Home > Consumer Reviews > Fm Radio Compactflash Card

Let me just say wow! You would think that for $32 you would get a piece of #$&*, but I am surprised. The stations come in so clear and with 18 presets you have a lot of space to save your favorite ones. It works with Pocket PC 2003 and the software is so easy to use. It comes with a pair of stereo earbuds and a line-in cable so you can plug it into your computer. If you are wondering it will not play through your PDA speaker(s), there is a headphone port on the card its self. My Dell Axim is now compleat, and when I get tired of my mp3's I now have a radio to listen to!

here is the skinny. I originally bought my pda because of it's internal wifi capability. when i came across this fine device, i was currious enough to try it out. THe brand name was relatively new to me, and i was a bit skepical to buy it. Once it arrived on my doorstep, it was within 5 minnutes before i had everything out and ready to go. WOW. 18 presets and a strong FM antenna, every channel came in crisp and clear just like listening to my mp3s. For anyone who, like me, have listened to their music over and over again, and wants a cheap alternative this this the device for you. Its small, compact, and has excelent energy conservation, i cant wait to get the Ambicom GPS reciever which i just ordered. Ambicom means Quality and fits any budget.

Disclaimers: So far I've only tried the FM-CF in a laptop (Dell Latitude D600, WinXP Pro). If I get around to trying it in an iPAQ, and my impression improves, I'll repost. I have only used it in Sarasota, Florida, where there are a few local stations, but most are 30+ miles away (Tampa, St. Petersburg), albeit with flat topography.

Reception is worse than with my car's radio, my home receiver, or a Sangean SR-2 analog tuner pocket radio (which is itself far from great). Of the few stations that the FM-CF will tune, almost all are noisy. Of the latter, some become tolerable when one forces monophonic operation. There is no provision for setting a signal to noise ratio (SNR) threshold.

The Win32 control application (v1.1) is gaudily colored and not skinable. Many of the button labels use serif fonts and small typeface, neither of which can be changed. The preset buttons display only the station's frequency; there is no provision to label the buttons with the respective station's call letters. Overall, it's hard on half-century-old eyes.

The control app. provides one configuration setting, "Radio System", with three options:
- USA (88-108 MHz)
- Europe (87.5-108 MHz)
- Japan (76-91 MHz)
Perplexingly, that setting does not localize the carrier frequencies and channel spacing. Having selected USA, I would have expected the tuner to only stop at odd multiples of 100 kHz (0.1 MHz). Instead, it stops every 100 kHz, whether manually stepping or automatically seeking.

Ambicom does not offer a Software Developer's Kit (SDK), or an Application Programmer's Interface (API) to the device driver. Hence, writing a better control program appears improbable. Nor are Linux or BSD flavors supported by Ambicom.

My advice would be to pass on this product and apply your thirty+ bucks toward a pocket radio, perhaps a digitally tuned Sangean (which'll cost you another twenty).

It is a good solution for those who wants to listen to radio in addition to their MP3s. I have used it on a DELL 610 laptop and a iPAQ 3750 with expansion sleeve. The reception is significantly better with the laptop than the iPAQ. The user interfaces for both are the same, which is good. One bonus is the basic, but, free PCMCIA card comes with it.

On the flip side, the disappointments are: 1) no room left to plug-in for both my Compact Flash wireless card and it together for the laptop. 2) To boost reception of FM station's signal, one has to plug their headphone to this card, rather than the iPAQ or laptop's built-in line out. 3) missing record button to record what is broadcasting from the FM station. 4) missing Short wave and AM.

All and all, it is good.

I've changed two or three radios for PDAs, but this one is exceptional. There's a great advantage using this one: the PCMCIA card who fits into laptop may be used for any other SD card that you may want to plugin into your laptop (but you dont have a PCMCIA2SD card).

The receiver is exceptional, there's a nice program for your desktop from which you change FM stations (it's FM only) and it's quite precised (1 digit precision, i.e. 97.8, 97.9, 98.0 etc)

There's a small hole in the back of the radio which connects to either earphones or your laptop's line-in (so you can hear your music from your laptop).

I've heard stations with relatively weak signal quite good with this card, and I also managed to listen weather station (plus news) from inside a flight recently.

I think it's also wisely priced, so, to me, it's an exceptional buy..