In wishing Radioinfo a happy 30th birthday I want to acknowledge founder Steve Ahern‘s dedication to the audio industry and its people.
Send us a message and a birthday present
How I write, my OTT enthusiasm for GfK surveys and care to look beyond a headline is due to his mentorship. However, when it comes to new technology, a pleasant white noise hums through my mind, that then deviates towards White Noise also being a song by The Living End, then I wonder where it reached in the triple j Hottest 100 and before I know it I’m nodding my head with no idea if that was the acceptable response in the situation. Thank goodness then that new technology makes Steve’s heart sing.
Today though I want to surprise him, and myself, with some new to me technology that is utilising unused radio frequencies.
One of the places that we are most likely to tune into the radio is the car. We can’t doom scroll our phones but generally can use the opportunity, on our way to and from work, to catch up on the world and what’s happening locally.
I share my world with two young men who both now are on their Ps and have bought their own vehicles. My younger son’s is nearly two decades older than he is! Despite the looming fuel crisis a great percentage of their friends have such cars that most have actively chosen in the hope it will become a classic one day, if not already. These vehicles don’t come with interfaces, touchscreens, connectivity or, in the case of the Ford Telstar, even a CD player. They do have radios, and it has been a gateway to listening to local stations for the new driver in the older vehicle.
My older son does have a CD stacker, the memories that brought back, and has made his way through stacks of mine (triple j’s Hottest 100 of all Time pictured above alongside a candy cane that is probably glued to the bottom now) as well as developing a real affection for triple j, the radio station, and Kristen and Nige on Mix 102.3. However for Christmas he was given the device also pictured above, and main, that I was going to call a Bluetooth thingie, but out of respect for Steve’s attention to detail have discovered is a Bluetooth FM Transmitter Wireless Radio Adapter Car Kit with Dual USB Charging Car Charger.
How this works is that you plug it into either the USB port or the cigarette lighter socket for even older school cars like above and then you pair it to your smartphone. It converts your Spotify playlist into a FM radio signal and then you tune your car radio to the same unused frequency that matches the transmitter’s one, and voila! Audio plays through the car’s speakers.
I spent maybe two hours listening via a FM frequency to Spotify, joining my son’s jam through my own account and we had a fantastic time! He said that the only times he’s experienced any interruptions is when he has driven alongside someone else using the same frequency with their own old car / Bluetooth FM transmitter and secretly loves checking out their music tastes momentarily.
These devices retail for around $30 and I’m sure lots of you are already aware of them. Most of us who are Gen X and older, who buy newer cars, you will never need to know at all. But, alongside the CD stacker, cassette player and twiddle dial radio, there is an old school joy in having so many options to play audio in a classic (to be) vehicle. If you end up with one in your household, the transmitter is a pretty cool in car accessory to have.
Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster for Radioinfo.