Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Listen to Your iPod in Your Car

When reaching a new city, I always find it hard to find something good on the radio.

You got your Country stations ("my wife ran away and my dog died"), Religious music ("I Love Jesus and he loves me") and of course, Religious Country stations ("My wife ran away but I still love Jesus"). And endless cheery (but empty) morning talk shows... biggrin

So, I just pack my own music. Using my iPod Mini and an FM transmitter, I just broadcast my music to the car radio. I use the Belkin TuneBase. You just plug it into the car's cigarette lighter socket, tune the radio to an empty frequency and dial that frequency on the TuneBase.

And herein lies the problem, with so much noise in the ether, it has become very hard finding an empty frequency. And it becomes even more complex while driving.

That's why I was glad to discover these 2 sites: DLO's OpenFM and Radio Locator will allow you to find quite frequencies in the US, based on city or zip code. So far, it works well in some places. Some are just noisier than others (try finding a vacant station in NYC).

Other than just music, driving has become my education time. I'm listening to podcasts and keeping up on current news - the better to fill my blog with later razz.

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