thanks for the info Rob!

But I've just checked the Apple website and found out that the iPod's max HD size is 10Gb. This really isn't sufficient. I could have lived with 20, but 10 just doesn't cut it. I don't know how I came up with the idea that there was a20Gb version.... hmmm..could be that I've read that the HD type that is used in the iPod is also available in a 20Gb version, but it seems the iPod itself isn't.... must have got my wires crossed somewhere.
Oh well, I've still got some time before I'm getting this unit. Maybe by then there will be bigger sizes available.

I'd at least wait until July's MacWorld. They're supposed to make some big announcements about the iPod. I wouldn't be surprised if they have an even large HD in a newer unit.

Ah! I didn't know that! Thanks for the tip!

Seen some of these at Fry's Electronics. No idea if it works as well as this single review claims:
http://www.epinions.com/content_63809949316

Good grief, I'm glad I started this thread, because between all of you, you've given me the answer.
Years ago, I purchased a set of cheapo stereo headphones which pick up a signal from a little black box at the bottom end of the FM frequency, they weren't that good and much, much better ones have become available in the meantime, so they're at the back of a cupboard.
In fairness they were marked not legal in the UK, but the hire cars are generally in the US, Ireland and various European mainland countries, I wonder whether I'll get arrested in any of them?