Belkin F8V3080 TuneCast II Review

Overall Rating

Small and easy to use
Plugs into car power or uses batteries
Huge range of frequencies to transmit on
Great value
Fits any music player with a small jack outlet for headphones

No back light makes reading the display hard at night
Doesn't charge the MP3 player
Suffers interference in built up areas
Technically illegal, unless the law changes in the UK (currently under review) and most other countries!

This nifty device answered my problems on how to play my iPod (though it could have been any MP3 player) in the car without having to hard wire in a cradle and so on.

The Belkin TuneCast II is simple to set up. You add the batteries, or plug it into the car cigarette outlet, and plug the jack cable into your music player. A few seconds after you press the play button the Tunecast comes to life and transmits your music via an FM signal to your car, or any other FM radio.

You can tune the unit up or down anywhere across the normal FM range, but do avoid known radio stations (local or national), as it simple won't compete with their signal. If you tune your car radio to the same frequency you get an excellent quality playback of your iPod in the car.

On the downside, it really suffers in built up areas. I tried it in London... No hope. But then most other devices will suffer the same problem, as they are only low power transmitters. Add to that the lack of a joint power course for the player and Tunecast (difficult considering it fits any player), and you could end up with a need for multiple sockets, or a few flat batteries. Seeing as I run a TomTom sat nav already, I ended up running down a few batteries before long.

The device has four memories for your favourite frequencies, which is a help considering that at night you can't read the display, but this is a minor niggle, and of course would drain batteries even faster.

It is compact, but not too small for adult fingers, and it wraps up in its own cable. Although the power adaptor is always hanging around, which can be messy.

Price? Well, I reckon it's good value. In most shops I found it for around £30 (UK high street in September 2006), and no doubt it will come down in price.

The big downer... Well, keep an eye on the news, as the UK and most other countries have laws that are outdated as far as these devices are concerned. Technically it is illegal to use this transmitting device, as you are actually classed as broadcasting without a licence. But having said that, they aren't that powerful, so you're not going to interfere with paid up broadcasters. Also, there is a review of this law currently on-going. Here's hoping the government see sense on this one and keep step with technology.

Members' Comments onIain Macrae's Review

• Big Black Fred on 24th Jan 2008

  Plenty of information.

• Iain Macrae on 13th Aug 2008

  Update: These devices are now legal in the UK as far as I know.