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DON'T waste your money. Took it to an auto stereo dealer and he couldn't make it work either. Absolutely worthless; the unit has never worked. I'm pretty tech savvy and have tried several other people's iPod and iPhone with this unit, as well as several other peoples car stereos with no luck.
Please do not waste your hard-earned money on this. This little piece of worthless plastic trash does absolutely nothing. Thanks. Maxell, please stop ripping off America. Batteries are in, iPod is on, doesn't work on any radio in the house, on any frequency, and does not work in the car. Oh, correction, it worked for about 2 seconds in the car, but was immediately overcome by static, and did not work again.
This is the transmitting antenna. It is cheap though, & if you do pick up a good signal onit, it has excellent sound for a portable, rivaling many bigger & more expensive boom boxes. It is not, & is only a little more sensitive than any cheap radio you can buy from your drugstore. in a metal frame building. With the transmitter, any decent radio can serve as a wireless amplified speaker system. If you grab the black tip of it, it extends out & through the hole in the battery cover when you replace the cover.With the antenna wire not extended & remaining inside, I was able to listen to my music perfectly throughout an entire 2 bedroom apartment on my Eton E5 & Realistic DX-390 radios.
With the transmitter, I use it as a super great & loud, wireless powered speaker. I'd give this thing 5 stars for the price, but the lack of useful instructions & operating tips with the unit made me take away a star, & is probably the reason for some poor reviews here.First, the unit does not have 4 "bands". It has 4 frequencies to choose from between 88.1-88.7mhz. So start off with the player volume on a very low setting, & the radio's volume at average or higher to get a very clean sound.Since I have a lot of radios with built in speakers, from the size of a cigarette pack to a boom box, I couldn't see investing in amplified speakers for a player or laptop & still be somewhat portable & mobile.
I find the transmitter input is sensitive enough to be overdriven with the volume set at under halfway on most players & laptops. I was able to pick up the transmitter on the ground floor with any radio, & on the E5 form across the street, & down the street a few doors.It looks like someone handy could just loosen the screws inside & permanently solder a slightly longer antenna wire in it.The instructions do warn to keep your player volume low or you'll overdrive & distort the transmitter. The transmitter probably uses 3 AAA cells for enough voltage to power the blue LED. It takes 6 "D" batteries, but they last months.
*Everyone seems to praise the GE SuperRadio as very sensitive. With the E5 radio, I was able to pick up the transmitter from the ground floor, 3 floors below.I tried to twist a couple feet of wire to the transmitter's antenna wire to extend it. The 3 rechargable AAA cells I'm using in it have lasted over a month so far, & are still going strong. If you have a crummy radio that only picks up strong stations, or picks up bits of a strong station on more than 1 place on the dial, most FM transmitters will give you problems with those basic & cheap radios.I have not used this unit in a car yet (got it primarily for the laptop & mp3 player), but if you follow my tips, it shouldn't give you a problem.When you open the battery cover, you'll find a black wire around the circumference inside.
small enough to fit into a shirt pocket or a large loud box.Blue & white LEDs require at least 3.6 volts to light, unlike older red, orange, yellow, & green LEDs than only require 2 volts. radio waves easily pass right through it. On my Grindig Mini 300 & GE SuperRadio* I was only able to get good reception no further than the next adjoining room.With the wire extended out through the battery cover hole, I was able to get perfect reception on all my radios through the entire apartment, the attic above, & the floor below me. No need to strip off the wire's insulation.
It pivots around on the headphone jack and does not stay stable at all. This item does not work well. Really embarassingly poor design, you have to wonder how they can come up with something this bad.Don't buy this item. In addition, the on/off button is placed in such a way that you can virtually guarantee that you will accidentally turn it on if you put this in a pocket, briefcase, backpack. The sound is poor, there is intermittent static and it drifts in and out while driving. You will find yourself spending way too much time fussing with it while you are trying to drive.In addition, the design is AWFUL.
Although I could listen to music on my mp3 player, I couldn't put the player down while driving. Also, why does this small device need 3 AAA batteries.
There's an on/off switch that you shouldn't forget about either or the batteries will drain. Kind of odd in my opinion.
I bought this since it was the cheapest transmitter I could find. Otherwise all I heard was static.
I'm probably going to buy a new one soon. Maxell usually makes good accessories, but this one was not one of their better products.
I had to hold it while driving with one hand to get the best possible sound.
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