Garmin nuvi 310D GTM12 TMC problems

[hannick]

The replacement charger arrived yesterday - the one with part number ending in 25.

The first thing I can report is that it has made a difference.

I now get traffic info in the town where I work and it keeps a signal all the way home (North Bristol).

I'm travelling around Bath and Trowbridge area on Friday so I'll see how it goes.

If you haven't got a "25" charger and GTM isn't working well - ring Garmin and get one.

[swing]

[Mr_V]

Ok, so that assumes that its picked up a traffic alert.

When using another gps I was on route where a lorry had jack knifed just before us, we didn't know about the avoid road function so it kept trying to bring us back onto the road, or getting us to turn round! In the end we resorted to our old fav the map!

If in a similar situation would we be able to get the Nuvi 310 to reroute easily around the obstacle??

Cheers

[swing]

In that situation, you can try the Detour button on the main menu page, but as you can't provide any detail (what road you want to avoid, how long you want to avoid the current road for), it's a bit hit and miss. Having said that, I've actually found it fairly good at avoiding the most immediate road, but has occasionally brought me back onto the same road still before the obstruction.

[BrianR]

I have been waching this thread for some time and thought my recent journeys may be of help. Last week I drove to Liverpool, via Manchester from Croydon, traffic listed all the way. I then drove up to Preston and lost the signal just after Skelmesdale.

Next day I returned to Liverpool, and the signal returned as I arrived. Signal remained until I reached Bolton (via Manchester).

The following day I went to Carlisle and back from Preston. no signal all day.

I left Preston the next day to go to Derby,via Scunthorpe. No signal until I reached the Tibshelf services near Mansfield.

Next day i drove to South Manchester, lost the signal n the Peak distric somewhere, returned around SHeffield area.

Finally drove home, signal all the way.

North/South divide on signal strength?

[mikealder]

Brian, I have been getting far better reception from the GTM12 since I re aranged the wire aerial. To start with I had it along the lower edge of the windscreen and reception was poor in the North West. I then changed to routing the wire up the A pillar, since doing this TMC is hit and miss but it does work in areas that previously never got a signal - Mike

[BrianR]

My aerial is against the A pillar, then doubles back on itself halfway.

Must just be coincidence that I didn't get any signal further north than Manchester?

[Tamila]

I've had the Nuvi 310D from Halfords since mid August. It came with the new charger 6025. Driving around the south east and to Manchester I seem to be getting traffic data (red triangles) ok but how would I know if I'm getting all the info or if the signal has dropped out? How do I check the signal strength? And what's the secret menu and how do I access it?

Also I'm not sure how good the traffic information is and how it interacts with the Nuvi route. Sometime I've been warned of slow traffic and continued anyway to find everything normal. Othertimes I've taken the new route round the houses. How do I know if the "avoid" route will be quicker than the original route I'm being diverted from? Also, why does it sometimes say it's found a better route after I've entered "avoid"? How do I check what that new route is compared to the avoid route and the original route? Thanks for any advice.

Is the system intelligent enough to work out traffic flows so that when it finds better routes these are always quicker? Or is it really quite dumb and the minute it sees a warning offers a diversion regardless of how long that would take in comparisonto the original route?

[n4nick]

Hi Tamila

You have raised some very good issues and if I am wrong I'm sure someone will correct me but from my experience:

1. To get into the diagnostics screen press on the trip computer icon in the navigation screen then hold the avg. speed button for say 10 seconds. When the diagnostics screen appears press next until you get through to the GTM screen. Experience on the forum indicates anything less than about 7 means no traffic data will be received.

2. I have also experienced this, particularly on the A12 extension from the M11 to the Blackwall Tunnel. I was told there was 2 miles of traffic but actually there was none! I have also experienced long queues that aren't showing up on the traffic system. I raised this with Trafficmaster several times and heard nothing back. All in all I was dissapointed with the system, it does have the potential to be an excellent add-on to sat-nav but some more work is needed on reliability.

3. There is no quick and easy way of tellling whether the diverted route will be quicker or not. Lacking this feature is in my opinion a major drawback of the Nuvi compared with the TomTom range.

4. See above. I have found that these "better" routes aren't always better! There was an issue where the Nuvi would calculate the journey "correctly" but then as you got closer to the destination re-calculate an illogical route but this may have been resolved by firmware updates.

5. In theory the data collected works out traffic flows and average speeds but my Nuvi never showed how long a hold up was estimated to be. I think with the volume of traffic on our roads the system struggles to cope with how quick a small delay can become a huge tailback. As for the Nuvi, even if this data was sent to it, I doubt it has the processing power to work out what would be the best option. Conditions change so quickly and when travelling at 60+ mph you could easily miss the vital turn-off to re-route whilst the Nuvi is processing. I think it follows the "dumb" approach.

Having said all of this, sat-nav is an aid to driving and is not fool-proof so its really down to the individual to, having perhaps listened to the traffic info. on the radio and used the overhead matrix displays take a view as to whether to divert.

Nick

[hawk74]

Thought I would give everyone my experience this weekend.

In the past I have posted some messages (along with other people) saying that I had had some messages in the Yorkshire region but as of early August I had nothing.

I have been from East Yorkshire to Cumbria this weekend along the M62/M61/M6. On Friday night I had no reception apart from a very small spell at the M62/M61 junction (as usual).

However, on the way back today (sunday) I have had a signal and messages from just north of the M55 right through to the end on the M62. I am now sat at home typing this with my Nuvi attached via USB still getting TMC signals.

May be there has been a problem with the transmitter (there has been some work on the TV mast in the last month) which has now finally been fixed!!! :D

For information to those in the same area here are the GTM Status details:

TUned Channel: 183
CC: 12
SID: 7
LTN: 7
Level: 4 to 7 (was up to 11 in the car on the way back)
Error: variable
Mode: 5
V-Sync: 0
...

[Trafficman]

Yipeeee! Traffic is indeed working again in Yorkshire! :D This was obviously a transmission fault in Yorkshire which affected things since early August. For the record..

Tuned channel 176
CC 12
SID 7
LTN 7
Level 7
Error 0
Mode 5
N-Sync 0

Let's hope it stays!

[mwfox]

Can the channel number be converted to a frequency so we know what radio station is transmitting on that channel. It might be useful then we would know if there is a problem on a particular station/transmitter and we might even be able to inform the station or ask if there is any work being done on the transmitter.

A start is the map from gcap media of the areas covered - but it would be nice to have transmitter locations and power output, which must be available somewhere on the web.

[Trafficman]

The codes listed match up with frequencies on the FM Table of 105.8 & 105.1 which is those of Galaxy FM in Yorkshire. So that is where the problem originated, me thinks. If you look at the transmission coverage area of this station it corroborates the accounts given of reception problems in Yorkshire since August.

[capsecum]

We have looked into your problem r.e. receiving traffic reception.

There are parts of the UK that are not covered.

In fact the coverage is for 90% of the UK population which is pretty good.

Unfortunately there are some areas which have limited coverage and you appear to be in that 10%.

If you are not happy then you will need to contact your dealer as there nothing else we can do for you.

Thank you for contacting Garmin Europe

[mwfox]

Can you not get reception even when powering the unit from the USB port via a PC?

Do you know what your local radio station which provides TMC for your area?

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