RDS/TMC in France?

[Robin2]

I have just returned from 4 weeks in France. On my drive towards Dover the RDS/TMC receiver was working fine, and I received traffic reports. As soon as I arrived in Calais, the sidebar did not appear and the receiver did not appear to be recognised. Most of the traffic menu options were greyed out. I tried soft and hard resets, but to no avail.
I landed back in Dover this morning and lo and behold it worked fine.
There seem to be 2 possibilities
1. The traffic receiver does not work in France
2. There is some menu option which I should have selected to activate it in France
Can anyone tell me which is correct?
Robin
_________________
TomTom One v3 Europe, Navcore 7.903, Western Europe 835.2420
TomTom Go 720 Europe, Navcore 8.351, Western Europe 855.2884
Satmap Active 10
Plus a lot of other PDA GPS kit, seldom used

[bullyterrier]

The RDS TMC works here in France for me. And the unit and receiver was bought in the UK.

[MrT]

I did not have to do anything except plug it in on my 940 for it to work in France last week. Only problem was it would only work with the aerial outside of the car but that is down to my car and not the TMC.

Only two things I can think of:

1. You used a different map in France to the UK but I think your unit uses the WE map for both France and England (each map has its own configuration settings so different maps would have different settings).

2. You have locked your TMC to a manual UK frequency, but my TomTom overides this if it cannot find a frequency and I would have thought yours did the same.
_________________
Drivelux

[Robin2]

No, I didn't change maps, I am using Western Europe.
I didn't lock to a particular frequency (indeed, in France, the screen allowing me to do that was not accesible - the menu items relating to RDS/TMC were not there, neither was the traffic sidebar (though it reappeared as soon as I got back to UK)
Robin
_________________
TomTom One v3 Europe, Navcore 7.903, Western Europe 835.2420
TomTom Go 720 Europe, Navcore 8.351, Western Europe 855.2884
Satmap Active 10
Plus a lot of other PDA GPS kit, seldom used

[mikealder]

Now you can get back to the RDS options was it set to UK or strongest signal? if it was UK this might explain why it behaved in the way it did - Mike

[MrT]

I cannot find a country option in the RDS-TMC settings on any of my devices. I can also access the TMC settings before any GPS or RDS-TMC signal is received when the unit does not know where it is.

I have tried this with both the USB & Jackplug type TMC devices.

A long time ago (and still in the USA) I seem to remember that TMC services outside of the UK had service charges. I do not know how TomTom would have known if you had a valid TMC or unit with a prepaid service charge but is there any chance that you have an old TT, TMC or Software or a unit made for a market where TMC is chargeable and it is assuming that you are outside of the area you have paid for? This possibility may be totally incorrect, but something brings back memories of TMC licences.

Only odd thing I notice is that when I switch maps on the 530 between England and France I get the message TMC disconnected then TMC connected as it switches maps.
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Drivelux

[Steveee]

This sounds like a temporary connection problem.

I am using a GO920 and I regularly travel from the UK, through the Euro Tunnel, then through France, Belgium and Netherlands. The only country I encounter RDS-TMC connection problems is the UK, i.e. many areas of poor reception, especially around East Anglia.

My settings are for strongest signal.
_________________
Steveee
Where am I?
==============
GO 920 (retired)
Garmin Oregon 550T
Garmin Drivesmart

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