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View Full Version : Car internet radio for £1.25



julesd68
29-08-2013, 16:36
I was returning from Manchester to London a while back and discovered a fantastic local classic rock radio station, but of course lost the signal after a while which was very frustrating. So decided I had to get internet radio sorted out. Problem is I have a very old Alpine cd / cassette receiver without Bluetooth and don't want to buy a new one or any expensive gadgets. Did a bit of research and discovered a super cheap way of sorting.

1) Get yourself a cassette adaptor for cd / ipod etc. Something like this for £1.25 -

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CAR-CASSETTE-ADAPTER-MP3-TAPE-PLAYER-IPHONE-IPOD-MP3-CD-RADIO-STEREO-NANO-MP4-/310637694199?pt=UK_AudioVideoElectronics_PortableA udio_MP3PlayerCarKits&hash=item4853730cf7

2) Download an internet radio app for your smartphone - I'm using TuneIn radio which works well.
3) Stick the cassette adaptor in the head unit, connect the lead from adaptor to the headphone socket on your phone, tune in your favourite station on your app and you are sorted.

One thing you must do is to set the volume from your phone to its highest. If it's on low, you have to really jack up the volume on the car unit which will amplify all the noise and it will sound terrible.

I find I have to put my bass settings on max on the Alpine and it can sometimes lose the signal for a few secs but otherwise it does the job nicely and the sound is very clear.

I am already finding this indispensable for short and long journeys!

Rothchild
30-08-2013, 08:54
I did a variation on this this summer, when I borrowed my dad's car to go to France and it has a CD player (that doesn't work) and no jack socket to plug a cable in to, so I went for one of these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-5mm-In-Car-Hands-Free-Talk-FM-Radio-Transmitter-for-iPhone-5-4S-4-3G-iPod-MP3-/151110684993?pt=UK_MP3_Player_Accessories_FM_Trans mitters&hash=item232ee61141

As well as digital and internet radio I use it to stream tracks via my phone from my Raspberry Pi running a Madsonic server at home. You need to make sure you've got a decent amount of data on your phone contract though!