Positive Reporting Cars that don't Reach Finish Since the idea of Safety Radio is to achieve safety in motor sport it is of primary importance that the Controller knows as soon as a car is missing. Five minutes could be life or death for a crew lying injured in the forest or beside the rally track. The earlier a Controller knows a crew needs medical help the earlier the Rescue and Doctor can get to them. Positive Reporting is a good system for checking a car has arrived where it should be. Positive Reporting works like this: On rallies as big as the Network Q operators with an alternative frequency ("the B System") are situated 5k into stage and at every 5k interval. Start and Finish are also equipped with the alternative frequency. Checksheets are kept by the Controller, start and finish radios and all the instage radios. As soon as the first car goes into stage its number is reported by the start radio. As it passes each post it is reported over the air by the appropriate operator until the finish radio announces it out. In the meantime, when the time has come for the 5th car in, Control will start making sweeps. First Control asks start for his first five cars. Control repeats the numbers for the benefit of everyone on the Network so they can fill in their checksheets with those numbers in the "start" column. Next Control asks the first post in for his cars, again repeating them to ensure everyone has heard them and managed to write them in the next column of their checksheet. And thus the pass goes on until either the finish radio has reported his cars or someone reports "no further cars" Almost as soon as one pass finishes Control starts another and thus the passage of each car is noted by every operator on the Network. Keeping the checksheet on instage posts can be difficult, to say the least. It is usually the case that you have no cars past you while you dutifully record all the numbers being given out by previous posts. Then, just as Control reaches you in the pass, five cars will come along at once! Keep your head, the car numbers are vital. Quickly key the mike and say "Wait one, Control" and get the numbers recorded. As soon as you have written them you can respond to Control's call. Of course, if you have regard to the recommendations of the MSA you will have a "secretary" (I love that idea!) to help you at such times. Positive Reporting is being used on more and more rallies. I have been at rallies where the start radio on the ordinary MSA Frequency (the "C System"), after having announced the first car in to stage in the usual way, goes on to announce every subsequent group of five cars in. This is an excellent way of utilising the benefits of both the C system and positive reporting. Other rallies, those who can get the necessary numbers of operators and supply an alternative frequency, work it just like the Network Q does, albeit using operators closer together than 5k. Bill Wilmer has perfected a variation on Positive Reporting and runs all Gemini rallies using it. Using an alternative frequency the start reports car numbers as they go in and everyone on that frequency notes them, then the finish reports them out for everyone to note. Points in between report if the order is not as per start order. With the safety aspect of Motor Sport coming more and more into the spotlight it could be that we all have to learn to use Positive Reporting as well as manning the C system. If it helps to keep Motor Sport safe then it is worth practicing the art.