The Help Desk: The roar of the crowd, the din of the scanners

Monday, April 3rd 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Q: I attended last yearâ€™s NASCAR race at the Texas Motor Speedway, and everyone was using a police scanner. Iâ€™d like to use one when I go this year. What should I look for in a scanner and what should I expect to hear?
- J.S., Corsicana

A: Youâ€™re right, many people use police scanners at the track to listen in on drivers, their spotters and crew chiefs - and I was one of them last year.

Let me give you some advice about what to expect. First, those cars are LOUD!

I brought a pair of headphones from my personal stereo - the lightweight kind with foam ear pieces. What a waste of time.

The track noise greatly overpowered my tiny headphones - so much that I had to cup them tightly over my ears to hear anything at all.
Looking around at my fellow listeners, I saw they had one thing in common - really nice over-the-ear headphones, the kind that seals out noise while letting you hear all the action. They are available for sale at the track starting at about $50.

I recently saw some in-the-ear headphones with foam pieces that expand to hold them in your ears and shield outside noise. They are called The Plug from Koss and were less than $20 at a major electronics store.

You can also rent a police scanner and headphones at the track from a company called Racing Electronics. A one-day rental costs $35. Smart race fans will get around the long lines at the track and save 10 percent by reserving their set early. You can do this at www.racingelectronics.com. Or you call Racing Electronicsâ€™ 800 number, and your set will be waiting for you on race day.

I have a Uniden Bearcat Sportcat hand-held scanner, which is designed for racing enthusiasts. The Sportcat can hold 100 frequencies, 10 of which are instantly accessible through direct-access buttons. It works like a car radio in that you can program the channels and switch quickly among them with the 10 buttons. The Sportcat is available at electronics stores for about $150, but there are many other choices for hand-held police scanners as well. You will hear a lot with your police scanner before and during the race.

You can listen to the spotter keep the driver informed of his position in relation to other cars as they race. The word you will hear most often is "clear," which means the car is clear of traffic on either side.

It gets interesting when there is an accident. Quickly changing to the frequency of a spinning driver can yield good information. During last yearâ€™s race, I was monitoring Jeff Gordon when he spun out. He told his crew chief he was coming in on four flat tires.
The key is having the right frequencies to program into your scanner. There are several Web sites that have a list, but there is no guarantee they will be right for your race.

For the once-a-year user, such as you and me, look for a race program when you get to the track. There is a frequency list for that dayâ€™s race that should include any last-minute changes.

Q: I am a Mac user of a dozen years and my current computer is a Macintosh Performa 6400. This 50th wedding anniversary gift from my wife came with a lot of preloaded stuff but is used primarily as a word processor for ranch records and now the Internet. I signed on in December after upgrading the Mac from OS 7.5 to 7.6.1. The first message told me that Netscape Navigator 2.0 was out of date and I should immediately download Netscape Communicator 4.7.

I obediently did that. Then came the task of making the latter my default Web browser, and that is when my problem began. I have not been able to find Communicator despite the fact that its icon appears, teasingly, on my screen each time I turn on the computer.
Netscape 2.0 is performing adequately, but Iâ€™d like to know if 4.7 is better. If so, I would prefer using it.
- J.B.R., Lampasas, Texas

A: The latest version of Netscape Communicator, which is 4.7, can do more things and display more complex pages that include Java and other animations. I can tell you itâ€™s better, but if it doesnâ€™t act better on your particular computer, then Iâ€™m a liar.

The latest browsers behave nicely on the latest computers. The minimum requirements for processor speed and RAM for running browsers have increased dramatically since you installed version 2.0, so there is no guarantee 4.7 will work without a hitch. If you have more than 32MB of RAM, upgrading to 4.7 is probably OK for you. You might want to consider adding more RAM and upgrading to at least Mac OS 8.1 for better reliability.

When you downloaded Communicator 4.7, Netscape saved the file to your desktop, as you mentioned. But what it downloaded is a BIN (binary) file, which is a compressed file. This BIN file needs to be decompressed before you can use it.

To do that, follow these directions listed at Netscape at home.netscape.com/download/install_instructions.html?cp=dowinfo2#mac.

"The compressed file that you download should expand automatically. If it does not, you will have to expand the file using a program such as Stuffit Expander. If you need it, download a copy at www.aladdinsys.com.

"To open a file with Stuffit Expander, first double-click the Stuffit Expander icon. Choose the Expand command from the File menu; then select the file that you downloaded. Click the Expand button. A dialog box will appear as the file is expanded into the same folder as the original encoded file (or onto the Macintosh desktop, if you didnâ€™t alter the default setting).

"Once the file has been expanded, you will see a diamond-shaped installer icon with four arrows. Double-click on this icon to extract the pieces you will need to install your software from the single file that you downloaded. At the first dialog box, click Continue. At the second dialog box, choose or create the folder you want to place the separate pieces into.

You do not need to rename the file. Click the Save button. When you see the dialog box saying 'UnStuffing was successful,' click the Quit button.

"Then find the folder you put the extracted pieces into. Double-click the Netscape Installer icon. Click Continue at the product name. The next screen is the license. Click Agree if you agree to the terms of the license. After the license agreement, you will see a screen with up-to-date information about the product; click OK to continue with the installation. You will be taken to the installation screen.

"At the installation screen, choose the location where youâ€™d like to install your new software. If you install your new software into the Netscape folder that contains your current version of the product, your old version will be overwritten, but you can still use your existing bookmarks, preferences and settings. If you wish to keep a copy of the old version as a backup, simply create a new folder for the software you are about to install."

After the installation, reboot and enjoy the new version.

Q: I upgraded from an old 1.8-gigabyte hard drive a year ago to an 8GB hard drive, but it came partitioned into several 2GB drives.
This presented no problem until recently, when I ran out of space on the C drive and tried to move some programs out of C into D.
Big problems!
Why do drives come partitioned?
- P.G., Dallas

A: Chances are your drive didnâ€™t come partitioned from the factory. The act of formatting it in your PC took care of that.
Two-gigabyte hard drives were as big as you could get in Windows 95. So if you got a bigger drive, the only way to use all the space was to create partitions.

Later versions of 95, called Revisions B and C, allowed larger drives and partitions. I found the following information at pages.prodigy.net/jdjd/htm/partition.htm:
"If your hard drive is larger than 2 gigabytes, the early version of Windows 95 will automatically partition it. The first partition (your C drive) will be approximately 2 gigabytes. The subsequent partitions will be either 2 gigabytes or the remainder of whatâ€™s left over, depending on the size of your hard drive.

"For example, letâ€™s say you have a 5.5GB hard drive. Itâ€™s your C drive. Windows 95 will set your computer up this way:

C drive: 2.0 gigabytes
D drive: 2.0 gigabytes
E drive: 1.5 gigabytes

To know if you have the second version of Windows 95, right-click on the My Computer icon on your desktop and choose Properties. Under the General tab, there will be information on the Windows version.

If you have Windows 95B or C, you are in luck, and your hard drives and partitions can be larger than 2 GB. If it says Windows 95 Original or Windows 95A, Iâ€™d consider upgrading to Windows 98.

Q: How can I print a copy of my e-mail addresses in Netscape Navigator?
- C.A., Dallas

A: Your address book can be exported as a text file and printed.

From the Communicator menu, open the Address Book. From the Address Book windowâ€™s File Menu, choose Export. The Export dialog box will let you choose the location and format of the exported address book.

Choose a suitable location and under the Format choice, try comma separated or tab delimited to keep the addresses from jamming together and save the file. Then in a text editor, such as Microsoft Word or Windowâ€™s Wordpad, open the file and print it.

You may need to manipulate the text a bit to get it into the format you want.

But you shouldnâ€™t have any problems.

Q: Several months ago, the CD-ROM crashed on my Hewlett-Packard 8240. I replaced it with a DVD-ROM drive. It reads CD-ROMs fine, but what is necessary to make the DVD part work on my computer?

If I might be so bold as to ask another question about this computer, I want to add more RAM to it, but I donâ€™t know what kind of chip to get. Can you tell me this information, too?
G.S., Dallas

A: Out of the box, a DVD-ROM drive can read CD-ROMs and data DVD-ROMs, which are not to be confused with DVD movies.

Your computer needs a DVD decoder to play movies. If you just purchased the DVD drive by itself, it may not have come with a decoder.
The decoder can be hardware, like a PCI card, or it can be software. You need to check the disks that came with the drive, if there are any. Or check with the drive manufacturer to see what it recommends. Iâ€™m sure the manufacturer has a decoder that you can buy if one was not bundled with your purchase, which sounds like the case.

As for the RAM, your HP uses 168-pin SDRAM. You should buy it from a reputable dealer that guarantees its products and asks you what kind of computer you have before blindly giving you what you ask for.

You can go to an electronics shopping site and follow the links on buying memory. For example, at www.warehouse.com, you can follow the Memory link from the front page, then enter your computerâ€™s manufacturer and model number. The correct memory choices are then displayed.