FM Transmitter

[REM]

Maybe this is a dumb question but... What's the difference between a modulator and transmitter?

[Murl]

Has anyone tried modifying any of the other Tunecast models (original or III)?

steve

I used to have one of the originals.  I believe the antenna mod should work the same, but the original didn't have a jack for an external power supply.  I haven't seen a Tunecast III yet.

[rclark]

Has anyone tried this 30mW transmitter board - $36 on ebay?

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[ThaiWay]

There's discussion about (and avaiilability of) the Vastelec 30mW xmtr board here:
 
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It appears to be the same board (with the brand name blacked out) as in the above post.  I plan on getting one from ukewarrior who has a number of boards coming in from China.

John

[Ron]

I bought my second one of those from China this year before ukewarrior started offering them over at DIYC.  I had one last year that I used in my display and it still works great.  I wanted a second one just as a backup at that price.   They are a nice little inexpensive radio.  I made a dipole antenna for mine and it gets plenty of distance as far as I am concerned.

Ron

[rclark]

Thank you John and Ron for the pointer to the other thread.  That is good info, and makes me more comfortable trying one.  I can get one on ebay with more confidence if I can't get one from ukewarrior.

[lonewolf41]

Ditto on the pointer.  I have a tunecast that I haven't hacked yet that i can use, but wanted one of these Vastelec's as they were highly recommend by ukewarrior at LUO 2009.  Always good to have options.   

-Keith

[rclark]

If anyone is interested, ukewarrior has sold out a couple of batches of the Vastelec transmitter board, and is judging interest in another order. See You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login for details.

[REM]

It doesn't appear as though the Vastelec can accept an RDS encoder.  Anyone know if that's true or not?

--Ron

[Ron]

I know the current thread says no, but I thought somebody got it working last year.  I have a RDS module and a spare transmitter so it is on my list to try, I just haven't had time yet and probably will not for another week or two.

I'll post here when I try though.

Ron (the other one)

[lonewolf41]

It doesn't appear as though the Vastelec can accept an RDS encoder.  Anyone know if that's true or not?

--Ron

I thought I read in that post that the older ones did have RDS while this newer one did not appear to have that capability.  Tim (wvengineer I think) provided some explanation.  Maybe I am remembering a different post, but I think it was in the one referred to above.

-Keith

[Ron]

I think there are actually two versions of the Vastelec controller.  The single board version is what I have and what they are selling over on DIYC.  I know that Kevin over at DIYC got the RDS working on the two board version of the transmitter.  I think however, that there was a post last year that said somebody got it working on the single board version.  At least they showed how to connect it. 

The boards from last year look identical to the ones from this year.  Since I have an extra I figured I'd just try it and see.  If it doesn't work like they now say it shouldn't, no big deal.

Ron

[ThaiWay]

let us know how that works out Ron!

mine is in hand... well it will be when Bill ships the Wireless parts ;-)

John

[lonewolf41]

Anyone wanting to try the Belkin Tunecast mod talked about earlier, Tanga has them today for $12 shipped.

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Also, Meritline has a similar looking item for $8 shipped if someone wanted to try and see if it would do the same thing.

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There was a coupon code that brought the price down to $6 (Coupon Code: MLC401264N) but I'm not sure if it still works or not.

-Keith

[Rbar]

I live on a hill and have had trouble locating the test antenna that came with my transmitter in a location that works for the 2 streets that my houe can be seen from.  The signal from teh free antenna goes quite far on level ground.