GearBits

A Radio Station in Your Pocket

Guglielmo Marconi would have been amazed. A combination of two diminutive devices, shown to the right, now lets anyone walk around with a personal radio station in his pocket.

The white device on the top is the Belkin TuneCast FM Transmitter. It will broadcast on four frequencies: 88.1, 88.3, 88.5, and 88.7 MHz. Although it was designed to aesthetically match an iPod, it will work with any device that has a 1/8" headphone or line out jack. It runs on 2 'AAA' cells (rechargeables work fine).

The shiny device on the bottom is the MPIO/Digitalway FL100 MP3 Player (see that link for my blog entry devoted to the FL100). It plays MP3s, tunes FM stations, records voice notes, and records off of the radio -- amazingly versatile for a 1.5 oz. device. It runs on a single 'AAA' cell. The battery and the memory card in the photo are shown for scale.

So, imagine walking around with virtually unlimited music in your pocket (the FL100 takes SD cards up to 512 MB) and being able to broadcast it to any FM receiver. Granted, the range of the TuneCast unit is a bit short -- roughly 30' line of sight in my usage testing -- but the fact that you can do this at all is pretty cool.

So, the total weight of this personal radio station, including batteries and an SD memory card, is a smidge over 4 oz. (113 g). Granted, while any personal music player could be used in this setup, the FL100 is the smallest I've seen to include an SD card slot. Now, what happens if I set the FL100's FM tuner to the same frequency as the TuneCast is set to broadcast on? Hmm...