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trying to help our mom & pop, recently revived movie theater (fm transmitter, anyone?)

G

GunsMadeAmericaFree

Golden Member
Our local small town movie theater was closed for the last 3 years. I really thought that it would be permanently closed, like the ones in so many other small towns around this area. However, a couple of guys just bought it, fixed it up and opened up - just a month or two before the coronavirus shut everything down. They were showing classic movies on a basic projector, and had just purchased a new projector that would allow them to show current movies going forward. It was going to be nice not having to drive 20 minutes to go see movies in another town again. (I got to see Wizard of Oz and Jaws there - they handed out free 'swedish fish' snacks to everyone who came to watch Jaws)

I noticed on their facebook page that they are having nights where people can come by and pick up snacks and movie theater popcorn. I realized that they would probably do a LOT better if they could take their old projector and DVD player and show some classic movies on the exterior wall of the place. (essentially what they had been doing inside, up till now) The only real challenge to doing that would be the sound. Since everybody has an FM radio these days, I figured an FM transmitter would be a good way to make it so anyone could hear the movie. It would also be very safe from a coronavirus view, since folks could opt to simply stay inside their car if desired.

Can anyone recommend an inexpensive fm transmitter that would hopefully work for a situation like this? (hopefully 50 bucks or less) It would only need to transmit about 50 feet distance for the small parking lot. I might even purchase it myself and donate it to them, since it would help them get through the unexpected closure of their building for eating in and watching movies indoors. I just hate that they might end up closing up before they even get a chance to start showing new movies, and I'd like to help them get through this.

Thanks!
 
My recent usage of some Sony RF Headphones makes me think there's no way to do this for $50. At least not without a lot of Interference.
 
The FM transmitters that one could get to broadcast from an iPod or portable CD player to a car stereo are strong enough for this. You would need to figure out the wiring from projector to transmitter. We used to share music between cars on long road trips using the iPod and transmitter in one car and listening in two cars.
 
I've seen lots of folks over the years who broadcast christmas music via fm to people driving down "candy cane lane." Should be doable...but no idea on the cost.
 
IronWing said:
The FM transmitters that one could get to broadcast from an iPod or portable CD player to a car stereo are strong enough for this. You would need to figure out the wiring from projector to transmitter. We used to share music between cars on long road trips using the iPod and transmitter in one car and listening in two cars.
Click to expand...
I've found in the past that those are unreliable and severely under-powered, car radio would just barely pick up the signal from within the car
 
Churches are using low power FM transmitters for drive up services. Max range is 200-300 hundred feet I think out of like less than 1 watt devices.
 
I suspect you would need something like this:Amazon Link, although I am no expert and depending on things you may need a few $100 more for a Parking Lot full of cars.
 
I used to go to a drive-in theater that used FM radio for the movie sound. Find one that is still operational, or that was prior to the lock down, and pick their brain.
 
Ended up buying something called a 'Doosl FM Transmitter', for $13 shipped. Got a couple of them, actually.

From the reviews I've read, they have about a 15 to 20 foot range on their own, but if you hook up a USB cord, the range goes up to more like 50 feet.

Plus, you'll notice that the 3.5mm audio jack has 3 bands, not two like a typical stereo device does. Interesting, eh?
The third one is for adding an antenna.

For about 6 bucks, you can buy a couple of adapters that give you:
rca jack audio input
boosted antenna output (you can hook up an old pair of TV rabbit ears)

watch "Doosl FM transmitter mod" on youtube if interested.
(you would also need an RCA female to coax adapter, and a 3.5mm mini female stereo to 3x rca male video adapter cord

It looks like you can easily get a 500' (tenth of a mile) range out of this thing. Cheap way to do a church drive-in service, host a parking lot
drive-in movie (with projector, obviously), or just xmit songs from your computer to your barn on the cheap.
 

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