TaaaaDaaaaaaaahhhhhh! It's the ultimate in commercial released cheese.  In my last post, I showed the Shotz brewery's finest contraption, aux input for tape decks. I used it for my dead JVC stereo to play tapes when the tape deck died. It worked. Like a charm? Well, it worked. What about us really poor bastages that didn't even have the know how or the $$$ to install tape in our base Saturn or '88 Pontiac Grand Am with a stick? AM/FM radio should have inputs too! What if I wanted to hear the new Ministry album "Dark Side Of The Spoon" but said '88 Grand Am wasn't worth the hassle of installing a new stereo? Enter: Sound Feeder!

There's a bit better view of how the Sound Feeder works it's magic. With this little half assed pull up antenna, you plugged in your aux sound source and tuned it to one of the "usually" empty channels on your car radio or any radio for that matter. It produced a weak "barely received" signal that you had to move around a lot and keep from going fuzzy on the air. It did what was intended. It was a really cheap way to put your sounds into your radio. For that, I got rid of it as quickly as I could. Slowly. When the Parmavagen(TM) Grand Am died....

Single "AA" battery gave it a little life. I remember getting rechargeable batteries for this as there is no other way to power it. Of course, it's an FM Stereo transmitter. Of course I should have been glad someone brought this out. Of course I shouldn't have asked for a way to power it otherwise. It was the 80's and the 90's. You just didn't get an FM transmitter that didn't broadcast more than 100ft from your 160 in one Radio Shack Electronic Project Kit that you could fit in your ashtray. Why should I bitch that the battery was eaten up with skill and that I had to reset each time I passed a town that had a hot rockin' flame thrower radio signal on 88.7 FM.

Yes, they would improve on this design. As the 'oughts came around, FM transmitters got really cheap and performed better. Here is the business end of this transmitter. It was odd that it could be tuned through the band until you found a blank spot on your FM dial. Trouble was, they had to do it cheap, so you dialled around with the "tuning" knob until you connected with the maximum sound. Of course, if you so much as LOOKED at the tuning knob, it would go off your channel and trying to fine adjust while you're driving.... At least I don't think they ever made "adjusting your sound feeder while driving" a ticket worthy offence.

Bonus Content

Come on? Is it really like this now? Of course it is. Running circles around it. Does anybody need this now? Of course they do, if they don't have WIFI speakers in every room. So what is it? The same thing as a Sound Feeder. An FM transmitter designed to put your music in play around your house. I use it when at Boomers to listen to my Sirius radio. It's powered by a 5V USB cable. It uses a long wire for the antenna. It switches digitally to the station, so when it's tuned, it's tuned. Don't know if there is a car made that doesn't have an aux in any more, but there are a lot of 80's and 90's cars still running that may need this. Heck, if you have a CD player in your car but want to play your IPOD...or your tape walkman..or your portable 8-track player.... Technology!  Circles. That's all it is. Circles. Will it go 'round in circles? Will it fly high like a bird up in the sky?  Billy Preston. So what were the Beatles like? Did John and Yoko really give peace a chance? Could Ringo get the best sticky icky icky? Was Paul a spitting image of the author of this blog?

ARF! -Ricochet