You know, a little Goo Gone will clear that right up. Dumbass. I know, I made a post about a FM transmitter for the car a few years back on the junk blog, well, I added better ones through thrift shop purchases. This one had a BIG sticker on it that would not peel off cleanly. So, before I took a picture of it, I DID NOTHING. That's just the kind of junk magician I am. You want to see it in the condition it's currently in. Junk. Here it is. It was once a valuable piece of junk for anybody with one of them there portable music devices and would broadcast to their car radio. This one does it with digital tuning. It locks in on the frequency you want and that's what you get. What? You have a 98.5 in your area? Tune to 98.3 or 98.7. Get it. You'll hear FM quality music on your stereo in your car. Won't that be nice? After all, you don't have an aux input on your stereo yet right? Those GM/Delcos with C-Quam AM Stereo that are nice and square and maybe have a built in ashtray...er..cassette player are just waiting for your station to go from city to city getting signal bleed by Christian music. Isn't that fun?
Of course, this is when they had cars with circular holes in the lower dash and usually a slide out container about two inches by four inches where you are expected to place your smoking materials rather than tossing it on the road in front of a driver that is scared by the flash. M**THER F**KER! LITTERBUG! Oh sure! Someday the butts you toss now will create a MASSIVE BUTT and come to THROW YOU ON THE ROAD. Sorry. Thank you for not littering. Oh yeah, they no longer put ashtrays in cars so you gotta put those butts somewhere. OH DON"T SPEND A BUCK AND GET ONE OF THEM DRINK HOLDER ASHTRAYS...oh no, you just go ahead and LITTER.
What was I saying? Oh yeah, they also used to include a device called a cigarette lighter. You pushed it in the hole, it heated up and was repelled out when it got hot enough to light a cig. It was where you plugged in your radar detector or your CB radio or your 12V car vac that didn't work worth a crap. (I think I've had all of these on the junk blog. Yes, if you owned a used car through the 90's, you know what makes a good junk story.) Well, this device pushes into that hole and you get power. Whatever hole you have in your car, at least if you still have a hole. 5V USB now. That's not a hole. That's a slot. How's yer slot? (Skitch. Stern Show "Nails". Thanks.)
Now, if you want to use this as a home FM transmitter, you need an adapter. In fact if you want to use any of your old 12V stuff in the house, you need an adapter. Used to be, they didn't make simple plug in adapters like this. They were bigger, sold at a participating Radio Shack, and required an adapter for the power supply that you could hard wire to a female cigarette lighter jack. They were built like brick S-houses. (Yes, I had one and it was also featured on a past junk blog.) Now, they make these out of the cheapest components sourced from China and yes, they do the same job. You'd think they would get hot, no heat sink because that costs money. It's household current going through some thingys and do-hickeys to produce 12V. I had to use these for my portable Sirius radio when it was 12V. Shortly thereafter, all of the Sirius stuff was 5V making all of the older adapters and connectors obsolete and you would need to buy new adapters and connectors. More to the junk pile. I bought a few of these adapters really cheap. Two of them have blown out from use. Really cheap. This one still works.
This is the set up. Looks wonderful. Works pretty good. If I set his next to my computer, I can send such great things as Tropical F*ck Storm or King Gizzard into my living room to hear on my cheesy GE stereo clock radio. All that effort. Couldn't I just take one of the CDS and put it in a boombox and listen to it. No, I take this thing that I can't use anymore, plug it in to an adapter that I can't use anymore and spit MP3 juice all over the living room. Um...Okay. That may not have been the best choice of words, but have you ever heard of spitting plastic reflective discs all over? MP3 juice is much more sexy. Any of you thinking that a Scosche FM Broadcaster with a 12 adapter plugged into a generic power strip, connected to a computer playing MP3's of Braindrops is sexual? Well the band IS Tropical F*ck Storm after all....
Goo Gone. Just a little dab will do ya. Good thing is, if you were the traveling type, you could program several stations to broadcast from in case you got the preacher telling you that listening to Tropical F*ck Storm goes against the dude in the sky. You're bad. Confess. You had your 1991 Pontiac Sunbird going 62 in a 55 and you didn't get caught. Tune your FM broadcaster to another frequency and jam out to Antimatter Animals from the first TFS release "A Laughing Death In Meatspace." Sorry. I was going to do a blog about Tropical F*CK storm and the fact that myself and Boomer The Dog were lucky to see them live last fall. They'll be here in the Spring. Check local listings. Really. Goo Gone is good stuff. When you have a junk blog, make it better than my junk blog by cleaning the display before you take a picture. It will help if you get a clear photo of it as well. Use your IFUN 17.6 with 7 cameras and a microwave oven built in.
Finally. I don't even use the Scosche anymore. No I didn't burn out another 12V adapter. Boomer got these from Flea Bay. Cheap transmitters. Digitally locked. Just move the switches. Oh, not as many channel choices, but works just as good and is intended for the home broadcaster. Plug it into a 5V anything via USB and plug a cell phone with 1000 hours of music on it and you have a MONSTER. You're the DEEJAY. Spinnin' the HOT WAX from your STAX to the the ones of listeners that might hear your signal from their car as they pass by. They will then pass your house and continue tuning their radio to hear the latest preacher speaking about how bad you are for listening to "The Happiest Guy Around" from Tropical F*ck Storm (which you can broadcast the audio from while watching it on Hew Doob https://youtu.be/PigvDDMPpWQ ). Yep. You're the deejay, I'm the blogger. -Ric
Boomer
I like that small black box transmitter, easy to power from small USB 5 volt supply or a computer and doesn't need the cigarette adapter. In theory it should have a better signal than other small transmitters because of the separate wire antenna that can be stretched out, where others use internal antennas or the audio cord for an antenna. It does seem to fill in the signal area more, not as many drop outs as you move the radio around.
It looks like you had the same trouble as I had, where the label with switch settings for the frequencies peeled off. I have the label and want to put it back on with packing tape.
I like the transmitter, and sometimes use it on my computer to relay a stream or music to radios in the house. It's real easy too, plug in the USB cord and audio into the headphone jack, and it switches off the speakers and starts broadcasting it, 30 seconds.
I'd like more frequencies, but the chip they use can only do the short set. The advantage is cheapness, no display or programming controller chip required, or up/down keys. We should see if they have the same thing with the full band now.
Boomer