Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About Race Radios

[PCI Race Radios]

The purpose of this thread is to get rid of the mystery with race radios. At every race we talk to customers who know how to get their shocks working properly, their engine running at its best, but are completely lost when it comes to dialing in their communications. We will be posting tips and tricks on how to keep communication at its full potential. Feel free to ask any questions you may have in this thread.

A Well Oiled Machine
While this may seem pretty obvious, this truly is the first step in having great communications, whether you are racing or just playing. To get the most out of your radios, the entire system must be working properly and must be in sync. This is not a time to scrape together used or second hand equipment and hope it will work for you in a race environment. The reason we run radios in race cars is for safety, they must work when you need them. You wouldn't run a used fire extinguisher in your race car and hope that it will work when you need it to, you will either get it serviced ahead of time or purchase a new one. If you have a 110 watt radio on your race car and a borrowed amateur band HAM radio in your chase truck with a frayed coax cable, your communications will be dismal at best. When choosing which radio is best for your team you must decide how many chase trucks you will have, what type of racing you will be doing and what your budget is. Each radio in the system should be set up for how it will be best utilized. For example, a handheld radio is a great addition to a remote pit however trying to transmit to a race vehicle that is 25 miles away will not work.

Take some time while prepping your race car to lay out all of your radio equipment. Inspect for damaged or frayed cables, possible signs of water damage on the radios. You can send in any or all of your equipment for testing if necessary. We have a full radio shop that can tune up and service your radios for dependable race day communications. Make an appointment to come by and have your vehicles tested and tuned or come see us at a race contingency.

Future topics:
-Which Radio is Right For Me?
-Coax Do's and Don'ts
-Race vs Play Intercom
-Antenna Differences
-Mounting Your Antenna
-Base Camp Antennas
-Proper Power Sources
-How to get rid of noise in your system
-Radio Etiquette
-Commercial vs Amateur Band Radio

 

[dezertBandito]

subscribed!

 

[JoeyD23]

Awesome! Subscribed!

 

[Jershum]

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[dunerat]

Subscribed

 

[utvpros]

This will be great information, for the racers and non racers.

 

[PCI Race Radios]

Noise in the System
You've bought the best intercom system around, you've routed all of your wires, and now you are getting noise in your headsets. Whether it is alternator whine, noise when you fire up your HID's or static from ignition, it is all unacceptable. Take a few moments

Cable Routing
Proper cable routing is key to a noise free system. Try to keep all cables related to your radio and intercom away from ignition systems, alternators, amplifiers and HID ballasts.

When routing your coax:

• Run your coax as short as possible, do not coil up excess wire. We can make you custom length coax or trim your coax if necessary
  
• If you have a small amount of excess coax, it is ok to route it under a seat to use up the excess as long as it is not in a coil
  
• Route the coax separate from any headset cables, all coax bleeds RF when transmitting and will create noise in your headset
  
• Do not route the coax near heat and avoid pinching between body panels and/or the dash

Power and Ground
Make sure you are giving your radio and intercom a good power source. We always recommend leaving the stock connectors on the cables for ease of upgrading or replacing components. If you short out your radio the day before a race, we can easily swap in a new radio without having to use special wiring connectors. Often times we see wiring that is not rated for the load the radio needs causing issues when communications are critical.

To avoid issues with noise coming from your power wires, we recommend connecting your radio, intercom, stereo, camera hard wire cable and any electronic that may be included in your communications system to the same + and - in your car. It is always best to go straight to the battery however going to a battery switch is acceptable as well. A self tapping screw through an aluminum dash is not an acceptable ground. Using a noise filter like the Kenwood KLF-2 will also remove noise from your system. We include the KLF-2 in all race intercom packages and recommend the use of the KLF-2 for all installations.

KLF-2
Proper installation of the KLF-2 will make your radio system clearer, especially voice transmission at high engine RPM.

Comlink 6
When using the Comlink 6 with a race radio, you do not need to ground the intercom itself, as it gets it's ground through the radio. When hooking up both the ground on the intercom and the radio it can create a ground loop issue and add more noise into your system. If you are not sure if your intercom is grounded, turn the intercom on and disconnect the plug going to the radio. If the intercom stays on you should remove the ground wire on the intercom.

 

[dunerat]

This is great info. Thank you