15
Using the Scanner at the Racetrack
Keeping up with the action at the racetrack is easy and fun.
You can hear drivers communicating with their pit crews,
officials communicating with drivers and crews, and track
workers communicating with everybody.
Each user at the racetrack transmits and receives on one or
more frequencies.
The scanner organizes racetrack frequencies by the name
of the race you are scanning and by car number.
For example, you might hear drivers and their pit crews on
the car number frequencies and officials and the news
media on the race frequencies. When you are scanning, the
scanner stops very briefly on each channel to see if there is
activity. If there isn’t, the scanner quickly moves to the next
channel. If there is, then the scanner pauses on the
transmission until it is over.
You can activate one racing system and as many
conventional systems as you want at the same time. Within
a racing system, each driver can have multiple frequencies
stored.
Conventional Scanning
Conventional scanning is a relatively simple concept.
Each group of users in a conventional system is assigned a
single frequency (for simplex systems) or two frequencies
(for repeater systems). Any time one of them transmits, their
transmission always goes out on the same frequency.
Today there are still many 2-way radio users who operate
using a conventional system:
• Aircraft
• Amateur radio
• LPD/PMR users
• Broadcast AM/FM/TV stations
• Many business radio users
When you want to store a conventional system, all you need
to know is the frequencies they operate on.
When you are scanning a conventional system, the scanner
stops very briefly on each channel to see if there is activity.
If there isn’t, the scanner quickly moves to the next channel.
If there is, then the scanner pauses on the transmission until
it is over.
Simplex Operation
Simplex systems use a single frequency for both transmit
and receive. Most radios using this type of operation are
limited to line-of-sight operation. This type of radio is
