Belkin TuneScan FM Transmitter for iPod
FM transmitters are useful buggers for car trips, even if they are an evil made necessary only by car stereo manufacturers' still amazing reticence to add a nickel miniJack input to their stereos. (Although to be fair, that is an increasingly common option in new cars.) The primary problem with FM transmitters—okay, secondary, since the poor audio quality of FM versus a direct line is certainly primary—is the hassle of finding a clear station on which to transmit. This is especially frustrating on road trips, as it's all too common to find an open frequency that, just a few miles down the road, turns into a garbled mash of your music and any given radio station.
The Belkin TuneBase FM dock takes a little of the sting out with the inclusion of "CleanScan," a function which travels up and down the FM band until it finds an open frequency and locks on, displaying the channel on its LCD screen. (Tuning to the station on the car radio is still your job, of course.) Considering how dangerous it can be to fiddle with the mess of audio cables in a car, every step that can be smoothed out is welcome.
What isn't welcome is the price, which like most other name-brand FM transmitters is insultingly high. Ninety bucks for an FM transmitter, even with a charger and integrated iPod dock, is seriously bullshit. I bristle at paying the $30-40 an FM transmitter costs in local electronics stores, especially when I know a perfectly functional version can be found for under twenty bucks online.
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For those of us still stuck in the stone age of FM transmitters, there's the vacant frequency finder. I used to have a lineup of about four stations I would switch to on the ride to work as each one faded in and out. The quality was still hovering just above craptacular, of course, but still an improvement over the spin tuning dial --> spin transmit dial --> dodge traffic --> fiddle with transmitter some more routine.
Rather than pay $40 for an FM transmitter I paid ~115 to just get a new stereo with a line-in jack, and that included installation.
Actually, I should say, *after* paying $20 or $30 for an FM transmitter I got the new stereo, because it was awful.. like all of them.