N900 FM Transmitter and Charging problems
 

N900 FM Transmitter and Charging problems

Hey guys,

I tried searching for the above but couldn’t get any answers. I’ll split them up below:

FM Transmitter:

For some reason, I can put the transmitter on, and there’s no sound coming out of my phone (and the little transmitter icon shows in the status bar) BUT… there’s no sound out of the radio. I tried it in the car, putting the phone next to the car aerial, and with the home sound system (the phone’s next to the aerial and a few metres away). Nothing. Any advice on what’s wrong or how this can be fixed? I’ve tried this on multiple frequencies, and I have downloaded the FM booster, but nothing works…

Battery Charging:

For some reason, it takes absolutely a few hours too long to charge my phone! I plugged it in to the mains, used my older N95 charger with an adapter, and let it start charging from about 1am. I woke up at about 8am or so, and the battery wasn’t even full. And nothing was running on the phone, it was just on standby with a 2G connection. The charger still charges my N95 in 2 hours, so it still works.

Last night, I installed battery eye and put the phone on charge before I went to bed, this time with wifi connected. The resulting graph is as per attached.

Is something wrong with my charger? I’m letting the phone charge now at work using the usb cable to my pc, but I was wondering if there’s a hardware problem with my phone? Everything else works fine, besides the fm transmitter above…

Any help would be very much appreciated… thanks in advance!

Re: N900 FM Transmitter and Charging problems
 

For the charging - that's correct. Use the supplied AC-10e charger. The old nokia chargers give maximum output of only 500mA or even less. Battery has 1350mAh, so it'll take at least 3 hours to fully charge with the 500mA charger. With the AC-10 it takes something more than 1 hour for me. USB port also gives maximum of 500mA.

Re: N900 FM Transmitter and Charging problems
 

thanks for that! i'll try using the supplied charger tonight and see how quick it charges the phone...

anyone else got any information on the fm transmitter problem i have above?

Re: N900 FM Transmitter and Charging problems
 

You said you installed the fm boost, but have you turned it on? I know that may sound pretty obvious, but i had to add the shortcut to my desktop to remember to turn it on. Also, if you download the simple fm transmitter widget, you can set it to automatically boost the output. Mine works great now, even though it was unusable before i installed the booster.

Re: N900 FM Transmitter and Charging problems
 

For the FM transmitter:

***If using car charger plug in first before doing anything***

1. Start song.
2. Start fm transmitter
3. Start fm boost-If you take another call or open another program then you must use the fm boost application again. You must do this and I dont know exactly why but it works. I use mine in my car everytime I get in. I am in Chicago metropolitan area. There are hardly any free radio frequencies. I use 98.3 here in Chicago and it works about 95% of the time.

P.S. No sound is supposed to come out of phone speakers unless you receive a phone call while using fm transmitter.

Re: N900 FM Transmitter and Charging problems
 

Is there a way to get the calls to go through FM transmitter?

Re: N900 FM Transmitter and Charging problems
 

turn it on = run it? i did - what happens is that it just runs the script in the terminal and shuts down right away. is that normal? do i need to do that every time i turn on the transmitter?

or... are we talking about 2 different programs here? i dont see any other fm boost program in extras, besides the one i already have...

gom4381 - thanks for the step by step guide. i'll give it a shot on my way home from work in 15mins :)

Re: N900 FM Transmitter and Charging problems
 

does intalling fm boast and running it overcome the loss the signal when using a car charger?

Re: N900 FM Transmitter and Charging problems
 

I think so.

Re: N900 FM Transmitter and Charging problems
 

Turn it on means run the program. It is normal for the program to run a terminal screen and then disappear. Yes, you need to do it every time you turn on the transmitter.

Re: N900 FM Transmitter and Charging problems
 

Ah. I hope this solves my problem with the Brodit active mount. 2 steps forward, 1 step back.
What would be nice is if the person who wrote the transmitter turn on/off widget could do the transmitter power boost when turning on. that'd be good. :)

Re: N900 FM Transmitter and Charging problems
 

This is already there. You need to install fm-boost and then enable it in the fmtx-widget's settings.

Re: N900 FM Transmitter and Charging problems
 

BUMP!

@jinx405, was your problem solved? as I'm having the same problem too...funny, because it was working alot better in my car before I installed the fm boost script but after I installed the script I can hardly hear the song but a very big improvement when I put it right next to a radio.

Another question, is it true that it's better if the radio is Analog (dial-turn tuning) instead of digital?