TomTom TMC - Areas of Service / No Service

[Scotty-uk]

hmmmm just plugged it into the home aerial and it got Classic FM instantly I set the frequency so may be it is just poor reception despite it sounding fine on the radio.

Maybe I'll swap the core and shield due to the power adaptor issue.

Incidently I'm on NTL cable at home and wasn't sure if plugging into this would work. I had to manually set the frequency as it's not a normal Classic FM one (96.4) but within 5 secs of doing this it worked perfectly.

[Scotty-uk]

OK so if I'm to rewire (to stop the problem with the power can someone explain the pdf as it's confusing me.

It seems to say the red cable is the outer but it looks like the inner.

p.s. Apologies in advance for being slow.

[vicky]

The OP Rewired as realised he had them wrong after the picture was taken


Just use the lower pad for the core and the upper pad for the screen and you will be fine, (Personally I am not using the upper pad at all as it caused problems when the charger was plugged in)

So in my case its lower Pad Core upper pad nothing.

Tryit with the screen connected and if you lose signal with the car charger connected then discinnect the screen wire and it will work

Hope that helps.


Cheers

Vicky

[Scotty-uk]

Excellent.

Many thanks.

Time to warm the soldering iron again.....

[Scotty-uk]

Doh! This is what I have. Exactly the same as you Vicki.

Core on lower and shield not connected.

It works indoors but I get noise on the radio only when using the in-car power feed. Wiring the shield wouldn't stop that would it?

[hijacker]

Hi

The Way I have done it is to

Solder the Preamp unit taken from the Halfords antenna in line between the Car Aerial and the Signal splitter that sents the signal to the car radio and the TMC unit

So basically I have soldered a standard socket onto the black core and ground braind goin into the Preamp, plugged this into the car aerial at its plug, then plugged the preamp plug into the splitter, and then the car radio and the TMC unit into the splitter to get the signals.

As noted on the TMC unit I have disconected the screen braid as I found I had problems with getting a signal once the charger was connected on my unit if the screeining was connected.

I have not experimented with the reason for this yet, I am begining to wonder if it is because I also have a stereo aux lead running for the TomTom Mount to my Car Radio.

But as all is working I cannot really be bothered to try resoldering the braid unless it gives me problems in the future,.

I will add some photos a little later as I have to pull the unit out of the dash to tidy up

Cheers

Vicky[/quote]


Many thanks for this info. Hopefully I will be working on this later on today and can then report back.
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TT GO 1005

[beaconlegal]

Since returning from Austria (see earlier post) I have upgraded the Go 710 firmware to 6.522 and now have the orange circle and the ability to manually tune.

Yesterday did a trip from Worcestershire to Heathrow Airport (which, strangely, Tom Tom thinks is Shoreham Airport so far as "next signpost" is concerned!).

I can report no improvement in performance whatsoever. As on my trip down to Dover, I first picked up a signal ascending the summit of the A419 at Blunsdon which lasted for about 2 miles. The transmitter is virtually at the side of the road at Blunsdon itself and, whilst it is a low power transmitter, I have to express surprise that it only seems to be picked up by the tom tom within a radius of 1 mile!

I tried manually tuning to classic frequencies but the unit quickly decided that it could not "hear" them and resumed auto tuning.

The result of the upgrade appears to be that whereas before you got a green circle but had no idea whether you were receiving traffic info without checking the other screen for the frequency and station name, now you get told that the unit hasn't found a suitable signal. I'm not sure that classifies as an improvement ....

[TomDavison]

Please forgive the layman's language, as I am not a radio person.

As I understand it, on the continent, many of the programmes have the traffic signal piggy backed on, and for the TMC, its a simple case of tuning to the strongest signal, and it finds traffic info there. In UK, only Classic Fm carries this signal. So if a radio programme with a stronger signal is about, the TMC will tune to that programme, and fail to find traffic info.

Normal RDS radios seem perfectly capable of locking to Classic Fm, and following it around the country as it changes frequency.

If I'm correct so far, the next stage seems to be straightforward, but probably isn't. Is there any way of using an RDS radio, set permanently to Classic Fm to feed a signal into the TMC unit. I'm thinking of something like a second radio with the output into an FM transmitter that will rebroadcast a strong signal that the TMC will lock onto, or directly wiring into the TMC.

Sits back and waits to be shot down in flames.

[zogman]

[TomDavison]

[TomDavison]

See http://www.itisholdings.com/itmc2.asp

[zogman]

advised and knowledge
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[zogman]

advised and knowledged
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[mikealder]

Classic FM transmits the TMC data provided by iTIS Holdings, it is this company that TomTom have their contract with to provide the information. Other services do exist within the UK, Traffic Master (As used by Garmin to name but one) uses radio stations within the UK owned by GCAP Media, so there are a number of different frequencies carrying information that the unit will see and look at, but the information the other stations transmit is of no use to the TomTom RDS-TMC.

As for feeding the correct signal to the device, in the UK we are quite fortunate that Classic FM transmits between 99,9 to 102.1FM which is quite a tight band within the overall FM band available. I would prefer to see the unit only scan this tight band when UK is selected, thus rejecting any frequency outside that of interest. As the RDS-TMC can be used pan European it needs to scan all the band, different frequencies are employed within different countries.

As for feeding the device with a Classic FM only signal, in theory it could be done, but the practical side to designing and building an amplifier with a selective band pass filter is possible, but would prove costly. The cheaper option is to feed the device with a quality signal, from which it would appear to work considerably better, bear in mind most of the problems we find in the UK are down to poor signal coverage - Mike

[Andy_P]

Nope... Trafficmaster's data is carried on GCap Media and Chrysalis' local radio networks but not TomTom's which is supplied by ICTIS and is only on Classic FM (It's all down to money I think!)

http://www.trafficmaster.co.uk/page.cfm?key=RDS_TMC

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