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edweirdFL

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Dec 10, 2004
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Daytona Beach, FL
A new Uniden SDS200 recently arrived at my home and I used it to scan for a number of signals during the days surrounding the Daytona 500 race. From my location about 6 air miles distant from the track I was able to hear the spotters for the race teams who were located on the roof of the grandstands. I made a post about what I heard during a practice session here. Lots of signals in the 465-470 MHz range from the race teams with a few found lower in the UHF band.

The race brings a lot of people into the area and creates a need for additional traffic control and security. Normally the local and county public service agencies are active on the Volusia County 800 MHz EDACs systems East and West sites. There is a 5 channel site located in Daytona Beach that is sometimes called the Event system which is normally free of traffic, that has active trunk groups during events. Sometimes the talkgroups are also patched to the main county system. The event systems talkgroups that were heard are:

14-001
14-003
14-004
14-005

On the countywide system, 11-064, 11-066, and 11-074 carried related traffic.

I also heard activity on Mutual Aid 800 MHz frequencies.
852.5125 156.7
854.6375 210.7

The Thunderbirds flew into town for the flyover Sunday at the beginning of the race. I monitored them before, during and after this.

141.175 AM heard on days prior to the race
149.650 AM heard during the race flyover with most of the traffic and Monday when departing
235.250 AM heard briefly before, during, and after flyover

The Goodyear Blimp was also in town as part of the media's coverage of the event.
151.625 151.4

Daytona International Speedway (DIS) operates a number of conventional repeaters which are listed in the database and those were easily heard. The Radio Reference database also shows a DMR system was added and I wasn't able to detect any signals from it at my monitoring location. It may have have low level antennas and/or lower power outputs.

The broadcast media had a number of channels in use between 450-451 MHz. The networks providing television coverage for the Daytona 500 and the Rolex 24 race a couple of weeks earlier were different, and differences in the systems used for each event were noted even though the range of frequencies used was the same.

Large events bring new things to monitor into town and this year's Speedweeks have been no exception. I'm still learning the operation of the SDS200 and the use of Uniden's Sentinel software. I didn't do a side by side comparison with my other scanners during the event but I was pretty pleased with the performance of the unit, and the ease of recording and logging using the internal SD memory card. None of the signals of interest listed here were using a digital mode although I think I would have heard some if I was closer to the racetrack. I had a number of things programmed that I tried listening for at various times and did not hear. I won't assume that they weren't in use nor will I assume they were in use and my setup couldn't receive them. I'll try again during the summer race and again next year.
 

edweirdFL

Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2004
Messages
580
Location
Daytona Beach, FL
During the days prior to the race I found an EDACS trunking control channel on 852.425 MHz that showed a system ID of 3Fh according to my SDS200. I searched the RR database and couldn't find any matches. I searched for the voice channels and didn't find any in the days before the race. I didn't have this on my list of things to monitor on the actual race day.

Today I noticed an STA for WRCV895 was issued 2/11-2/18 to the State of Florida for a system in this area. I checked the 4 base frequencies listed including 852.425 and heard nothing today. I think this was probably what I heard. Something to keep in mind for the future when there are large events in Florida.
 
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