Will an FM transmitter bought in US work in Europe?

Question

My husband and I are going on vacation to France and Italy. I want to put together some music for the journey (we are renting a car in both countries). However, I don't know for sure what sort of system these cars will have. The best bet of course it to bring an FM transmitter, because the cars will at least have radios. But, do FM transmitters bought in the US work just fine in Europe? Are the FM frequencies the same and the cigarette lighters universal? We'd be driving a Renault Twingo and a Fiat Punto or something similar, so these will probably be foreign cars.

FM transmitter is the correct term for what I am asking about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM_transmitter_(personal_device)

You hook your personal device (iPod, CD player, whatever) up to the FM transmitter and it will broadcast to whatever airwaves are not already occupied by other radio stations. This is a totally normal device, used frequently for people trying to listen to their iPod in cars.

My question is whether or not this will work properly in Europe (specifically France in the Burgundy region and Italy in the Tuscany region). I know there is some concern over being in big cities where the radios are overloaded with broadcasts already. Also, I'd like to know if cigarette adapters are standard, as FM transmitters use this to power them or recharge a lot of the time.

Answer 1

Yes, certainly it will work. The main difference between FM radio in the US and Europe is that the US uses only the odd frequencies: ie, 97.5, 97.7, 97.9 and so on. European radio uses frequency settings in between (98.60, 98.65) that aren't used in the US, but they both use the same frequency range. If you have an FM transmitter set to 97.9, you should be able to receive the signal on a European radio just as well as a US radio.

Answer 2

It will probably work, but the transmitter (I'm guessing something like iMonster's power cord & transmitter so you can listen to an iPod on a car stereo) may not be approved for use in Europe. You could run afowl of whatever country equivalent of the FCC is.

Answer 3

I strongly suspect you are talking about something otehr than a "transmitter" but haven't the foggiest notion of what it might be. You would use a transmitter if YOU were going to try to broadcast to other people's radios. I guess you're wondering if you could play recorded music in the car, like from a tape or CD player you would take along. Why not take a "boom box" and listen to whatever you want to take along?

The "cigarette lighter" should be identical, since most cars deliver 12 volts DC to that spot, but you might get a strange little car with only 6 volts, so double-check just to be sure.