Volusia County (FL)/Daytona Beach Area Guide

Daytona Beach Area Guide

This page is designed to help the new hobbyist or a traveler unfamiliar with the Daytona Beach area to get started listening to this part of Volusia County Florida.

Of course if you want to jump right in, the RR Database is the place to go to see the confirmed users and frequencies for this area.

Looking at the information in the database and reading this guide will answer a lot of questions, but if something is unclear or missing, you can always visit the Florida Forum and search for an answer or post your question there.

The RR Wiki is a great place to see the work in progress by contributors coordinating efforts to identify and confirm unknown frequency and talk group users as well as new licensee data. Check the corresponding Wiki pages for Volusia County, Florida, and any trunked systems to view relevant data. Please make any contributions of unknown data there. Confirmed data should go into the RR database submission process. If you have anything to add to this guide then of course those edits would be great here! I would encourage people who could create a similar page for the DeLand area to start one focused on the West side of Volusia County.

If you are here for a temporary event like a race, you might find posts in the Sporting Events or Florida forum have the most recent spotting so don't forget to check there as well.

Public Safety

Public Safety in Volusia County primarily found on a trunked 800 MHz EDACS system. This system has two redundant sites with one having better coverage in the West side, and one having better coverage on the East side of the county. Almost all of the talk groups are carried on both systems so in most cases someone in the Daytona Beach area need only program and monitor the East system. There is a third site on this system that is labeled Daytona Beach and whose coverage is centered on this area. Normally it has very little activity when there's not some sort of special event like a race or other large gathering in town. Almost all of the communications on this system are not encrypted. If you are here for an event you should program and scan this system in as well. Some of the talk groups from the East system will also be patched onto this system but there may be others in use that are not. There are a few cities and departments that still have conventional radios tied to talk groups on this system, primarily for fire alerting. There is also a LE Mutual aid talk group that is patched to a VHF conventional frequency and shows inter-agency activity from time to time.

Over the last couple of years the state of Florida has applied for a Special Temporary Authorization (STA) and setup a trailer and tower adjacent to the event site. We usually see this a couple weeks before the event and post about it in the Florida forum. Florida Highway Patrol units in this area normally are users of the state's SLERS system, which is a different EDACS system and whose communications are for the most part encrypted.

There is a listing in database for the county's newer P25 trunked system but at this time it's limited to a single site down in Sanford just across the county line and carries talkgroups for units operating in that far SouthWest corner of the county.

Marine

The geography of Volusia County features both the Atlantic Ocean on the East side, as well as the Intercoastal Waterway both of which usually have a mix of both private and commercial watercraft present. The Marine band channels are one of the nationwide listings found at Radio Reference but visitors to the area might not think to program and scan them since they aren't listed on the county pages. You will hear workers at the local marinas talking to vessels coming in for supplies or to berth for the night as well as the captains of various ships talking to each other about how best to over take and pass each other or calling ahead to the drawbridge operator. The commercial fishing vessels will sometimes talk to each other about where their nets and the fish are located, and a couple of companies operate towing and salvage in the area. There's a USCG station located just South of Ponce Inlet and sometimes they operate off the coast.

• 156.425 Halifax River Yacht Club
• 156.450 Main Street Bridge Marine Ch 9 Volusia County WXZ562
• 156.575 Halifax Harbor Marina (owned by City of Daytona Beach WHU271)
• 156.625 Daytona Marina and Boatworks
• 156.975 Daytona Beach Marina, Loggerhead Marina, Caribbean Jack's Restaurant

Transportation

The State of Florida Department of Transportation does have some VHF low band base stations in the area but you will seldom traffic other than the IDs in Morse code.

Aircraft and airports

The Daytona Beach area has one airport which sees regularly scheduled air carrier service and is also used by an aviation focused university as well as a number of Fixed Base Operators and instructional companies. DAB has a TSA presence and USCBP service on call for any international arrivals. It's tower is pretty busy as a result of this while the passenger terminal sees more busy and less busy times during the day as flight come and go. Ormond Beach and New Smyrna Beach each have airports for general aviation and there's also the private Spruce Creek Airport which has a gated community that surrounds it.

The general aviation FBOs at the Daytona Beach airport see a spike in their activity during times of events and quite a number of aircraft are parked there when a race is being held. The commercial airlines also tend to place extra flights, or run larger planes during events and it's not uncommon for a charter flight or two to also fly in and out around events or spring break. ATP Jet Center listens on 122.95 Unicom while Yelvington and Sheltair have their own frequencies.

The small size and limited schedule of commercial flights at DAB means the range and activity on radio systems for airline ramp and ground crews is limited and infrequent. Airport Ops and public safety at the airport have trunk groups on the Volusia County TRS which they use.

Railroads

The Florida East Coast Railroad has tracks that run in a North to South direction, roughly parallel to US 1 in the Eastern part of the county. Railroad information is listed on the state of Florida page as well the standardized channels are listed on the national page. The CSX tracks which are also used by AMTRAK run through the West side of the county. At the time of this writing, the SunRail commuter service only reaches the extreme Southwest part of the county.

• 160.53 FLECRR
• 160.77 FLECRR

Mass Transportation

The county has a mass transit system VOTRAN, which operates on it's own trunked system and not the county's public safety oriented system. Buses and smaller shuttles can be heard making pickups and running routes.

Military

The United States Coast Guard has a station located just South of the Ponce de Leon Inlet. There is a USCG Auxiliary in Daytona Beach.

There is a Civil Air Patrol unit in Ormond Beach.

The various branches of the armed services have ROTC programs on the Embry Riddle Aeronautical campus.

The Armory formerly located in Daytona Beach was relocated to Deland.

Public Attractions

The actual beach and the Daytona International Speedway may be the area most well known public attractions, but there are also golf courses and other things that bring people to this area.

The Daytona International Speedway is a major tourist attraction and has a large number of FCC licensed frequencies. Activity varies depending on the nature and scope of track usage on a given day.

Businesses

Businesses in the Daytona Beach area consist of many related to the tourism, education, and medical industries.

This area has Daytona State University, Bethune Cookman University, Embry Riddle Aviation University, and Palmer Chiropractic College campuses all within a couple of miles. Each of them have FCC licensed radio systems.

Area hospitals include Halifax Health and Florida Advent Health which each have multiple locations with radios in use at each site. EMS Ambulance to hospital communications are for the most part carried by talkgroups on the Volusia County TRS. This is also how any Medivac flights by the county's Air One helicopter will communicate with the hospitals.

Utilities

In the Daytona Beach area Florida Power and Light is the predominate supplier of electricity and Spectrum (formerly Brighthouse) is the cable television company with the most coverage.

Events

Each year people travel to the Daytona Beach area to attend racing events at the Daytona International Speedway, motorcycle themed events, and during the spring college vacation period an number of students travel to the area to enjoy a break from their matriculation. The period from Thanksgiving through Easter sees a lot of partial year residents who come down for an escape to more moderate winter temperatures. National cheerleading, gymnastics, and other types of conventions use the Ocean Center and area hotels to host their get togethers.

Don't forget to monitor the typical color dot and other itinerant frequencies as well as GMRS and Family Radio channels. Lots of folks bring and operate these in an uncoordinated fashion that won't show up in the county and city specific listings.

Amateur Radio

The Daytona Amateur Radio Association (DBARA) holds monthly meetings, license examinations, and sponsors a 2 meter repeater in Daytona Beach as well as one in New Smyrna Beach. The Volusia County Traffic Net uses the 2 meter repeater in Daytona Beach each day at 6:30 pm for check in's, traffic passing, and a round of comments.

There are a number of local amateurs as well as people driving past on the highways that monitor and can be heard from time to time on the 2m simplex calling channel. 146.520 FM The same could be said to be true for APRS use in the area, with one low level digipeater/igate offering local coverage via 144.390

At one time there was a DStar repeater in Daytona Beach but it's been off the air for years. At least one DMR repeater covers the area. The First Coast DMR network can often be heard on the 443.2125 system.

-this page is under construction