Do any GPS with TMC work reliably?

mwfox

Are there any makes of GPS with TMC that work reliably - ie pick up traffic data reliably and over much of the UK? There have been problems with the Garmin Nuvi and GTM 12 - and are waiting for a new cigarette power supply to see if this fixes the problem. Have people used a Garmin Nuvi with a connection to their car aerial and got good results eg GTM10?

swing · Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 7:04 pm Post subject:

The GTM10 is a lot more reliable with all the Garmin units (that support it), although I'm not sure I've read about any UK Nuvi users with a GTM10. However, it also needs permanently fixing, which some people would prefer not to do.

ticklepin · Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2006 12:21 pm Post subject: Mio 710 TMC good performance

I have a Mio710 with the vexatious V3.2 update (since Tuesday!).
I can report that the TMC works admirably in France, Germany, and certainly in central England.
The aerial is joined to my car radio aerial via a home constructed splitter.
Yesterday during a journey between Banbury and Swindon I was guided elegantly round slow traffic at the M40 –A34 interchange. Of course I do not know how ‘real’ the slow traffic delay was, but the reroute was hardly slower than the motorway preference.

bobmred · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 03, 2006 Posts: 21

Over on the viaMichelin forum you'll find a thread on the X-950T and TMC. There are two issues - signal pickup and routing. Some of us have found that even with the supplied external antenna we get poor reception. I've been experimenting with alternative antennae. It's a looong story, sorry, but I'm definitely now getting a reasonably decent signal, even in an area that is known to get poor reception of Classic FM. (I've referenced a source of all the Classic FM transmitter sites somewhere in that thread - that helps me to understand what is going on as the signal strength bounces up and down.)

However, another chap and myself are suspicious that the X-950 doesn't re-route effectively, even when you do get clear TMC reports of hold-ups ahead. (It seemed quite happy to let me sail into a 10 or 20 mile hold-up on the M1 recently, when there were plenty of alternative routes).

Sleepycat · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 13, 2006 Posts: 1

I have a Garmin C510D and it connects to TMC really easily and seems to work very well indeed, even in the depths of deepest darkest Cornwall....

mwfox · Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 12:17 am Post subject:

What Station does it pick up in Cornwall for TMC?

sparky8609 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 30, 2006 Posts: 2

I have a Garmin C550, so far the G21 is a bit hit and miss,can't pick up anything at home or on the way into work, can finally pick a signal just outside work. Bit annoyed as I have upgraded solely for the tmc and it's not all it's cracked up to be.

etaf · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 30, 2006 Posts: 29

did the new PSU unit sort out the TMC on the Nuvi 310D
I have just purchased {30/10/06 } and waiting for a new PSU to arrive

DaveMatthews · Regular Visitor Joined: Dec 25, 2004 Posts: 221

My own experience of TMC while driving around north Manchester/Blackpool/Preston/Lancaster/Morecambe/Kendal/Penrith/Carlisle is that unless you use your car radio's antenna, successful reception is so rare that TMC is rendered useless. Fortunately the Navigon TMC unit I have allows me to plug in the car's antenna via a Y-splitter and this improves TMC reception immeasurably. (It still drops out briefly in some of the more hilly areas but this usualy coincides with a loss of signal for the ordinary audio signal from Classic FM, so that's fair enough). I think I paid 20 quid for the splitter and it was money well spent!

So to answer the OP, reception of TMC *is* reliable if you can use your car's antenna and you are travelling in an area that can pick up Classic FM. I believe usabel audio coverage in the UK is about 90 percent....? As to whether the actual data you receive is reliable, well that's another question!

Navigon are about to launch version 6 of their MobileNavigator software for PDA but their recently-released PNA version seems to show it has nothing new to offer over version 4 (which I currently own). For this reason I'm looking at alternatives such as TT Go 910 but the TMC receiver that comes with this doesn't accommodate a "proper" aerial - you are stuck with a scratty bit of wire which, according to myriad postngs in other threads, is virtually useless. Are there any other packages (either PDA-based or all-in-one hardware systems) that will accommodate the car antenna?

--

Cheers

Dave

diabeticpaul · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 21, 2005 Posts: 40

Navigon v5.2.6 fully supports TMC in the UK and uses the Trafficmaster data. It works very well for me. Its dated April 2006 so the maps are quite up-to-date. Earlier versions of 5 did not. Version 4 uses ITIS TMC data.

Hope this helps.

DaveMatthews · Regular Visitor Joined: Dec 25, 2004 Posts: 221

mikealder · Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 10:33 am Post subject:

DaveMatthews · Regular Visitor Joined: Dec 25, 2004 Posts: 221

swing · Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 5:55 pm Post subject:

swing · Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 5:59 pm Post subject:

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