Navman S90i and TMC

I'm already missing my ConnectNav+ from my old Stilo so I've just bought myself a Navman S90i.

Whilst it's a good piece of kit that will serve me well, I was quite suprised to see a rather long piece of wire for the TMC-FM aerial. The instructions tell me to stick this around my windscreen but, frankly, it looks a bit pants - plus it will be a right old hassle to keep removing it to stop the scroats seeing it.

Do other SatNavs come with this silly piece of wire too - and is it likely to work without it being connected? Perhaps there's a little "stubby" aerial that would work instead?

i see this as being a bit ridiculous to . but to be honest i dont think i will be using the feature much .

it would be much better if it was just a longish adjustable arial that you can put in, or one that came from the main satellite aerial would be better

mines the navi 310 deluxe by the way

most if not all TMC units have this wire, its the antenna for the service, and as far as i know it will not work without it. feel free to shorten it sacraficing some reception quality.

BTW the S90i is a fantastic unit

a friend of mine has a mio with a similar wire. He removed the interior light from his van, got access to the aerial on the roof, ran a length of coax cable under the roof lining, and under the A pillar trim. he connected the inner of the coax at one end to the aerial at the base, earthed the shielding of the coax. at the other end he trimmed the shield back, and connected the inner to the plug on the TMC aerial. Took him around an hour to do, much neater than using the 'wire with suckers'. Better TMC reception by far too. i was considering buying the tomtom one for my satnav,and doing the same mods,but instead went for the mobile phone data subscription instead, which updates instantly. reason for this is that there are several routes for me to get to work, as I live close to the A50/A500 junction in stoke, I have to decide which way im going to work each day within 1 minute of leaving the house (m6 J16 or 15, a34 then a50 then a54, or the back way through nantwich and winsford) so need to know where the traffic is.

hope this helps