bugglet Posted August 20, 2007 Share Posted August 20, 2007 Hi, I'm planning on hard wiring my TomTom into the cubby and I've been looking at the TMC antenna to get traffic updates without the need to pay for a subscription to the traffic service and a data connection on my mobile. I’ve had a scout around the interweb and have found mixed reviews on the systems performance, so was just wondering if anyone had any experience of it on here and if you’d recommend it or not. Cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Digsy Posted August 20, 2007 Share Posted August 20, 2007 Moved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mugwump Posted August 20, 2007 Share Posted August 20, 2007 I dont have a TomTom but for what its worth I do have an alternative satnav with TMC and from my experience its just OK. o The coverage is not great, both in terms of TMC signal strength in some areas and also the roads that are covered. Yes all the major trunk routes flag up but you may be surprised at some major A roads that are not. This can lead your device to re-route you onto alternative roads that are just as busy as the one you got off. o sometimes the information is just not useful/up to date. Just about every day the M25 lights up as congested all the way round. No s**t sherlock! but the information received doesnt tell you if its standstill or moving steadily at 25mph which might be the difference between jumping on for a juntion or two if you knew (this data may be sent to your satnav so it can calculate a faster route but not in a form you can get at!). Also sometimes the data is not very timely (sometimes it doesnt tell you a road in congested until you are already sat in the traffic, I have also seen 30 mile tailbacks on the M3 according to TMC when the road was actually clear because they had not updated the info for an accident 8 hours earlier). At best I find it a guide to tell me how long my journey is likely to take and will often switch it on in the morning before making a journey to tell me if I need to set off early because of an accident on my route, this is especially useful if travelling out of your local area as you receive national alerts whereas you only receive local traffic news on the radio/TV. On balance I am glad that I have it but its still in its infancy as a technology and you have to think what will happen as we migrate to DAB, chances are your TomTom TMC will become redundant in about 3 years so if you are happy with that ROI then go for it. EDIT: URL fixed If you have not hit it already the http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/ website is a mine of information on the TomTom TMC product (and others). A hookup to your Stereo antenna to improve signal strength is well worth it to improve reception or even fit a signal amplifier (again this is covered on the website above) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bugglet Posted August 20, 2007 Author Share Posted August 20, 2007 Thanks for the info. I've just lost an hour reading through all the details on the Pocket GPS forum. Sounds like it's not a lot of use without modding it to take an amplified external aerial. I now need to decide if expense x effort = worth it.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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