TomTom TMC - Areas of Service / No Service

[christ]

Made the mod as decribed by gizmob73 and found a big diffrence. I am picking a siganl up aster about 20-30 seconds. Plus the actual reciver is situated at the back of the radion where it is pluged in to my car ariel. I have now bought a windscreen mounted areial wich is amplifed and will fitting it shortley. I do not know what I would of done if it was not for Pocket GPS world forum. A1

[m623d]

Ok, did the mod yesterday (just a wire at present as I wanted to 'test' its performance and need to be able to use in different vehicles)
Used a LONG piece of single core cable.
Still no signal in my immeadiate area, however
just back from London (again) and this time I got a signal for probably 70% of the time, which is a vast improvement to last time (see previous message)

Home to A15, nothing
A15 to M11 via A1, almost constant.
London M25 and central, constant,
M25, M1, M18 almost constant (a few dead patches on the M1)

Now I just need to do something about the 'extra' cable. I had it strewn across my tranny van like a washing line! orig unit on screen, then cable run across passenger seat to grab handle then across to the mirror and finally laid on the dash!!!
I know this isn't ideal, but it was a trial for today to see how it worked.
I now want a portable aerial of some description, pref with an amp.
Any ideas? I dont want to/cant fit it to the radio aerial as I need quick removal and refit in upto 4 different vehicles.
I suppose a mag mount would maybe be best?

I'm now 'almost' happy with the unit now.
_________________
Garmin Emap, Ipaq 2210 with TomTom Navigator 5, TomTom One, Pioneer AVIC-X1R, TomTom 910 (stolen). TomTom 520, TomTom 6100 (Faulty, replaced under warranty), Currently got a TomTom 6200

[ClovisI]

So, I'm American in Paris (or just south of Paris) who has recently purchased the TMC receiver for his TomTom 910.

I bought the TMC receiver for 3 reason: (1) That fact that I grew up in a small town means I absolutely hate to be stuck in traffic. (2) As I live outside of Paris, knowing the traffic en route would give me a change to take one of the many alternative routes. (3) The TomTom base unit works so well that I was sure the TMC addition would be the coup de grace for my traffic troubles.

Well, as you all know the TMC hardly lives up to the example set by the rest of the package. However, after finding this group, I have renewed hope that I can not only make something useful out of the piece of wire littering my dash, but also fulfill the promise of finally conquering Paris traffic.

So I do need some advice. While I'm not frightened by the prospect of taking solder gun in hand, I do not have the tools for the job readily at hand and must travel to a friend's house to do the work. For this reason I would like to minimize the amount of complication in the project.

I want to eventually pull off the kind of mod Vicky has described, with or without the amplifier (all wires stuffed behind the radio with an input from the car antenna).

My first question is about splitting the car antenna output to the TomTom and the radio. I have an old Peugeot 106 (circa 1991). The modern TomTom does indeed look funny when mounted in the car, but I digress... I was looking at a cable Here that I might be able to modify to fit the TMC receiver on my unit. Is anyone familiar with the kind of connections I would need to plug into the antenna on the Peugeot? Also, since this is obviously not built for the TomTom TMC, I would have to strip the output end of the coax cable and solder the core(?) to the TMC antenna? Is this correct?

I'll stop there as at may turn out that I will discover this cord is not suitable. Thanks in advance for you help. I've really enjoyed reading the progress made over the past few months and hope to be able to add another success story.
Edit one Mike Alder to sort out link text

[tonygamble]

E:mail just come through from TT to advise me that my repaired TMC device is being despatched back today.

I'll tell you what improvement it shows when it arrives.

However, don't ask me to open it and look at the chip number, please.

Oh, and it's good to see this thread reverting to fixes rather than moans. Far more help to everyone.

Tony

[mikealder]

ClovisI - Welcome to the forum, the lead you have highlighted looks ideal for splitting the existing connection to the back of the Stereo, although its a little costly for what it is.
Had TomTom fitted an external aerial socket to the RDS-TMC this lead would be ideal (it looks like it is intended for the Navman TMC to be honest).
All is not lost though, if you still want to open your unit up I would suggest you solder two 6" lengths of instrument wire to the two pads identified earlier in this thread. On the other end solder a female socket that fits the jack plug of the splitter lead you found, this way your RDS-TMC can still be removed from the vehicle without a major tear down - Mike Alder

[tonygamble]

Report 1 on my repaired TMC.

I say repaired, but it looks more like replaced.

Although the shipping document from CRC Ltd says my original had NO TROUBLE FOUND they do seem to have sent a new one.

I cannot be 100% but I think the plug where it joins the mount is different. This one has a brass lining on that outer section that compresses as you press the plug in securely.

At the moment I have yet to test it in my car. However, dangling the aerial out of my office window I get the feeling that it locks on faster than the old unit did, particularly if you 'tune' it to one of the CFM frequencies.

I'll see what happens on journey home and back to the office tomorrow and give you Report 2.

Tony

[m623d]

[mikealder]

Some people have found it works with a single connection, I have both connected to my amplified set-up, you might as well solder to both pads while in the device, if it presents a problem disconnect one of the wires from the aerial lead leaving the soldered connection in place, less messing around with the device open IMHO - Mike

[tonygamble]

Report 2.

Sadly the replacement TMC works no better than the old one did.

I'll be making a couple of phone calls tomorrow as it is not fit for the purpose for which it was sold.

Tony

[tonygamble]

Report 3.

Spoke to TT support who said they'd fixed a similar problem yesterday by getting the user to delete and re-load the operating system.

They've sent me an e:mail which includes a URL to a zip file that is an operating system.

I cannot test this until this evening as my desk docking station is at home.

I am reluctant to cut and paste the e:mail from TT without their consent - and I dread to think how long that would take to obtain.

However, I am sure there are others around here much closer to TT who might have an idea whether there is a newer, or simply modified, operating system around.

Stand by for Report 4.

Tony

[m623d]

hi

Can someone who understands radio freqs etc have a look at maplins website and tell me which magmount aerial will be best for picking up clssic tmc signals?

http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ITAG=SPEC&ModuleNo=29678&doy=16m2#spec

this is one, but there are others for taxi's etc.

Also, would I be able to put an amplifier in line with one of them?
like the halfords glass one some are using

thanks
_________________
Garmin Emap, Ipaq 2210 with TomTom Navigator 5, TomTom One, Pioneer AVIC-X1R, TomTom 910 (stolen). TomTom 520, TomTom 6100 (Faulty, replaced under warranty), Currently got a TomTom 6200

[mikealder]

A CB aerial is designed for 27/ 28 MHz, the RDS-TMC operates around the normal FM band, 87 to 108 FM your best bet would be a car aerial, the same type you would fit to your car radio. Or look into splitting the existing car aerial lead and amplify as Vicky has explained elsewhere.
Maplins used to supply an aerial (mag mount) called the mini-scan that did the job, but they no longer have this item listed - Mike

[m623d]

I cant use the existing aerial as I need it in 4 different vehicles, 2 of which aren't mine, so I cant butcher the wiring, plus I need a quick (5 min) removal.

mmmm, why couldn't TT get this right!

I supose I could just use the halfords glass mount complete and 'hang' it near the windscreen, I was just after a neat removable installation.

A car aerial with a sucker mount would be ideal!
_________________
Garmin Emap, Ipaq 2210 with TomTom Navigator 5, TomTom One, Pioneer AVIC-X1R, TomTom 910 (stolen). TomTom 520, TomTom 6100 (Faulty, replaced under warranty), Currently got a TomTom 6200

[mikealder]

Please consider one of These they are a better quality product than the Halfords offering, they also offer better reception which is the name of the game here Mike

[m623d]

yes, that would do, how do they attach to the screen?
_________________
Garmin Emap, Ipaq 2210 with TomTom Navigator 5, TomTom One, Pioneer AVIC-X1R, TomTom 910 (stolen). TomTom 520, TomTom 6100 (Faulty, replaced under warranty), Currently got a TomTom 6200

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