Need Scanner Help For Indy 500 RACE

[SamSpade]

I am leaving for the Indy 500 race this coming Thursday. Two days ago, I bought a Uniden BR330T so that I could listen to my favorite drivers talk with their crew.

This is my first scanner, and I am finding that programming the BR330T to be very difficult. So, I need all of the help I can get.

So far, I have programmed the BR330T with the frequencies for 6 of my favorite drivers. I have also assigned each driver with a quick key. My goal is to listen to the local AM broadcast of the race, but have it interrupted if there is any talk among any 1 of my 6 drivers. I learned from another post on this forum that what I should do is to make each of the 6 drivers a priority so that the scanner automatically leaves the AM station and goes to the drivers channel when it detects talk by 1 of the drivers.

What more can I do to make effective use of the scanner during the race? For example, what is "alpha tagging"? Would it be useful at the track? Do I need to adjust the length of time the scanner stays on after a transmission?

Thanks in advance for your help. Sam

 

[K9GTJ]

Jim's simple suggestion would be to not program it. When you get to the track, there is a company called Track Scan which rents radios and headsets and will program UNIDEN models. (No radioshack.) It will cost you $10 (?) but in a minute or two you have everything done for you. Given they do this every weekend for NASCAR and the IRL and more, they should have it down to a science.

Now if you want to do it yourself, are you using software and a cable or trying to enter it all by hand on the keypad. The keypad entry is slow and painful for almost everyone. Get the cable and software if you don't have it.

I am not sure how the priority on your model works but you would put the drivers or race control or whatever you want to break over the WIBC/IMS Radio Feed. I doubt you have enough priority channels to do them all.

Alpha tags are to give the screen something to display besides the freqency. For example, you can put Hornish, or IRL CH. 1 or whatever so when you hear something, you can glance at the display to see who it is.

Great list here by the way - http://www.racebyrace.com/drivers/indy500drivers.phtml?year=2006

 

[fuzzymoto]

Good suggestion to get it programmed at the track assuming you just got it and don't have much home scanner frequencies in yet and you're sure someone will be doing that at the track and that you can find them....should be OK.

Alpha tagging puts a name on a frequency so when it stops on 461.1234 it will display Michael Andretti instead of 461.1234. I usually add an alert tone also because it is easier to hear a specific alert noise at the start of a transmission and know that noise was set for Michael Andretti than look at the alpha tags all the time. If it is sunny the tags will be hard to see.

You can specify quite a few priority channels for what you want to do. Only problem is that the BR330T (or any other scanner) will interrupt the audio of what you are listening to every 2 seconds to check your priority channels. I like to put the drivers I want to hear on a quick key that matches their car number--I put in an alpha tag and a unique alert tone for each driver to make it easy to know who I am hearing when someone screams "flat tire...". I usually do the remainder of the cars the same way so I can jump to a specific car if they have a problem. I keep all quick keys off except my favorites and whatever broadcast I want to hear. I also scan around before the race looking for any wireless microphones I can pick up or anything else interesting that Close Call may find. In the end I usually just leave it on my favorites and turn off the AM broadcast unless I need it (I keep that on a quick key also). I find the broadcast gets annyoying if I'm trying to use priority anyway. (I usually do not use priority).

Get headphones....otherwise you won't hear anything. Be sure to put the track officials, timing and scoring AND anything else that may give you insight as to why a yellow was thrown. If you get bored put in the track security and Indy police for pater on in the evening before the race itself.

As far as the BR330T I love mine.....BUT you do need to get the software and program it that way. It is much easier to do it that way rather than manually on the scanner itself.

Have fun.... after them not televising pole day and bump-day turning into a non-event I'm less than thrilled with the 500 this year. Also with the speed disparity the Penske boys will be lapping back markers in 10 or 15 laps... Fortunately I get to watch Michael Andretti one more time and see if he can finally get the win Indy owes him. It's a long shot but I have a feeling the race will be dull otherwise....(unless you like Danica-mania...)

 

[bna92]

One option, if you don't mind listening to two things at once, is a splitter cable like this one:

http://www.yourcablestore.com/produ...d=768&osCsid=dda012e27d76d93076946bb1ecb92f8e

plugged into your scanner and AM radio.

You'll also need some good noise-cancelling or isolating headphones.

 

[SamSpade]

Thanks For All The Help!

Thanks to all of you who responded to my plea for help. In the following I will answer your questions, one person at a time.

Kokomo1: I wish I had known about Track Scan before I devoted several days to manually programming my scanner. I will know better next time.
To answer your question about how I programmed my scanner, I entered most of the data by hand. To be fair, though, many of the drivers and their frequencies were already programmed when I bought the scanner. Since my eyes may be permanently crossed, I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE A RECOMMENDATION FOR SOME PROGRAMMING SOFTWARE!
Since I only wanted to listen to 6 drivers, I had to lockout all of the other drivers. I did this by locking out each of the 3 frequencies for all of the drivers I am not interested in. COULD I HAVE SAVED MYSELF A GREAT DEAL OF EFFORT IF I LOCKED OUT THE CHANNEL FOR EACH DRIVER INSTEAD OF THE 3 FREQUENCIES FOR EACH DRIVER?
I think the problem with using priority for the driver conversations, while trying to listen to WIBC is, according to the manual, a scan would occur every 2 seconds. I think this makes the priority approach impractical. Instead, I am going to use a separate AM/FM radio for listening to WIBC.
Regarding alpha tags, when my scanner holds on a particular driver, my screen reads: “26 D. Wheldon 468.3250MHz”. That seems adequate to me. Do you disagree?
Thanks for the URL to the list of drives and their frequencies. I will compare that list to the ones I have programmed.

Fuzzymoto: Thanks for the suggestion for the alert tone. That will be my project for tomorrow.
I like your idea of keeping the quick keys off except for your favorite drivers. That is what I have done. Each of my 6 favorite drivers is assigned a quick key, and the quick keys for a team (like Penske) are adjacent each other. I keep the other transmissions off by locking out their frequencies. HOW ARE YOU ABLE TO TURN ON THE TRANSMISSIONS OF A DRIVER WHO IS NOT ONE OF YOUR FAVORITES?
As to headphones, I have a new pair of Bose headphones that cancels the ambient noise. I have used them on a plane and they work great. However, I am not sure how they will work at the track because the noise is not constant as it is on a plane.
Thanks for the tip on programming in the race officials. That is another project for tomorrow.
As to enjoying the race, my wife and I grew up in Indianapolis and then both of us went to Purdue. The last time we were at the track was about 30 years ago. However, since we graduated, we have made it a tradition to watch the race on the TV.
I am still trying to understand the hierarchy of the data storage in the BR330T. Here is what I understand so far: The Systems are Racing, Conventional, AM Broadcast, etc. Within each System are Channels. For example, under the Racing System are Indy, Nascar, etc. Then under Channels are names and their associated frequencies (I don’t know what this is called). DOES THIS SEEM RIGHT TO YOU?

ALSO, I WOULD LIKE TO DOUBLE CHECK THE CARS AND FREQUENCIES THAT ARE BEING SCANNED. SO FAR, THE ONLY TECHNIQUE I HAVE IS TO PRESS THE HOLD BUTTON AND SEE WHAT IS DISPLAYED. IS THERE A BETTER TECHNIQUE?

Bna92: The splitter is a great idea. I am trying to order it from the URL you gave me. The only question is whether I could get it by Thursday morning.

Thanks again to everyone for helping me. I think this is going to turn out to be a very interesting new hobby.

Sam

 

[bna92]

The splitter is a great idea. I am trying to order it from the URL you gave me. The only question is whether I could get it by Thursday morning.

That splitter is a bit hard to find. I've never ordered from that store before, either. One quick-and-dirty solution, is to use two earbud-type headphones, connect one to the scanner and one to the AM radio. This way you'd hear the broadcast on one ear and the scanner on the other. It might feel weird, though. If you have large headphones for racing, you could still wear those to attenuate the crowd and car noise a bit.

 

[K9GTJ]

The Uniden forum should be able to help you with the programming software.

Another reference - http://www.eadsgraphics.com/downloads/INDY06v6.PDF

 

[fuzzymoto]

I use the Uniden UASD software. Cheap and easy to use and it wil make all of this MUCH easier. The last time I did this I had a System called Indy (conventional system) with a group for each driver and within that group all of the channels fo rthat driver. The I assigned a group quick key to the car number. You can certainly do the same by assigning a system for each driver or even a system for each team. I enetered ALL of the drivers frequencies in so if a car that is not one of my favorites has a problem I can quickly hit their car number quick key and turn their freqs. on.

I think yoi can check the freqs. by pressing hold on one of them and turning the dial on top (VFO knob).

The easiest way to understand the systems/groups/channels is to play a little. For example I have a system for my home town, within that system I have groups for fire, police, dpw and within each of those I have channels so within the police group I have all of the police frequencies for my local town. I then do the same for other towns/counties. For racing I'd try to keep it simple, maybe a system called Indy, and groups for each car and then all of the chanels for that car in that group. The important thing is to assign the quick keys.