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SWRT radio communications
Letter from SWRT
5 May 2006
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Ever wondered how Petter and Chris talk to the rest of the team during a rally?
SWRT event electrician Nick Chalkley explains the various communications systems involved:
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Driver to rally engineer communications
Once a car has left service we rely on mobile phones and VHF radios to keep in touch with the drivers. The confidential nature of most calls between drivers and their engineers typically means we use a standard tri-band mobile phone. Of course, the success of this system depends on network coverage. In some areas, like Argentina or Japan, signal can be very low. If this is the case, a satellite phone will be used instead. As service areas can be noisy places we connect the engineer's phone to a noise cancelling headset complete with microphone - this is exactly the same system that the driver will be using and it makes conversations far easier. A signal splitter in the service area allows other people to plug in to the conversation so we can hold a conference call with other engineers or specialists as necessary.
In-service personnel radios
In order to speed up communications between service based staff, we operate our own UHF radio system. Number one technicians, rally engineers, data engineers, engine engineers, communications technicians, the parts co-ordinator, team manager and chief mechanic all carry radios. The Kenwood units are worn on a belt clip and are linked to an earpiece and a microphone clipped to the owner's lapel. Being able to talk to this whole group of people at once greatly improves the speed at which we can work.
Car to team VHF (very high frequency) radio (or scanner)
Team coordinator, Ken Rees, is the man in change of VHF radio communication with the drivers. Ken uses the scanner to transmit non-confidential information to the rally car such as split times, event information and service times. Drivers speak to Ken at the end of each stage to report their time - or earlier if there are any problems. Each WRC team uses the same system to speak to their cars on different radio frequencies allocated by the FIA. The frequencies changes from country to country but are made public to other teams - so the system is certainly not confidential. Ordinarily the radios have a 5-6 mile eline of sight' range but this is increased by the use of a repeater unit carried in a helicopter that hovers high above the rally. As well as transmitting speech, the VHF radio system can also send data messages of up to 14 characters from a laptop computer in service to a display screen in the car. In our car the display screen us located at the co-drivers' feet - right in his eye-line. Ken uses this data system to advise the co-driver of live split times during stages. Otherwise, radio silence is observed once the stage starts.
And what exactly do all those aerials on the roof do?
There are seven important communication devices fitted to the roof of the Impreza WRC2006.
Clockwise from top left corner:
- - GPS receiver and on-board camera housing (camera sealed in grey box)
- - GPS tracking transmitting aerial (sends the location signal to rally HQ)
- - Subaru on board data transmitting aerial (sends logged data to SWRT engineers for analysis)
- - GPS receiver (a second unit)
- - Subaru on board data transmitting aerial (a second unit to send logged data to SWRT engineers for analysis)
- - Organisers on board data transmitting aerial
- - Team VHF radio aerial (middle of roof)
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2006
2005