TEAM RHYL RADIO

The "Rhyl" Radio team can be found out & about on many stage rallies, usually operating on 81MHz (the MSA safety frequency) providing safety cover and monitoring competitors through special stages. This is a responsible job, but your only requirement is to be organised and calm as you monitor cars and assist should there be problems. The sets are occasionally used for safety on other MSA events. Individual club members often help out on motoring events nationally by assisting with Radio Cover. (eg, Wales Rally GB, Manx, Scottish, etc)

The club currently holds & pays the MSA licence for, 8 radios. Anyone interested in becoming part of the radio team can find out more by contacting any of the operators below if you want to join us.......... A radio & antenna will set you back a one off cost of "about" £150, and the MSA licence (to use 81mhz ONLY) will cost you a fiver (which the Club currently pays, for Club members to use channels 1-4
The sets we currently use do have 20 other channels on them, the use of which is prohibited without paying a separate licence fee. Some of the Clubs' members are (2009) licenced to use these frequencies through a reciprical agreement with a club member who is a Licence holder for these frequencies

PLEASE NOTE that you can NOT just "buy an <MSA> set and use it" - but the Club encourages you consider becoming a Radio Crew / Radio Marshal and will give you all the help and guidance you need to become a Radio Operator painlessly, should you so desire. Simply contact Iain Baxter or Arthur Jones, for full details of how to get a radio and a licence ....... and how to use the radio AND the network SAFELY.
The MSA run a "Radio Operators" course as part of the Rally Marshals training days too!

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES IS CB RADIO USED FOR RALLY SAFETY COMMUNICATIONS!
although it is used by some of us for NON SAFETY communication during events, from "car to car" (but this use is purely as "chit chat")

PMR 446 Radio: (The little handheld sets that everyone seems to have these days): Used for communication between runners and Radio vehicles (If there's an incident out of sight of a Radio Car) - these sets can be quite cheap to buy and have a range of up to "3-5Km" - about a mile usually, from tests I've carried out! ....(from about £20 for a "basic" set, up to £120 or more, depending what you want out of 'em!)

Other forms of communication that may have been tried occasionally on rallies:
Mobile phones: From experience, these things are usually worse than usless and CANNOT be relied upon when rally marshalling! The actual "range" of a mobile phone is very short, and unless there is a phone mast nearby, you will not get any reception at all. Rallies tend to take place in forests, which are very sparsely populated areas with little or, more usually, ZERO mobile phone reception for very large areas. Some places, of course, DO have reception, but it's the exception rather than the rule - Mobile phones are not usually used for instage communications other than the passing of sensitive information
Megaphone: Very handy for assisting with getting spectators to listen. Useless for communication with other marshals.
BT Landline: Tends to fail after the course car has run over the wires
Shouting: User failure of vocal chords before 1st car has left Start line is a common complaint with this one
Smoke Signals: Definately NOT recommended on Forestry Commision land
Jungle Drums: Messages often get distorted by Impretza Turbo Lag
Optical Morse Code: The new super bright spotlamps on some competitors cars tend to cause havoc with this one.

Further information about Rally Radio can be obtained from:
Bill Wilmers' informative GEMINI RADIO website
Derek Machins' excellent SILK RADIO website