1690 often fails to initiate traffic or does so slooooowly

Yes, the same thing happens with my Nuvi 760 and GTM 20 traffic receiver. My drive to work is well within the claimed ClearChannel coverage area, but traffic info is only received when I am close to work. It also changes based on the weather. The FM station ClearChannel uses is close to work. Garmin tech support had nothing to contribute after several contacts. The GPS is mounted low on the dash near the GTM 20 and the cord is coiled. When I tied the cord up into a loop, I had traffic everywhere I drove. The conclusion is that the FM antenna for the GTM 20 is in the cord, and it has to be in a position for good reception.

dobs108

Thanks Dobs.. I really appreciate your response. There isn't much I can do with the cord so my options are limited here as the traffic receiver is self contained in the 1690. I must say that I am disappointed with the performance of this traffic feature. I sat in a traffic jam for 40 minutes on a "GREEN" road. What was most aggravating about this was that the tie up was listed on the car radio as being 8 hours old. Hence the 1690 info was old.. Not good.

I am curious if you have experienced 'old' data as well?

My problem was with intermittent reception. When the receiver is working, the ClearChannel data has always been good, and very timely. This is for the Long Island and New York City area. One evening I was southbound on I-87 entering New York City, an area with many FM stations for traffic. I was in the left lane going 70, and Jill says, "Road closed 2 miles ahead." In 30 seconds I was in a panic stop as traffic backed up. That warning probably saved me from a rear-end collision.

If the 1690 traffic antenna is inside the GPS, then it must be mounted near the windshield. But I am curious whether the power cord has the FM antenna inside. Garmin tech support never confirmed this for my 760/GTM 20.

It's cellular. It receives it's data from at&t's GSM/EDGE data network and not FM radio stations.

If it's cellular, that's a whole 'nuther ballgame! It has to do with AT&T coverage, how many cell towers are around, and whether you're in the mountains. In a weak signal area you may have to put the GPS up near the windshield. And who provides the content? ClearChannel has been good, but do they provide traffic content on AT&T?

I understood it is ATT as well. The Garmin web page states in the specs that the 1690 in not FM traffic compatible. The unit gets its traffic information from Nuvilink. It is clear that nuvilink is one of the revenue streams that Garmin is depending on going forward. The stand alone GPS will be a thing of the past if GPS manufactures have their way.

But I digress.

That being said...

How come I get the Nuvilink services (i.e. google, fuel prices, movie times, etc) and NO traffic?

I appreciate any feedback and thank you guys in advance for the keystrokes

I've had garmin's since the nuvi 350. Not one of them had the traffic work correctly. I've had the 660, 755 765 and now the 1690. The selling point for me was the traffic, but also google search.

I'm very disappointed in the traffic thing. I live in south Flroida and a lot of times I get a yellow or red and there is no traffic.

Somthing strange happened though one sunday night at 11pm it said there was traffic. We all know that there is no traffic sunday night so I'm wondering is it the fault of the company providing the infomation. When i was in Atlanta going home the singnal went off and yes there was traffic (but that was during rush hour so... i don't know.

Whats really a shame is you spend big money for somthing that has been defective for years and then you finally see some hope due to the new celluar network and that even fools you. I hope in time either the reporting agencies or the gps manufacture get's there act straight and decides to have a little humanity

As you know, GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out. It's the reports the unit is receiving so blame the provider.

Garmin may very well be the one to blame for the "stale traffic" issues...this seems to be a valid issue affecting traffic on the units that use the "new" traffic coding included on the 13xx/14xx and 1690 series along with the 7x5 series that has been "updated" to likely the same code base of the 1xxx series. This new code base includes a gray traffic icon when reception is marginal or delayed and also includes traffic status on the traffic page (pressing the traffic icon) with reports such as "Traffic delayed xx minutes".

The 13xx and 14xx units have had a recent firmware update that apparently resolves the issue. However, the 1690 and 7x5 series still remain to be corrected. The following is a post I made regarding the 7x5 series' issues regarding traffic with firmware v3.90 (v3.60 does not have these issues).

I stand corrected - maybe. The problem could also be on the at&t side as well. They are doing massive work on their data network trying to increase the backhaul capacity. I understand they were going to pump an addition 3 to 4 BILLION into upgrading the backhaul capacity as they try to upgrade to HSDP 7 and get ready for LTE. VZW will get an LTE net up and running first.

I use at&t for data here in the Washington area and it is definitely spotty. From home on a 3G connection I'm lucky to get sustained speeds above 48K. But when I go on the road, I can usually hit speeds of up to 780 K with sustained rates around 150 - 250K.

I'll also add that one of the reasons I believe that it's the nuvi's traffic coding is that in my testing of the 1690, when the traffic data feed was lost/dropped/stale/whatever, all other aspects of the nuLink service operated normally...White pages search, Google search, Weather, etc. Power-cycling the 1690 restored traffic until it was again dropped and became stale, the same as with the 13xx, 14xx and 7x5.

The OP also complained about the delays in receiving traffic updates and that could be the GIGO problem with the incorrect data - or no data being sent. Compound that with the NUVI issues and you have a mess.