1370T and FM Traffic question

[rubicsys]

I bought the nuvi 1370T last week for a long trip this past weekend. I checked it out on a short trip on Friday and after 5 reboots in about 3 hours I decided to check for a firmware update and sure enough the installed version was 2.5 and the update took it to 3.2. That seems to have fixed the restarts. This weekend I had to drive from Manchester to Durham and went the M6/A66/A1(M) route. The journey took the best part of 3 hours and during all of that time I did not get any indication that the TMC receiver was working. No traffic icon. On the return journey I ran into the hold ups on the M6 southbound and could really have done with this working as it added over an hour to our journey time. To say I'm disappointed is an understatement.

One question I have is this, are there any instructions anywhere about how to install the nuvi and the FM Traffic receiver and antenna into your vehicle? The unit comes with an industrial grade power cable that makes this a very unsightly setup when everything is connected (is there an alternative?). I have had the antenna wire draped across the dash board, up the windscreen and slung from the rear view mirror and various stages. I went to the Tools/Traffic icon and did a search all to no avail. Subscriptions appeared to only show the North American one.

I would be very grateful if anyone can provide any clues as to how I can get this to work.

Thanks in advance.

Paul

[dales]

On my nuvi255WT, I get no traffic icon until the unit is connected to the car electrics via the heavy cable containing the traffic receiver. The traffic receiver's red LED lights up when connected.

As for installation, I have the aerial running along the bottom RHS of the windscreen. Works fine, even with the screen heater elements present. Apparently some windscreens have metallic reflective properties which hampers reception. There are several posts about all this on the forum if you search about.

Also I have avoided having the heavy cable running across the fascia and down to the cigar lighter. I bought a £5 extension lead with socket, wired it into the back of the cigar lighter and ran it over to a fascia pocket near the driver's door. Now, the traffic receiver's cable runs down between door and fascia (secured with sticky clips) and its remaining foot or so sits coiled up in the fascia pocket ready to be plugged in to the extension.

Dales.

[rubicsys]

Thanks Dales, that's vary helpful. At the moment the sheer weight and rigidity of the cable and the TMC receiver is the problem. I'm going to look into some clips as you suggest. The extension idea might work better than the current arrangement and also positioning the unit on the right of the steering wheel might be better overall. Thanks very much for the suggestions.

Since the original post I've managed to speak to support at Garmin and have some answers that might help others.

The 1370T is a Transatlantic Unit and comes with a free subscription to the NavTeq FM information available in the USA but not the TafficMaster service in the UK. For that you need to subscribe to the Premium service which is an extra one-off £30 for the lifetime of the unit.

I pointed out that the advertising of the unit does not make this clear and the support rep said "I know where you are coming from and it's something we're looking into".

I'm very disappointed that this unit is sold in the UK with nearly every web page selling it quoting the same blurb about free lifetime traffic updates but none (that I read while researching before I bought it) explaining that this service required another purchase. Even the Garmin website is not crystal clear as you could be led to believe that there are two levels of service - a basic and premium, and that some units are sold with this included and others are not.

I've since gone ahead and purchased the Premium FM Traffic subscription and the unit works OK.

A small point - while purchasing the subscription you are presented with an activation key which caused me some concern when it said I'd bought the subscription for the Ukraine instead of the United Kingdom. Entering the activation key showed that this was a web site error as it confirmed the TrafficMaster subscription was installed correctly.

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