A little fun tip for today’s post. As long time readers know I love podcasts. They are a great way to capitalize on time, learning while doing other activities. As I was puttering around the house, I wished I had an easy way to listen to my podcasts without having to use my headphones, and also be portable. Then it occurred to me, I did.
When I drive back and forth to work, I use a cassette adapter to plug into my cheapy mp3 player into the my old car’s stereo and listen to my podcasts. Sometimes I travel on business, and these days it’s seldom I get a rental car with a cassette, so I picked up an inexpensive radio transmitter, similar to this one but a heck of a lot cheaper. Well, being an amateur radio operator (often called “ham radio”) I have a wide variety of power supplies lying around. I dug into my box and found one kind of like this. I mated them up, found an unused frequency, and plugged the other end of the transmitter into the speaker jack of my computer and boom I was listening to my podcasts through my various radios. Very nice, and I can see a lot of use.
I was pleased too with the range, I can hear it all over my house and even into my yard a bit. I could probably get a bit more range moving it out of my office basement.
One last hint for today, next time you go to various stores keep an eye out for a “clearance” area. They are usually tucked away in the back corner of the store, often near the restrooms. I know I’ve seen them in Staples, Radio Shack, Office Max and Office Depot to name a few. You can get some really good deals, for example I picked up my transmitter for 10 dollars, marked down from the original 49 bucks. Also check out sites like woot for “deal of the day” specials.
