Best way to setup BC346XT for racing?

[indycrispy]

Please help. My trusty Relm broke this week and I need a scanner for the Indy 500 next weekend.

All that Frys had was this BC346XT which has WAY more functionality than I need. But I've managed to load the software and upload programming to the scanner. So far so good.

But now I need to know a good method to setup the programming such that I can scan the drivers when I want to, but also manually switch over to Radio, TV, PA or IndyCar officials.

How should I use the Systems and Groups to best accomplish this?

 

[indycrispy]

Thanks to the mods for moving this back.

 

[nanZor]

I know it is too late now, but here's how I would set up a 346 dedicated to racing:

1) Optional - reset the scanner to wipe out the pre-programming.

2) Assign each race you go to as a conventional "system". Thus I would program a system and name it "Indy 500". Assign it a quick-key of number 1, so you can toggle this race system on and off. Other races you program as a system later can get sequential quick-keys. In fact, as a quick-key mnemonic, perhaps change the system name to "1 Indy 500". For the next race, perhaps program the system as "2 California 500" and assign that system to quick-key #2. Just toggle these quick keys as you travel around during the year.

3) Now I would create the groups. According to the above, I'd create 5 different groups for the Indy 500 system. (Other race systems might need more or less)

TEAMS
RADIO
TV
PA
OFFICIALS

Now inside these groups, program the specific frequencies according to the group they should belong to. Now you can toggle any of these 5 groups on and off at the track depending on how much you want to scan at the time.

As for the TEAMS group, when you add frequency channels for the specific race teams, I'd also assign a number tag to the frequency that matches the door number. That way you can jump around from team to team easily without a lot of scrolling - just hit say 77 and then the menu key - wala - you are now on team 77's freq.

Of course edit the name of the team frequency - and use display option #2 if you want to see the frequency as well as the team name. Maybe add a mnemonic to the team name like "77 Bob Speedstar". You get the picture.

Prefacing numeric mnemonics that correspond to the quick keys in the names helps me a lot. Of course team door numbers and matching number tags makes that easy too....

 

[indycrispy]

Thanks.

I've saved this off and will refer to it the next time I have to reprogram.

 

[jdlsc]

I just ran across this thread and figured I'd throw in some more options to consider, if it's not too late. I setup my BC346XT a little differently for races.

I created a conventional system for each car with the car # as the Quick Key. This made enabling and disabling any car as simple as punching in their #. I had to get creative with some. For example, car 7 was on Quick Key 7. Car 07, was on Quick Key 97. I programmed the alpha tagging to show the car # and team name. This way you could easily check to see if you enabled the correct car or not. I also programmed in all possible frequencies for each car into their corresponding system (typically only 3-4 per car). The scanner will scan through the channels fast enough that you won't have to worry about delays. Besides, you won't be scanning every car at once so at the most my scanner was only monitoring 10-15 frequencies. FreeSCAN will also identify duplicate frequencies, so you can make a decision on whether to include it in a particular system or not. For example, if car X used frequency A at the last race, but car Y used that same frequency a couple years ago, I'd not worry about programming that frequency for car Y.

Race Ops, SpeedTV, Local cops... each had their own conventional system, but no Quick Key. I enabled/disabled them on the scanner simply by locking/unlocking them as needed.