Can the MotoQ be made to act as an iPOD for listening to music while you drive? I set out this week to determine the answer… We don’t have a veritable plethora of iPOD accessories for our MotoQ just yet, but as more units are sold I suppose more vendors will adapt their product lines or develop custom solutions for this new phone/device. I, for one, did not want to wait until we had a way to leverage the MotoQ as an iPOD substitute (as previously blogged herein) when riding in my car.

The first issue to overcome is the phone jack. Motorola gave us a 2mm jack, perfect for wired cellphone headsets/earbud but worthless for most every stereo earbud or headphones which use 3mm (or 1/8″). For the low low price of $3.99 you can buy this simple plug from RadioShack.com… I think it was about a dollar more plus tax in the store yesterday. Be SURE to get the 1/8″ (aka 3mm) Stereo Jack to 3/32″ (aka 2mm) Stereo Plug Adapter, not the other way around (it just won’t work). To be sure, open the package in the store and make sure it inserts easily into your Motorola Q.

You could stop right here and use your favorite headphones… your MotoQ would be quite a good iPOD substitute, but that’s not what I was after. I wanted to replicate the Griffin iTrip as much as possible. While I was at the RadioShack store, I dropped another $30 on their least expensive Wireless FM Transmitter and a few bucks for the requisite AAA batteries. Thankfully it came in a pop-out plastic display case since NOT ONE of the hard-coded FM stations (88.1, .3, .5, or .7) would work without bleedover… so back into the store for a refund I went. Their other in-store option wasn’t portable (a Monster cable that plugged into the accessory adapter of the car) so I went without.

Then, I went down the street to Best Buy. I paid $20 for a generic enough looking FM transmitter that not only had the same basic FM station choices as the failed one from Radio Shack for $10 less, but it also had a “tuning dial” on the side. This time it worked without an issue… well, it took sliding that dial back and forth to get my car FM receiver to play a clean signal from the MotoQ.

The sound was a bit distorted, but I could hear the music. It was, at best, “AM quality” audio at this point. Every posting I had found in researching this stated that I shouldn’t expect much else. But, I wanted more! There were three volume controls involved: one on the MotoQ, the ‘earpiece volume’ (the cause of the Mysterious Mute issue), and the other control on the car radio. I turned DOWN the MotoQ volume within the Windows Media Player to about 50% and this all but removed the static and distortion, giving a much cleaner signal. Then, I bumped up the stereo volume to my satisfaction. As I noted in a previous post, the earpiece volume (oddly enough) affects the output of the speakers and the earpiece jack… so I set this to around the half-way mark as well. A final adjustment on the side of the transmitter helped finally change the music to “FM quality.” I found that moving the transmitter and the phone around within the car’s driver compartment also affected the sound quality and while it’s not “CD quality” I’m very happy with the results.

It’s as simple as inserting 2 AAA batteries and tuning both the device and the car radio to FM stations 88.1, .3, .5, or .7 MHz. These are the SAME stations as the Radio Shack model, but the tuning dial is the secret to getting a clean signal! The device has a simple on/off switch with an LED indicator (not auto-off feature). Changes of temperature (leaving the unit in the sunlight, for instance) will require fine tuning the frequency as well. Also, the stronger the batteries the stronger the signal… therefore, fresh rechargable AAA batteries are recommended.

For around $30 including tax I now have the ability to play my iTUNES-encoded files in my car via the MotoQ. One last important note before I go out and enjoy it some more… be sure to set the Windows Media Player to shuffle mode since (for now) there isn’t a way to set up a playlist.

Want to do the same thing? The Dynex DX-AC101 is available from bestbuy.com for $19.99 + tax/shipping but I’ve searched eBay and saw it available at a buy-it-now price of $7.10 including shipping! Just don’t forget to purchase the 2mm to 3mm adapter.