Scanner Master Road Trip
By Jonathan Higgins

Part 2
Race Day at Las Vegas Motor Speedway – Sunday, March 11, 2012

What to bring with you?
I would recommend packing all your scanner gear into a cinch bag, this light weight bag can be worn on your back. You can bring non open bottles of water into the track. Don’t forget the camera!

My Cinch bag had the following:

• Uniden BC125AT Scanner
• Headset with cable
• Frequency printout from Racing Frequencies Online
• Camera
• Extra rechargeable and Alkaline batteries
• Sharpie
• badge holder [For our race tickets]

Getting the track!
This was my first time attending a race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, so it was quite the experience. If you’re staying on the strip I would recommend checking out the shuttles available. If you want to get there early like I do, I would recommend renting a car. If you don’t plan on having a car for the full vacation, I would recommend getting the rental car the night before. I would recommend reserving a rental car well before your trip, cars can be hard to get on Race weekend. For the best selection of rental cars and companies I would recommend renting from the McCarran Airport.

Our Hotel was the Luxor on the southern part of the strip, the track is north of the strip, approximately 30 minutes away without traffic. The Track is easy to get to, Simply get on to I-15 North to Exit 54 “Speedway Blvd” and follow the signs.

Tickets
Our seats were just before turn 4 on the top row in the “Blue seats”.

Neon Garage
We also purchased two “Neon Garage” passes. You can peer into your favorite driver garage stall as they are getting the car ready for the race. You will also have access to pit road before the race. There is live entertainment, and food available inside the Neon Garage area. This area can be access via a tunnel under the track near the start/finish line.

Listening at the track
You can get frequencies for the upcoming race from Racing Frequencies Online (from Scanner Master), you can also purchase a frequency list at the track for $5.00 at Racing Electronics Haulers.

Driver Channels
These channels change week to week. Most driver have about 4 channels but they only use two channels during the race.

Example
Carl Edwards #99
466.2750 – Primary
468.8250 – Alt. Channel

• The Primary channel is used for driver communications between the spotter and crew chief.
• Alt. Channel, is used as a back-up if the primary is having interference issues .
• Some teams use NEXEDGE Digital for non driver communications, this type of communications cannot be monitored by a scanner at this time. For example Carl Edwards team uses the NEXEDGE channel for communications between the spotter and crew chief. The channel acts as a relay if the main channel is tied up.

Track Officials
461.2000 – Race Control 461.2000
464.6000 – Race Control / Back Up
451.2250 – Safety
451.5750 – Qualifying
MRN/PRN Radio Broadcast
454.0000

Track Operations
For track operation frequencies I would recommend checking RadioReference.com. Here is what I found for Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Putting the Uniden BC125AT to the test at the track
Great scanner for the race track! The large display made it simple to see who talking. I had to enter a few more frequencies at the track, it was super simple to field program without a PC. Audio and reception was great! If you’re looking to replace or buy a scanner for the race track, I would consider the Uniden BC125AT Scanner for sure!

Make sure you check out Part 1
Visiting and listening to Las Vegas!

Scanner Master Road Trip
By Jonathan Higgins

Part 1
Preparing for the trip
Monitoring on The Las Vegas Strip

Destination: Las Vegas, NV and Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Last weekend my wife and I took a weekend vacation to Las Vegas to see the NASCAR Cup Race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Before we the trip we pack our gear for the race which includes:

We spend our long weekend checking out the sites, Las Vegas Strip, Hover Dam and Grand Canyon West Rim. Our accommodations were at the Luxor Hotel on the Southern Part of the strip. I brought the BC346XT for the race and to monitor the public safety in Las Vegas area.

Programming in the BC346XT

My Favorite Drivers
(Systems 1-10)

Las Vegas Metro Police
-All channels (System 11)

Clark County – South Nevada Area Communications Council (SNACC)
Motorola Type II SmartZone (System 12)
– Las Vegas Fire Talk groups
– North Las Vegas Fire Talk groups
– North Las Vegas Police Talk groups

Nevada Shared Radio System
EDACS Networked Standard Analog (System 13)
– Nevada Highway Patrol Talkgroups

Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
LTR Trunking System (System 14)
– All talkgroups

Excalibur Hotel and Casino
Motorola Trunking System (System 15)
– All talkgroups

Monitoring Notes

The Uniden BC346XT was a great unit for the Las Vegas area. All of the systems in Las Vegas is using analog conventional and analog trucking.

Las Vegas Metro Police
Most of channels on Metro Police System are using the (Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department) – OpenSky Trunking system, but they are simulcasting on the old VHF System. The short time monitoring the simulcasted channels, it seem like the OpenSky System is plagued with problems. Multiple times I hear the dispatch “could you please repeat that”. At one point I hear the system get stuck, the officer audio was studding. Very much like the audio I heard from the story out of West Palm Beach FL reported on back in May 2011.

Clark County Trunking System & Nevada Shared Radio System
Pretty descent coverage, lots of towers to choose from we were in range of a few towers from our Hotel. You can hear the NV Highway Patrol on this system.

Monitoring the Hotels
I would say the Security talkgroups were the most interesting to monitor. I wasn’t able to monitor the Trunking system in the Luxor because it’s a Nexedge Standard Trunking system.

Make sure you check out Part 2
Race Day at Las Vegas Motor Speedway – Sunday, March 11, 2012