FM Transmitter

If you have an aux input on your car stereo, use it!

The FM transmitter is very very low power -- as mandated by FCC rules. And if you're driving in a major metropolitan area, or covering a lot of ground, you'll undoubtedly have to retune it to find new empty spots on the dial as you go (and that's going to be difficult in an area like the Los Angeles basin).

If you're going to use your 750 for playing music, or listening to audio books, then an aux input (or even a cassette adapter) is your friend!

...The downside of a cassette adapter is that they can be like riding with a hamster cage in the car -- the thing will start going squeak, squeak, squeak after a while. But even with that minor annoyance, it's better than trying to live with the FM transmitter!

Many of us have found the FM transmitter output power to be too low and essentially useless. It was my one big disappointment with the nuvi 660 I bought.

As already recommended, if your car stereo has an aux input jack, buy a cable and use it. In my case, mine didn't so I had to look for a cassette adapter. I got this Sony model from Best Buy and it works great (no clicking or squeaking in 2 cars).

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=3510454&st=cas...

Read about more options here: http://www.poi-factory.com/node/8703

I agree. For the money, it is the most worthless option. So much promise, just poor execution. You have to wonder who really thought the product was ready to go out the door with an FM transmitter so under powered. One could state it's really the issues with FCC regs and transmission power - which is fine, but then don't put an FMT in the unit if you can't make it work properly.

Here's an answer to a topic that I posted earlier. Far superior to the fm transmitter.

The results you get depend a lot on the placement of the car's FM antenna.

I have an older Chevy Blazer with a whip antenna mounted on the passenger side front fender. When I first tried the 660 FM transmitter in that vehicle, it worked pretty well, with only slight static. The nuvi, sitting on the dash using the beanbag mount had a short, line-of-sight distance to the car's antenna.

Then I tired it in our Lexus RX330. The antenna on this car is a short 6-inch roof mount, way at the rear of the vehicle. So now, with the nuvi sitting on the dashboard, there is the whole sheet metal roof between the two, blocking the signal. I could barely hear anything at all under the loud hisssssssss sound of the unused FM channel I was using.

After this experience, I read some of the other posts here and just went down to Best Buy and bought the Sony cassette adapter for around $20. Neither car had an aux input jack but both had tape cassette players. No clicking, hissing or other noises with the Sony. Just be careful, the sales person tried to get me to buy their house brand, but after reading the cautions here, I spent the few extra bucks and went with the Sony brand. Very happy with that decision.

It's interesting, that after making us wait years for legal versions of 'FM transmitters', we are now allowed more powerful variants than the US ones.

The FM transmitter in my Nüvi 760 can be picked up loud and clear in both our cars - at the same time ... I tried walking around the drive and found it has a range of at least 20'

According to Garmin, I have to disable it when I visit the US

Yeah, right! As soon as you get off the plane in Chicago. Wouldn't want you to overpower any of our FM radio stations with your "illegal" Garmin

If the car has a radio antenna that retracts, put it down and you won't have interference. Most no longer do so, but some makes still have power antennas.

My prius has a removable antenna as do alot of cars. I think I'll give it a try, I also have similar problems with my portable xm radio, it might also solve that problem.

I'm sure that everyone actually disables it

This may actually be the reason why some airlines deny the use of gps.

Never thought of that -- anyone using the FM transmitter should turn that off before using it on a plane.