Customer Reviews

Tom Tom RDS-TMC Traffic Receiver

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I've had this antenna for a couple of weeks now, and it only retrieved traffic info for two days. Since then, it connects to either of two radio stations in Atlanta and reports "no delays on route", even when I'm stuck in a two-hour traffic jam on I-285. Switching stations results in the "green dot" on the traffic monitor, and a further result of "no delays on route".

Several calls to TomTom tech support have been fruitless. The last time, they claimed their traffic server was down indefinitely. That would be bad enough, but the RDS-TMC information is not controlled by TomTom's service, it comes from Clear Channel's Traffic Network. The traffic server is only for their GPRS/Mobile Phone/TomTom Plus traffic service.

I had tried the TomTom Plus service prior to ordering the antenna, and it worked fairly well (when the traffic server was up) but I found the $19.95/month charge that T-Mobile added on to my bill to be a bit excessive when this antenna was supposed to do a comparable job.

I'm sending it back. If it was just an intermittent outage, I could understand that. Two solid weeks of "no traffic on route" while sitting in the I-285 parking lot for thirty-seven miles each way is ridiculous.

I purchased the Tom Tom RDS-TMC antenna for my Tom Tom One XLS. I bought the correct one, said Tom Tom One XL right on the box. My Tom Tom software is the latest version 7.162, The unit was charged up and the power was on.

I checked to see if Clear Channel RDS-TMC coverage was in my area (said it as according to the coverage map and other press releases from RDS-TMC).

I was !so! hoping this item would work, but even though the Tom Tom unit recognized the antenna, it was never able to lock on to a channel and receive a signal. I drove for 40 miles near Cleveland and it never, not even for a blink of an eye, found a channel.

I searched the web for manual tuning options, I even stood outside with the receiver in hand in the open air and let it search and search and search ...nothing.

Without a signal, the $130.00 wire is pretty much useless. Forget about the 'web' being much help, Tom Tom pretty much states on their website, not responsible for the data and signal and refer you to Clear Channel RDS TMC, if you go to RDS-TMC, they refer you to Tom Tom...so what are you to do.?? I went to HH Gregg, they said yours if the first we sold and we don't know anything about the product. I went to Best Buy and the kid didn't know what I was talking about and they only sell this product on the web (I wonder why?)

All I can say is the service may be where you live and it may be great, but it is not in Cleveland, Ohio (even though it says it is).. So if you buy this, make sure you can return it, because this item can only be used for one thing and one thing only. Let me tell you, you will be upset if you need to and cannot get your money back, Luckily HH Gregg gave me all money back and I can wait until the covereage improves or until the next great thing comes out (which if you look at Tom Tom site and change the country to the Netherlands, you will see there is already a next generation of Traffic Information service available called HD Traffic) that is probably going to be all over Europe shortly and in the US sometime in the next several years. Who knows.

If the Tom Tom RDS-TMC was $20.00-$30.00, I would have stuck it out, but unfortunately it is not $20.00, unless you can get lucky on ebay (from someone who couldn't return theirs).

I am not stating this is rds-tmc antenna is a bad product, I am stating I was unable to utilize this product in my area and every indication that I had prior to purchasing it was that everything was there for it to work.

As far as my Tom Tom One XLS, it is a great GPS.

I just bought this at the end of December and received it in early January. So far, it seems to work fine. I generally only drive in the DC Metro area, but it does a good job of informing me of traffic problems. It changes radio stations frequently enough to keep information current. One thing to remember, however, is that only traffic issues that are addressed "on the air" will be displayed, meaning that just because you're in a traffic jam, it doesn't necessarily mean that the RDS receiver should have told you first. One other thing I like is that it displays any ongoing road construction issues.

The over the air traffic information just isn't detailed enough for this to be useful. Plus it only works on highways that have sensors in place. For those of you in the Philadelphia area, if this picked up traffic on I-95 it would then just re-route you to US-1, which is always a traffic light nightmare. It would do this because there's no info available on US-1.
The TomTom web site also led me to believe that when it picked up traffic it would pop up a dialog to allow me to reroute, which it didn't do. I had to go into the traffic menu and then select "Minimize traffic delays" to get it to re-route. Maybe it's just this way on the ONE 3rd ed.
This is not to say that it doesn't work. It gets traffic info and shows accidents and areas of trouble but it's not complete. Like others have said, you'll be sitting in bumper to bumper traffic and it will show a clear route.
That said, if this were $20-$30 it would be a nice addition and maybe the traffic info would improve in the future. But at $120+ this is absolutely not worth it.

If you live in or anywhere near Los Angeles, this antenna is absolutely worthless. It doesn't give any accurate traffic data, and updates much too late when it actually does have something. Don't buy this.

It works by picking up data from an equipped FM radio station. What happens is essentially this -- the road sensors attached to freeway metering lights get collected by a service like [...] which forwards the information to subscribing radio stations. It includes how fast traffic is moving across the sensor, accidents or weather warnings reported to the CHP, etc. I use it daily to circumvent traffic problems, and it has saved me numerous times from being late to meetings.

I've included the detail on how it works because it explains the limitations: if there are no traffic sensors or metering lights, there won't be anything to detect. If the CHP doesn't enter the accident into the system, it doesn't get reported (though if the sensors detect a sudden slowdown that's a good clue). If none of the radio stations in your area subscribe to the service, you won't get a signal no matter how many sensors are in the road.


I've found it works great in San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento, and Los Angeles. My wife often complains when we hit traffic in the middle of nowhere, "Why didn't it tell us about the accident in Vacaville?" "Why didn't it mention the accident on the expressway?" No road sensors, no coverage. This is science, not magic. The traffic kit can't download data that was never collected.

Once traffic is detected, TomTom receivers do a wonderful job of routing around traffic and provide many options for handling the scenario (e.g. do you want to go around the congested area even if it's faster just to go through it? how often should the rerouting instructions be updated?).

Might it reroute you to the same road everyone else is taking to get around the problem, making the alternative even worse? If the alternative has no road sensors attached to the service, then yes. You can offset some of that risk by buying a receiver that has the IQ Routing feature (such as the TomTom GO 720, 730, 920, 930); that way you have the collective intelligence of the realtime traffic sensors and the measured average speeds of people with TomTom receivers who traveled the same roads in the past. At least that way you'll know you weren't taken off the freeway where everyone was going 35 mph only to take a road where everyone drives 25 and has to stop at all the lights.

I bought the TMC-RDS FM receiver for my Tom Tom One 3rd edition after reading the horror stories from the other guys who wrote reviews. I must say it works very well. I think it will work differently in every city. Here in Southern California we have many FM stations, so the receiver has many to choose from. I must admit that there are times when it searches for stations and it takes some time, but the unit has never failed me. It eventually finds a station and tips me about the traffic I'm going to encounter: tells # of delays, for how long(in minutes), how many miles until the delay. It offers you the choice of re-routing if you decide to. The only two bad things to report is:
1) the initial cost: $129.oo
2) the service fee of $60/year, after the free first year.

I got part 4V00.081 and am using it with a TomTom ONE in Dallas. I am satisfied with the timeliness and accuracy of the RDS-TMC data service in DFW, especially because it is currently free.

It is essential that you upgrade the application software on your TomTom GPS to the latest release. Versions before 7.162 running on my TomTom ONE are very slow to find a good FM station and often lose track of it.

The RDS-TMC data in DFW seems to be identical to the TomTom PLUS data feed that I am getting through my cellphone for another TomTom GPS with bluetooth support.

Beware that the traffic RDS-TMC does not work in Atlanta, Ga. Tom-Tom support is working on the problem with no estimated time of repair. In addition, becareful that the cable type is the correct one for the United States and you do not buy the one that is designed for Europe.

on my way home in the Baltimore area, it constantly shows a 1 minute delay. which means half hour or more. Other times it shows clear and I am waiting an hour in traffic. yet others it shows 2 hour delay and it is clear sailing.

what's the use. It just takes up windshield space.