UPDATE:
Most (allmost All) the teams use TETRA. This is a digital protocol which encrypts the signal. You need the key to unlock transmissions. You can buy the appropriate scanner, but it won't do any good without the encryption key.
HOWEVER:
I found this information by joining the f1scanner yahoo group:
"For those of you who do go with a scanner, here are a few notes that will
hopefully help in tracking down useful F1 comms:
There are just two teams who still use analogue comms: LotusF1 and Toro Rosso.
Toro Rosso:
All Torro Rosso's communications are analogue in the VHF Band, with 2 car
channels, a pit channel in english, a pit channel in italian, and one simplex
pit channel used for tyre spotters/refullers.
Car 18:
164.9125 or 164.925 Repeater (94.8Hz)
160.4375, 160.410, 158.625, 158.850, 159.4375 Input (DCS074)
Car 19:
164.0375 or 164.100 Repeater (173.8Hz)
158.8625, 158.375, 158.850 Inout (DCS266)
Pits
165.0125 (103.5Hz) and 158.3625 (DCS223) or 158.275 Input
164.5375 (67.0Hz) and 158.300 or 158.275 (D503) Input
152.250 (DCS025) or 167.450 (DCS754 or DCS025)
Finding Toro Rosso communications:
If the freqs above dont work, search the 164 to 166MHz band in 12.5khz steps.
The PL/DPL tones are static, so you can pretty much guarantee that if you find a
freq in this band with say a PL tone of 173.8Hz then it will be Car 19. Jean
Eric Vergne's race engineer, Andrea Landi, always calls him 'JEV'. The best time
to find freqs is when the cars are out on their first installation lap of the
session, or when the cars have returned to the pits and are/have been wheeled
back into the pits and the driver is debriefing his race engineer.
Lotus F1:
Most of Lotus communications are actually in digital TETRA. However they retain
an analogue UHF radio link for race engineer to car and car to race engineer.
These are simplex links - the communications are not repeated on the analogue
channels. So there are 4 analogue frequencies to find:
Car 9 Pit-to-Car: 457.0125 or 457.1125 (85.4Hz)
Car 9 Car-to-Pit: 467.5375 or 467.7125 (79.7Hz)
Car 10 Pit-to-Car: 457.1125 or 457.1625 (218.1Hz, maybe 91.5Hz)
Car 10 Car-to-Pit: 467.9125 or 467.775 (97.4Hz)
Finding Lotus communications:
If the freqs above dont work, search the 457-459MHz and 467-468MHz bands in
12.5khz steps. The PL/DPL tones are static, so again you can pretty much
guarantee that if you find a freq in this band with the right PL tone above
you've got it. Lotus comms can be a little more difficult to find given that
they operate at lower power and are not repeated. Again, the best time to find
freqs is when the cars have returned to the pits and are/have been wheeled back
into the pits and the driver is debriefing his race engineer. Its easier to find
the race engineer-to-driver link, so start with the 457-459mhz search. When you
get the race engineer frequency, wait for him to ask the driver for a response.
Then quickly search the 467-468Mhz band for the driver side communications.
Other team related comms:
There are other analogue comms that you can listen into. The most common
frequencies are:
Pirelli engineers: 166.2125 or 166.250 (136.5Hz) and 172.2625 or 172.1125
(110.9Hz).
Team Hospitality: 147.300 (233.6Hz), 154.600 (DCS023) McLaren, 466.100 (131.8Hz)
Ferrari
TV and radio broadcasters will be spread across the UHF band from 440 to 490Mhz.
Don't forget that many of them transmit the Team Radio communications that you
can get on the FanVision terminals.
Should I get FanVision or take a scanner:
Actually, if you can afford it, I'd suggest you take both and pop an earpiece in
either ear. On Fanvision, you will of course get the team comms from all teams,
including those who are using digital TETRA. But for those that are analogue,
you will get access to ALL of their communications: on FanVision you will only
ever get a very small percentage of communications that FOM decide they want to
broadcast.
FOM Analogue commnications:
451.300
452.000
452.800
456.300
457.000
457.800
COTA Circuit Frequencies:
461.8125
463.4625
463.9750
464.0375
464.0625
464.6375
461.4125
451.9000
461.5250
464.9625
461.7375
452.6750
452.4750
For those of you interested in the more technical challenge of being able to
find F1 related communications, there are lots of other communications to find:
McLaren:
All McLaren communications are encrypted using a bespoke digital Kenwood system.
The car channels use a cross-band repeater system (VHF for car-to-pit link
that's repeated in the pits on UHF, and UHF for pit-to-car link that is repeated
on VHF for onward transmission to the car). The two pit channels one per car,
and UHF simplex. There is also one more VHF radio link from the pitwall to the
team repeater system that can then rebroadcast on any of the car or pit
channels.
Car 3:
147.600 or 147.625 or 147.500 or 148.200, rebroadcast on 447.400 or 448.875 or
450.275
Car 3 Pit:
451.025 or 450.225
Car 4:
152.275 or 151.625 or 152.700, rebroadcast on 453.825 or 452.150 or 452.900 or
450.4375
Car 4 Pit:
455.300 or 452.900
Pitwall Link:
147.850 or 149.375
Finding McLaren communications:
If the freqs above dont work, search the 147 to 156Mhz Band, and 447 to 470Mhz
Bands in 12.5khz steps. The McLaren frequencies vary quite a lot between races.
Pit channels can be very difficult to find given that they operate at low power
and are not repeated. As the car channels simultaneously broadcast on the same
UHF and VHF pair you can track these down much more easily.
The pitwall link is the odd one out as it isn't always rebroadcast on the same
UHF or VHF channel.
The McLaren signal sounds like a clean white noise ('open squelch') signal, not
dissimilar to a Nexedge narrowband signal. It doesn't use sync tones like a P25
digital sytsem.
FIA/FOM TETRA signals:
Always in the 420-430Mhz band, input is -10Mhz in the 410-420Mhz band.
Known freqs for COTA use are:
425.050 - 415.050
425.225 - 415.225
428.000 - 418.000
428.175 - 418.175
428.375 - 418.375
428.550 - 418.550
429.050 - 419.050
429.325 - 419.325
Ferrari TETRA:
422.100 - 412.100
422.900 - 412.900
Sauber TETRA:
428.175 - 418.175
428.925 - 418.925
UNID Team TETRA:
425.250 - 415.250
F1 Car GPS signals:
3 frequencies used within the 308 - 327Mhz band."
