I will NEVER return mine. I can plug my MP3-player, cell phone or laptop into one and even power it with a cigarette ligher or batteries and listen to what I want on my radio.

If it interferes with the guy in the car next to me, I don’t care. I set the broadcasting station to one where there is no other signal – he can do the same.

As a subscriber to SIRIUS and an owner of a car-mounted receiver, I can tell you first hand that this is a ridiculous claim. The Satellite receiver has a very weak FM signal which only really works on FM frequencies that DO NOT have an actual radio station designated to them. Since you have the ability to alter what frequency your receiver broadcasts at, and considering that choosing a frequency that already has a real radio station broadcasting on it has a serious effect on sound quality, I fail to see how this would pose a problem. Furthermore, I find it difficult to believe that those persons listening to Howard Stern and “gangsta” rap would choose to broadcast their signal on the Christian so and so station, especially since the signals will often be confused by your stereo, resulting in a Stern/Christian Music/Gangsta rap remix at times. Do people really have NOTHING better to do?

I just want to remind you that the airwaves are owned by the people, not the broadcasters. People is all-inclusive–US with transmitters, and YOU who want them banned. We have every right, per US law, to use low power broadcasting to listen to what we want. My transmitter is always tuned to a frequency that has no existing broadcast. How is that hurting you?

Rather then a sense of entitlement, as DoGooderJohnnyD stated above, it is my right as a US citizen to use my airwaves.

If your broadcast station is being drowned out by a personal transmission, then THAT person needs to change the frequency they are broadcasting on. Easy solution. I have no problem with that. But don’t start writing new laws to appease a handful of people who want to control what I get to listen to.

FM transmitters have been banned in the UK since the Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1949. If that’s what you mean by a few years ago then fair enough but somehow i don’t think the law was designed to combat the iTrip. They are soon to be legalised though. They are also just illegal to operate they are not illegal to own or sell. Loads of people have them.

I have a Sirius home/car unit. Once, after having returned from a trip, I left the car’s radio tuned to the FM frequency I selected on the Sirius unit. At first I couldn’t figure out why I was receiving Howard Stern in the car until I realized I left the Sirius unit on inside the house. The signal stayed fairly strong up to two blocks away. Testing whlle on the highway revealed that the lower power of the cigarette adapter only pushes the signal out for a good 8 car lengths.

No way will I give that thing up. Its powerful enough to cut through all but the strongest of FM signals which is important while driving through cities. The AAA powered transmitter for my MP3 player becomes worthless anytime I get within 15 miles of a city.

And I’ll give up my gun when they become illegal also.

Does this mean i shouldn’t Fart in public elevators because the smell might offend someone.

i love my modulator, i got it from ebay last year for my ipod. i can get 50 or more feet away and it still comes in clear. i use it in the automotive shop at the dealership where i work, everyone in the building can tune the radio in the car they are working on and listen in.

Not sure if I mentioned this, but I don’t have an iPod (it crashed) nor do I have an FM Transmitter. I do like the NPR show I mentioned (“Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me!”) and I’m more or less agnostic (I believe in what the bible says, but only if you interperate it, i.e. not literally. I also believe there is no current religious sect I’ve seen that believes that it can be interperated instead of believed literally. One example is that I don’t believe the moon will turn blood red, but I’ve seen evidence that the atmosphere, with the right conditions, could turn the sky such a color that it might appear red, almost like a glass filter and therefore the moon turning such a color in the end is possible, especially considering the conditions that would be nessicary for the moon to do so. Also when you consider paul wrote that book over 1,800 years ago, then he probably didn’t know what he was seeing anyhow and likened cars to horses, etc.) In short, I don’t agree with most of what any of the three sides in this argument (Stern, NPR, or Christians as a whole) believe. I agree that this is a simple matter of FCC regulations (which aren’t laws per say, simply rules which can be acted upon in court despite not being in an actual book of law. the distinction is that congress doesn’t have to ratify the rules or even vote on them, and that the FCC comissioners can change them at will without congressional approval. The only law related to this is that congress voted that yes, the FCC rules should be treated as law even though they’re not actual law. That was done because a 5-person (or 7 or 9, whatever the FCC is) commission can vote and act much faster than a 500+ member house and a 100 member senate.)

In fact the only related stance I have is that I’m indeed a proud liberal democrat and an XM (not Sirius) subscriber. I don’t like howard stern simply because he ives most liberal arguments and positions a really bad reputation. Things like laws for or against abortion aren’t the kind of thing you throw around on a talk show, or at least they shouldn’t be. We’re talking about weather a person has control over themselves or weather it’s out of their hands (and in the hands of the government/God). That’s not something to spend 3 5-word sentances on – half of which are the F word. Just the same, I don’t like bias in the entire issue, and I believe both NPR and most Christian stations (news or musical) are too far biased either way. To me it’s a simple question of law: does a woman have the right to this or not? A law should be passed one way or another by the congress, and we can argue it from there. I listen to NPR just because it’s funny. It’s no different than watching John Stewart on the Daily Show is to me – weather the news he reports is true or not I take it with a grain of salt and laugh, because if it was meant to be serious, it would be on NBC. Lewis Black is right – if everyone laughs at everything, we may all die 10 years old from exhaustion, but there would indeed be world peace. Wars are started and lost because someone somewhere down the line lost their sense of humor.

To me this is a simple question of law and I want to make clear my opinions are irrelevant. The transmitters shouldn’t be allowed to broadcast that far, end of argument. All I’m saying is that the argument itself wouldn’t have started under any other circumstances. If it was NPR being broadcast on these transmitters or whatnot, the entire argument more than likely wouldn’t have happened,and in the worst case wouldn’t have happened the same way it has. It’s only when a steadfast Christian is driving home in his pickup truck with 6 dead baby deer in the back and his son hears the F word comming through the radio – instead of his own dad’s mouth an hour earlier when he missed a few shots – that this becomes an issue at all.

Can we now all go eat veggie pizza’s and laugh about “how f**king bad they taste” in the middle of baghdad with a few Iraqi’s and Sadam out of prison or do we really have to worry about these transmitters so much in a world where that is actually impossible? My opinions on bush or NPR or God are irrelevant if for no other reason than due to the fact that this post about FM transmitters should be irrelevant. Show me an instance where a broadcast went out over FM radio of an incomming airstrike headed towards Falluja and a tank full of 5 marines died because the signal from their iTrip overpowered their radio and I’ll change my mind, but until then, this isn’t exactly the issue that should be getting 50 comments.

Johnny,

I like Highway 16 (a country music station on XM) and dislike…hmm…the president’s weekly radio address. If your FM transmitter is driving by me in this 1983 MCI Bus (modified to be a motorhome) and I dislike the address, chances are I’ll make a really ugly comment about whatever the next sentance that George says, and then proceed to do one of the following:

1. Run you off the road
2. Pass you
3. Overpower yours with a hotwired CB Radio set to go to your frequency just long enough until the red light changes.

Though probably not in that order. In any of those instances, since your transmitter was overpowering mine I simply reversed the situation in one way or another. The fact is – I agree – the transmitter shouldn’t be that strong in the first place, but like most conservatives and liberals alike, I believe in the general theory of “an eye for an eye” and if you’re too much of an entitleist or whatever it is you keep saying, I’ll just beat you at your own game. Eventually, either you’ll exchange the FM Modulator for one at lower power, or else you’ll wind up in a ditch somewhere halfway between 40-mile-apart exits on the interstate.

That’s not the answer you want, but I do agree the FM Modulators should be recalled, and yes since I have no such modulator I have nothing to lose from this. I still would like to see the recording of the 5 marines dying in the heat of battle due to FM Transmitters being a real problem, though, because again, my positions on Bush, NPR, or anything else, aswell as the Modulator itself, are all irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

I agree about the threat of NPR breaking into my Howard reception. Imagine listening to the Ba Ba Booooeeeee roast and NPR breaks in?, Now thats reason for concern!!!!

Radio is dead.

In the United States, traditional radio stations have payed to “license” their bit of spectrum. This is a reasonable system that ensures there aren’t several stations broadcasting on the same frequency at the same time. In this case, exclusive access is necessary for the techology to work. Two stations on the same frequency is not a good thing.

With the portable modulators, the excess power creates a larger region of intereference. Since the modulator owner can easily change his broadcast frequency and the radio station cannot, it is reasonable to inconvenience the modulator owner rather than the station operator.

Everything works together better on the practical, technical level if everyone follows the regulations, which are actually quite reasonable in this case.

I would like to see an FM frequency assigned for both XM Satellite Radio + Sirius Radio, so we don’t have to constantly change frequencies while driving, to another frequency which is clear.

I agree that most NPR and christian music stations are in the low number channels 88.1 -92.9 FM with low transmitter power.It is that way in my city as well. I have a XM MyFi and when I used it on the FM transmit mode I could pick it up about a half a block away and inside my house when my car was parked on the street. So what?! If I want to drive across the US without having to change the station I transmit on, why should I have to. The chance that an adjacent motorist is on the same frequency for a long duration of time is pretty low. If the FCC wouldn’t sell all the low power stations so close to each other in frequency, there would be free channels for iTrip devices and the like to transmit freely.

Heres and Idea. Lets make 88.5 an empty channel in every city so that users that want to have a FM transmit device can use that channel exclusivly. Then only other personal FM transmitters will over power each other.
I find it to be more of an annoyance when the Rap music or obnoxious talk radio or whatever you listen too is turned-up so loud that I can hear it over my XM radio in the first place. I would put the same importance on that pollution as I would on the FM transmitter pollution.
My 2 cents.

Isn’t it funny how stupid people get the second that religion or (*gasp*) liberalism is mentioned?

Here is an idea. Pretend it was Microsoft that manufacturing devices that don’t conform to federal regulations. Or Verizon. Your panties would get bunched up so tight they would turn into diamonds.

from 1 w to 60 KW

I live in RFN (Radio Free Nevada) and when I travel to population centers like Reno or even Winnemucca, NV, My xm is stepped on by Christian radio stations broadcasting in the area. I really think they don’t have anything to worry about from us.