Hi all,

CN's/Solution in red:

Decided to join and post so that hopefully I can prevent someone from having to go through all the troubleshooting I did.

I recently pickked up a brand new in box N900, because well it is a pretty amazing machine, tv-out, usb-host, infared, bluetooth, external microsd, completely customizable, can run scripts, compile, aircrack, overclock, etc.

Anyway I got the phone and was super excited (never been this excited for tech). I gave it a quick once over and didn't see the FM transmitter option, but figured I would come across it as I played with it more.

First thing was first, take it apart and epoxy that crappy failure prone microusb port. That was actually pretty easy and quick. Especially due to the post of svcr0c0 and all the pictures found here:
https://sites.google.com/site/svcr0c0/n900

After that I did the standard stuff, themes, apps, bootscreen, overclock, bleeding edge wifi drivers, aircrack, reaver, wash, Cleven, extra codecs for the media player, tvbgone, and Perogi for fun with the IR port.

With all the research I discovered the FM transmitter was disabled in some of tthem. Once again a great member here had come up with a solution in the form of FM-Faker. I installed that and tested it out. The icon showed up, I could select the channel, but no matter how many different radios I tested it on, I only ever got static. Crap.

I poured over tons of threads, some said the receiving antenna might not be good enough, the power output of the N900 might not be enough, the channel selected wasn't clear, software issues, etc. Not a thing I tried worked. I was pretty frustrated, I didn't even know the FM transmitter was in this phone, but now that I knew it was there, I wanted it to work.

Finally after a couple days I came across this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2D9R1yK0vY

I did exactly what was shown on the video, set up the FM transmitter, pressed and held the space bar and BOOM! it worked, but only when I held the keyboard.

With that knowledge I took it apart again, and found that the FM transmitter antenna connects to the motherboard via a spring connection. What was happening was that the antenna wasn't connected so of course my FM transmitter wasn't working. I bent it up a little, put it back together, and BAM! Works perfectly on all radios.

This picture from svcr0c0's take apart, shows the spring connector to the upper left of the metal enclosure:

https://sites.google.com/site/svcr0c...attredirects=0

So if your FM transmitter only works really close to a radio, or just wont work, you might want to bend that connector a bit, as the antenna might not actually be connected to the mobo.

In the event mine fails again, I will solder a small piece of wire to the motherboard and the antenna.

Hope this helps someone else.