New USB FM Radio

**sxt173** · 08-23-2005, 10:58 AM

Has anybody seen this yet? Any ideas or comments? Maybe a good solution for FM capability on our carPC's.

Link to Engadget article

**sim** · 08-23-2005, 11:21 AM

Does'nt seem to be any provision for an external antenna,without one I can't see how you would get reception in a car.

**sxt173** · 08-23-2005, 11:31 AM

I would be curious to see how the antenna is set up. Just to see if you could hack together a car antenna connection.

**contri** · 08-23-2005, 12:05 PM

I bought an Avermedia USB FM radio for my setup, http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/review.php?reviewId=502.

A friend and I found out that it got the ground signal, needed for Left and Right sound channels from the USB, and used the then free pin in the headphones as antenna. So, the headphone cable had another cable, quite long, which worked as anttena. Maybe this one does the same trick.

We didn't try it in a car, though. Software control with Fairy Radio wasn't as good as with the mythical D-link one.

**DarquePervert** · 08-23-2005, 03:55 PM

Originally Posted by contri

We didn't try it in a car, though. Software control with Fairy Radio wasn't as good as with the mythical D-link one.

The DLink isn't mythical. It's no longer manufactured.

**yargon** · 08-23-2005, 06:13 PM

AFAIK Avermedia USB FM radio uses the ground pin of the headphones jack as ground signal from the antenna, and the left (don't remember now, maybe right) channel pin to real antenna signal.

I'm thinking about soldering a car antenna adaptor to those pins and connect to it to the factory antenna of the car.

As I can see in specs of the car, the impedance of my antenna is 75 Ohms. Can anybody tell me if i'm going to burn my car if I do this?