TT 920 transmitting to car radio

[speedbird1]

I'm guessing that this subject has been discussed to death but I am having real issues being able to find relevant stuff on this forum about it.

I cannot be the only person who tries to use the inbuilt transmitter on my 920 to listen to Mp3's therefore i cannot be the only person who feels something is not right, The distance from my 920 to the car radio aerial is maybe 4-5 ft so why does the signal get constantly interupted by outside signals, signals that are not on the exact same frequency either.

I used to have a small fag lighter powered thing that would transmit right in the middle of the Radio 2 frequency range and i could reach one of my collegues up to 400 yards away. yes we tested it to varify. without issue.

Is there any way of "turning up" the output power a bit to make it work more efficiently?

Any tips or ideas would be welcom.

Thank you

[mikealder]

The problem is down to government legislation, in order to sell a device in this country that transmits RF it must comply with the standards dictated by Offcom. These standards dictate the power level must be so low that it cannot cause interference to any other users, the downside is normal radio stations who can use much higher power levels tend to swamp the signal from the TT FM Tx causing the interference, unless you can locate a free frequency on the FM band in your area getting reliable performance is going to be tricky.

You could use the old FM Tx unit you have with the decent range but bear in mind these are illegal (but they do work considerably better), simply plug the unit into the line out socket on the TT.

Other options are to use the Line out wired directly to the Aux input to your car deck (assuming it has such connectivity), or consider Bluetooth audio to stream the music from the TT to the car deck. This latter option offers the best audio quality by far and doesn't suffer from interference at all, the problem is locating a head unit that will work with the TomTom via Bluetooth at a reasonable cost - my LG deck was around £130 and works very well for Bluetooth Audio streaming using either the 720 or 930 - Mike

[DennisN]

If it's any help, I have found that 88.0 is the frequency I have least interference with (I travel all over the country and can only recall having a problem in London).
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Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

[KenBruce]

I agree with 88.0. In fact just recently I changed to 87.9 to tweek it a bit better in my area. The bottom end of the band seems much clearer.

[Calomax]

I just gave mine a try. 87.9 seems fine here. Shame it doesn't go down to 87.5 like the car radio.

In doing so I found yet another benefit ot updating to version 8.10. Before, I had to turn the radio up high to use the Go, then when I changed to another statiojn we were blasted out ot the car. Now the volume from the Go is the same as the other stations. Super
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TT Go Essential

[mikedean2]

I've not hooked up the transmitter on my 920 because I think its another one of those things that sound really wonderful in concept, but flawed in practice. Sometimes I do want to listen to my MP3s while in the car, but in the main I prefer the radio, since as I'm concentrating on driving I'm not devoting all my attention to the music and so will tolerate stuff I dont necessarily like.
Unfortunately my 920 cant do what I really want - to listen to the radio and have it mute and read the direction announcements through the car speakers! So near, yet so far...

[Calomax]

mikedean2 wrote

[speedbird1]

Thanks for all the above, i will give some trials to the 87.9 - 88.0 and feed back.

Meanwhile if any more postings are forthcoming about frequencies used in what rough areas (that is not areas that are rough) I would be interested to know.

Thank you all again.

[mikealder]

106,3 for most of Lancashire when crossing to Yorkshire I switch to 107,0 which is fine for Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.
Did you know the device can also store a number of frequencies, this make it so much easier (and safer) to use while on the road if you pre-tune the car decks presets to the same frequencies stored on the TomTom changing the output frequency and re-tuning the car is very easy - Mike

[Andy_P]

One of the problems with finding clear frequencies is that on modern radios you can't just waggle a frequency knob. On mine you can't even switch between auto-scan and manual tuning. As soon as you touch the tuning buttons it scans to the next busy frequency - you have to hold it down to go to manual tune, by which time you've gone past the empty space!

[speedbird1]

Just gone from Lancashire to Glasgow without any issue at all really at 87.9 maybe a very small glitch when passing the pylons at Shap.

I see there are presets but are there not only 2? or am i missing something?

Mike

[jimbo_hippo]

I find results are acceptable with V7.221 but unbearable in the last 7.xxx version due to clipping and non-working volume controls.

However, with either, I find the interference and background noise is MUCH worse when the supplied USB charger is in use. It seems to introduce noise and allows break through of competing frequencies. So I find myself listening happily to Podcasts and music with nice clear navigation until my battery runs low then I give up because it's unbearable with the power in.

Anyone else found the same?
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Tom Tom GO 720
Orange M3100, Orange SPV M5000
TomTom Navigator 6, Destinator 6
Holux GPSslim

[Andy_P]

I've never tried it WITHOUT it being plugged in.
I'll try it tonight to see if it improves the (so far - marginal) performance.

[algypan]

With reference to the noise from the power cable I too have found it very frustrating in fact some time ago when I first aquired my 520T I accidentaly caught the tomtom end of the plug in the door and thaught that this was the problem so I shot off down to halfords for a replacement only to find that it was not the problem anyway on purchacing a new holder with the the lead included great no mushy noise

[jimbo_hippo]

Algypan, are you saying that the noise wasn't present on the third party cable, only on the Tom Tom supplied one?
_________________
Tom Tom GO 720
Orange M3100, Orange SPV M5000
TomTom Navigator 6, Destinator 6
Holux GPSslim

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