Home > Consumer Reviews > TomTom RDS/TMC Reciever for Go 510, 710 and 910 models

To be honest I was looking for a cheap way of getting traffic information for my tomtom. Tomtom's traffic service is expensive for occasional use and given that I don't travel long distances in the rush hour I couldn't justify the cost. For a 50 pound one off charge the RDS/TMC receiver seemed like an ideal compromise!

I did some research on the internet and was fully aware that a lot of early adapters had had problems with this but the general consensus was to ensure that you were running the latest tomtom software (I was) and to lay the lead out fully since it acts as the ariel (I did).

So in theory I was all set; however, a 6 hours drive from London to Cornwall failed to generate a single traffic update, in fact it never received a signal at all sitting persistently in tuning mode (I know I played around with it as I sat in the traffic jam at Stonehenge for an hour).

A bit more research suggested that the unit could be manually tuned to classic fm's local signal based on the nearest transmitter (there are slight variations depending on which transmitter is being used). So I dutifully tried to manually scan to crystal palaces range and used it on an hour journey on the m25. Any updates? - nada, it again never progressed beyond scanning and I watched it hope all over the available frequency range without picking up a signal once!

I have no idea if I had a faulty unit or there is something fundamentally wrong with the concept - in principal it seems software updates to tom tom can improve this (I suspect it never looked in the right place in the fm frequency range for my locality). My patience surely tried it was returned to Amazon for a full refund.

This thing is a complete waste of money.
It spends most of its time "tuning" and not finding anything.
In 1 year has twice told me about a short delay I knew of - the latest error was a 3.5 hour delay and it didn't know anything was wrong!
Useless tosh that doesn't even come with instructions.
Do NOT by one!

I'm having a dispute with Tomtom about this product because they advertise it as being able to send traffic info to the Tomtom Go throughout the UK. In fact, from my experience the Receiver is only capable of sending traffic info to the Go in approximately 50% of the country. Tomtom say they are developing a new TMC receiver that will be available in the second quarter of 2007. Save your money and wait for the new receiver.

I would have rated this minus stars if I could. We live close to London and this device has locked on twice to signal in 5 months. I'll tell how bad it is. I parked up in my drive with the antenna fixed to the windscreen and I had the familiar rotating orange symbol. I tuned into Classic FM and listened to a traffic report. I did the same with Southern FM. Did the receiver lock on, did it **@@! Tom Tom says this device has not always met customers' expectations (yeah, right) and they say they will replace this with a new receiver when it comes out in Q2 07, which by my reckoning ended 2 weeks ago at the end of June.

I bought this product in December, and it has only succeeded in tuning into a valid signal once in around 3000 miles of travel. It just keeps hopping around the frequencies and doesn't lock onto a signal. I have the latest software update on my Tomtom910 (v6.522, just upgraded to v6.524 yesterday), and have stretched the antenna straight using the clear suction pads, but nothing ... I have reverted to buying a TomTom Traffic subsription and paying the GPRS charges. Save your money.