Car audio

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HI,
i was just wondering the simplest and cheapest was to hook my xda IIs upto my car stereo, i know there is a similar topic to this but it confussed me a little since im not to fussed about the "car kit"

Here is the easist method.

Get one of these adaptors:
http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=PPCPADPT01

And a FM transmitter:
http://www.expansys.com.cy/product.asp?code=120328

This will play your music over an available FM frequency on your car stereo. This generally produces good quality sound with out a lot of fuss.

I’m not vouching for this vendor they showed up first when I goggled for the hardware. You can look around for better prices. I would stick with Belkin brand transmitter its worked in the for me. I’ve heard bad reviews on others, also returned a "Monster" brand transmitter it just sounded horrible.

Good Luck,
N2O2

Heres the hands free and audio solution I put together... pretty similar...

The hands free "kit" I put together is actually an assembly of individual components I selected, rather than an actual kit.

I use a standard non powered, vent mount holder for the XDA 2s and power the device via a standard car charger. The holder does not have any kind of speaker built in. I am currently using the PPCtechs "16" adaptor, with the 3.5mm side plugged into a cassette sound feeder (have also used it with an FM sound feeder as well) and the 2.5 mm side plugged into a standard 2.5mm mono hands free speaker/mic combo. I have the mic part of this attached to the drivers side door pillar. Then, I have MS Voice Command installed on the XDA, with the "record" button on the XDA mapped to the Voice Command software

So the way it works is as follows.

1. Get into car and place XDA in vent mount holder. Attach car charger and PPCTech # 16 adaptor to XDA.

2. Turn car radio / stereo on and insert casette sound feeder adaptor (you can use a FM Sound Feeder here instead and tune to the appropriate FM station)

3. Hit the XDA "record" button and at the Voice Command prompt say "Play Don Henley" (It's the only CD I have on my SD card right now.. ) The music starts!

4. Then I decide I want to call someone, so, while the music is still playing, I hit the record button again and on the Voice Command prompt say "call Veronica at home". The music stops and the phone dials the number from the contact list.

5. The phone rings and I get her voice mail (she's never at home ) So I hang up and restart the music.

6. Then a call comes in, which interupts the music with the ring tone through the car speakers. I can see who is calling via the XDA screen and hit the "call answer" button on the XDA to answer the call. My car has volume up and down on the steering wheel, so that its pretty convienent to adjust the volume from there.

7. When the call is done, I hit the "call end" button on the XDA and the music starts back up automatically.

It works pretty well. A couple of other things to address your questions.

a. I don't have a speaker built into the XDA holder, so sound coming out there is not an issue for me.

b. The 2.5mm headset side does still have the speaker attached, but sound is not a problem as its so low.

c. I too have not found a (cheap) 2.5mm "mic only". I asked the PPC Tech folks if they had or could recommend one. They did not, but their solution was simple and inexpensive...."we find just cutting of the headphone part off the handsfree works well"!!

The other thing I use and love is PocketMax "PhoneAlarm" (www.pocketmax.net) As well as some great alarm functions, this app supports various profiles that control, amongst other things, the input and output sound on the PPC mic and speaker. So I set up the "car" profile with a mic sensitivity and audio output that matches the car stereo best. That way there are no big volume changes when switching from say the car radio to the MP3 music on the XDA (BTW, you can also listen to internet radion on the XDA this way too!)

Well there you go, hope that helps

Regards

Chris

thanks for your help guys.
ill prob just get the adaptor you recommended and then e-bay for the transmitter!
thanks!

Sounds like a plan. BTW, I would agree about the Belkin unit being preferred. I used a ''Sound Feeder" unit, but it did not have an "on' indicator light or external power feed... consequently I kept forgetting to turn it off and needed a new set of batteries every day! I also found that my FM bands in Atlanta were pretty packed, so I could not find a free channel to tune the fm feeder and radio to without some kind of interference... I think the Belkin unit has more frequency options though... Anyhow, thats when I switched to the cassette based feeder, which has worked very well

Good luck!

Chris

Yup forgot about that, cbrow51 is right the audio cassette feeder is the best option if you have a audio cassette player in your car audio system. I went to CDs years ago.

I have an mp3 cd player, I already have one of the tape adaptors, used to use that with a minidisc. so I definitely want a fm transmitter, i think it generally would be handy
anyway noticed there are loads of these going on e-bay, pretty much just paying for postage! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...787660321&rd=1
Cigarette power cable and power light

I have an mp3 cd player, I already have one of the tape adaptors, used to use that with a minidisc. so I definitely want a fm transmitter, i think it generally would be handy
anyway noticed there are loads of these going on e-bay, pretty much just paying for postage! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...787660321&rd=1
Cigarette power cable and power light