TMC Information

D_P · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 03, 2007 Posts: 1

I have just bought a TMC reciever for my 510 and can't get it to work at all! It continually searches for a signal and never finds one. I have left it on for 24 hours in the car with the lead extended - hanging out of the window for a while whilst parked. I have driven along the M4 where my RDS car radio could pick up 3 different Classic FM frequencies. I have entered the frequencies in manually and it still does nothing. I am on the latest version of TomTom software and see the nice amber symbol going round and round endlessly!
The quality of the TomTom software and hardware is terrible! Constant bugs with bluetooth integration, day / night screen changes, mounting kits, upgrade scripts etc, etc, etc. They all seem to get fixed eventually but often new problems are introduced - I think they should employ a good test / QA team!!

My TMC unit is going back today.

Doug

coastersteve · Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 1:11 pm Post subject:

If you are happy ripping the unit apart you can add an external antenna which will make the unit *WORK*

This is the antenna I use: http://cpc.farnell.com/jsp/endecaSearch/partDetail.jsp?sku=AP01161 and its fantastic Laughing

vicky · Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 1:17 pm Post subject:

Coastersteve

Does the unit you are using need loads of wiring in?.

I purchased one from Halfords but as well as the Antenna Connection it also has a +12 power connection for the amp and also a pathetic 2" long ground braid that is supposed to go to car body,

It seems like so much hassle and more wires just wondering if the extra effort really produces much benefit over just adding the connection and splitter to the standard car antenna?.

Cheers

Vicky

coastersteve · Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 3:12 pm Post subject:

Vicky,

Sounds like you have a similar unit to the one I've got. It comes with double sided tape and suggests you mount it horizontally above the rear view mirror so I stole the power and ground from the passenger light as that has a constant 12V and I sandwitched the ground between a mounting screw to the body. Then I ran the output around the roof liner and pillar to the TMC reciever.

I think it'll be better than the car antenna simply because it has a pre-amp built in.

Martin4Jay · Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 5:06 pm Post subject: No TMC in the West Country

I just tried my new TMC and go no signal I'm from Somerset United Kingdom glad I got it for £47 and got the Traffic alerts till hoping they will get the TMC sorted by then.
Cheers Martin
_________________
Life is like a bunch of cherries, you don't know who is going to get on your pip.

Just be truthful and follow your heart
Life is how you make it

I'm forever blowing bubbles

I'm now a happy Garman Man

coastersteve · Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 5:27 pm Post subject:

If you upgrade your TT to 6.522 you'll see an improvement - without that its a dead duck.

The firmware won't improve the reception at all, end of story. This is down to the transmission power in the UK. There have been several threads already about this, use the search tool to find them.

Bodging in an external works fantastically but by doing so voids your warranty.

Martin4Jay · Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 5:46 pm Post subject:

Quote:

If you upgrade your TT to 6.522

Have got this Confused

, still a dead duck Me Me Me

looks like Somerset don't like Classic FM Crying or Very sad

We can only hope Rolling Eyes

Cheers
_________________
Life is like a bunch of cherries, you don't know who is going to get on your pip.

Just be truthful and follow your heart
Life is how you make it

I'm forever blowing bubbles

I'm now a happy Garman Man

Wildoat · Occasional Visitor Joined: Feb 28, 2006 Posts: 48

I am in France at the moment and have been unable to update to the latest firmware to improve the TMC performance but can say it works alot better in France than it does in the UK.

An option that would get round the problems in the UK would be a selection where you use the TMC as the primary traffic source but GPRS is used when the unit fails to tune to a suitable station within say 10 mins (and rechecks every 10 mins) - that would work for me.

The reason I wanted TMC is that when driving in Europe the roaming charges for GPRS are so high that I never used Traffic Info but using TMC gets round this but in the UK I would be happy for it to use GPRS as a backup.

I assume that this is wishful thinking or have I missed an option or is this possible on the new firmware?

PS One thing I noticed in France which is a bit annoying (same in UK?) is that when tuned to a traffic channel it say shows traffic hold ups but as soon as it loses the signal it 'forgets' the info it has and shows all clear and to top it all if on auto re-route takes you back into the traffic - have I missed something?

W

rory1968 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 17

I too have real problems with TMC in my 710.My car has an ariel for sat nav (Saab)which is not been used.do you think this might work?cheers,Mike

mikealder · Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 10:38 pm Post subject:

The spare aerial on your Saab is of little use for TMC the GPS signals are above 1,5GHz but the Classic FM channel you need is found at (or close to) 101Mhz - forget using the GPS aerial for this sort of modification it is in the wrong band to be of any use at all.
An amplified FM car aerial once connected correctly does make a significant improvement though, perhaps you could swap out the unused GPS aerial for something more suitable - Mike

rory1968 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 17

Mike,thanks for info re:redundant sat nav airial. I currently use a combination of GPRS and my old faithful traffic master freeway.The freeway is great,but,it would be nice to have somthing that worked reliably and was subscription free!.Looks like its out with the old soldeing iron.

PPlutt · Occasional Visitor Joined: Nov 27, 2006 Posts: 16

I made a muth smaller mod.

I feel like it improved the reciver alot with verry small resourses.

Instead of connecting an external antenna to the solderpad I took an
75cm cable from an Cat 5 and solderd this to the pad.

I cant exactly compare the quality of Clasic FM to P3 her in Sweden
but when I read all postings in this forum it sounds werry mutch alike.

With my small mod I have now rerouted the RDS-TMC reciver thro my dashbord up the pole besides the windscreen an the small cable goes futher up and reathes my rear wiev mirror.
So NO wisible cabes from outside any more.

I also discover that the suctionmount that came deliverd with my early deliverd 710 (may 06) have worse (bad) reception compared to the new replacment mount from tomtom (deliverd in Nov 06).
When I open bouth mounts and read on the PCB the first have no rev. marking and the new one is of rev. 10.

PPlutt · Occasional Visitor Joined: Nov 27, 2006 Posts: 16

Is it possible to make an Sticky posting with only the mods for RDS-TMC.
That have all the mods and info about it collected to same place.

Maby mikealder can be an nice moderator an fix this.
PLEASE
In this momen I can find three diffrent threads abouth this.

christ · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 25, 2006 Posts: 3

rushkins · Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 8:35 pm Post subject:

I cant even get the the TMC menu up. Every time I tap the screen on the right hand side I ger the TT traffic menu. So I cant even try to tune the TMC in to any radio station.

I would be grateful for any help.

Thanks

Keep smiling

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