19 February 2004
by Noah Kravitz
Columnist

Belkin TuneCast Wireless Audio Adapter -- $39.99 list/$25 street, www.belkin.com

Compare prices at PCPrices.

To be fair, Belkin's new and improved TuneCast II should be available any day now. That being said, don't spend your money on the original TuneCast. I got impulsed into dropping 22 of my dollars on the TuneCast after I spied a dealnews item about it being on sale at HSN.com. Dealnews and Home Shopping Network did their part -- a brand new TuneCast arrived at my apartment less than a week after I ordered it. Only problem is, it doesn't work very well.

Belkin's TuneCast is a portable, wireless FM radio transmitter that plugs into any standard 1/8" headphone jack like those found on iPods, iBooks and PowerBooks. The TuneCast trasmits any audio signal across one of four FM frequencies for reception on your living room hi-fi, car stereo, or any other FM radio you might want to listen to your iTunes on. TuneCast is small, ultralight, and powered by two included AAA batteries, as advertised. Belkin also advertises a operating range of 10-30 feet for the TuneCast, so I had visions of me and my iPod on one side of the room and music coming out of the stereo on the other side. I live on a schoolteacher's salary in New York City, so we're not talking about very big rooms here. No dice.

As one user review on cnet.com put it, the TuneCast's actual transmission range is more like "1-3 inches." I tried the unit with my iPod and PowerBook on three different stereo systems and had trouble getting a decent signal more than 6 inches away from any of them. Actually, I was never able to get a good signal on my living room system (based around a 5 year-old Harmon/Kardon reciever that works just fine).

Granted, I live in New York City where there's a lot of signal and noise jamming the frequency spectrum. There's also a radio station broadcasting at 88.3, which is one of TuneCast's four available frequencies. But a little poking around the Web turned up several other reviewers who had the same take on the TuneCast as me: It just doesn't put out a very strong signal.

The best result I had was when I took the unit over to the lead singer of my band's place elsewhere in Brooklyn. I laid my iPod atop her Onkyo receiver and let the TuneCast dangle down directly in front of it. At that distance (literally less than an inch), my iPod took over 88.7 FM loud and clear. But still something was missing. A glance at Belkin's website reveals that a decent chunk of the audio spectrum was actually missing: The TuneCast has a frequency range of 50Hz to 15KHz, which is noticeably narrower than the iPod earbuds' 20Hz-20KHz. I'm disappointed, especially considering that I've had pretty good luck with other Belkin products I've tried (we have one of their wireless routers at school that works just fine, and their phone-based tech support was great when I couldn't figure out how to get it working as a DHCP access point).

My dream of keeping my iPod next to my bed or armchair while I wirelessly dial up music from the stereo across the room aren't dead yet, though. Belkin's more expensive TuneCast II promises a wider signal range if and when it comes out, but before that I think I'll give the Griffin iTrip a go. In the meantime, I wonder what HSN.com's return policy is ...

All Belkin products are available direct from Belkin.com and from many electronics resellers.

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Noah Kravitz is an educator, musician, and writer who calls Brooklyn, NY home and takes his iPod with him everyday on the commute to work at a school in Spanish Harlem. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Teaching and Learning with Technology and the drummer for Automat, who can be found rocking various clubs in the five boroughs and beyond.