Garmin GPS - The FM Traffic in Garmin units is deceptive advertising

Author

The FM Traffic in Garmin units is deceptive advertising

Ramon F Herrera

2006-12-25, 10:33 am

Greetings from a hotel somewhere in North Carolina...

I am in the middle of a Boston-Miami trip, in which I am carrying my
two GPS units:

- a StreetPilot 2730 (XM satellite radio traffic and weather)
- a n=FCvi 660 (FM radio traffic)

The bottom line is that the XM based traffic has never failed during
the year I have used it.

The FM based traffic in the 660 worked fine in the Boston area, but it
has barely worked in the rest of the east coast.

Let me just give you an example. In my trip north to Boston, the
SP-2730 wisely bypassed New York city. Now that I am using the n=FCvi, I
was sent through the middle of Manhattan, which as we all know is a
deserted island, specially on Christmas eve. The antenna LEDs were in
the green/red and the display kept on saying "No traffic info
available". There was no traffic info in Washington, DC either.

The FM lack of traffic seems to be:

- a bug in the metropolitan areas such as NYC, DC, Philadelphia,
Raleigh
- a feature outside the metropolitan areas

I would like to renew my calls to Garmin to produce a n=FCvi with XM
capabilities.

-Ramon F Herrera
70K+ miles on the road and counting
40+ states visited
13 months on my current trip
have owned 5 Garmin GPS

Brad Bishop

2006-12-25, 12:33 pm

I have the StreetPilot 2820 and had the FM receiver at first (GTM-10 which
plugs in between the radio and your car's antenna). Here in Atlanta I
received the signal fine - no problems there.

The data was less than great, though. Basically everything was 'yellow'. It
didn't show green and rarely showed red even during the normal worst part of
rush hour. I finally saw a comparison here:
http://gpsinformation.info/550/550.html
Look for: Integrated Traffic Reciever about mid-way down the page.

Anyway, it was enough to convince me to send the FM receiver back and get
the XM receiver.

The XM receiver actually works as I expect it to.

My impression is that if you use a decent antenna (your car's antenna) then
the reception will be fine. The problem is that even if you get that working
their data is lacking.

Brad

Ramon F Herrera

2006-12-26, 10:33 pm

Brad Bishop wrote:
> I have the StreetPilot 2820 and had the FM receiver at first (GTM-10 which
> plugs in between the radio and your car's antenna). Here in Atlanta I
> received the signal fine - no problems there.
>
> The data was less than great, though. Basically everything was 'yellow'. =
It
> didn't show green and rarely showed red even during the normal worst part=
of
> rush hour. I finally saw a comparison here:
> http://gpsinformation.info/550/550.html
> Look for: Integrated Traffic Reciever about mid-way down the page.
>
> Anyway, it was enough to convince me to send the FM receiver back and get
> the XM receiver.
>
> The XM receiver actually works as I expect it to.
>
> My impression is that if you use a decent antenna (your car's antenna) th=
en
> the reception will be fine. The problem is that even if you get that work=
ing
> their data is lacking.
>
> Brad

My total trip is Boston-Miami, I am currently in Ocala, FL - No signal
here, either.

So far the only east coast cities in which I receive the traffic data
are Boston, MA and Jacksonville, FL. I didn't check in the Hartford, CT
or RI areas. The traffic info was definitely missing in NYC and DC. I
haven't arrived to Orlando or Miami. Will be there tomorrow.

The antenna is the "GTM20 FM TMC Traffic Receiver" that comes with the
n=FCvi 660.

http://shop.garmin.com/accessory.js...544%2D
01

I was going to sell my SP-2730 to a friend, but decided to keep it
because the traffic information in the n=FCvis is rarely available and
very unreliable.

-Ramon

LinkBot