Monitoring inside an airport?

[Stavro35]

I know there are a lot of postings about monitoring during flights. But do many of you,while you're waiting for your flight sit there and monitor ATC and airport communications? I do. I make a point of sitting near or at least within shouting distance of my family. I get my scanner out, a note pad. and my little kodak camera just in case I see something interesting.

It's fun to find the company freq for the airlines I am flying . In this case mostly Delta airlines and Southwest. If it's a lay over it's interesting to try to find the local police and such.

 

[RayAir]

As jumpy and untrained as airport personnel generally are now I wouldn't do it if I were you.

 

[KG4KHQ]

Airports

If I can, I will book flights with layovers of 2-4 hours for this very reason. I have never had a problem. I keep my 396XT in my carry-on backpack and use I-pod earphones. Laguardia and O'hare were particularly interesting.

 

[FLRAILMAN]

Monitoring inside an airport

Sounds like a definite homeland security threat to me. We have observed you in possesion of a communicator device & spy camera, your papers please!!!

If you got past the rocket scientists at the TSA security checkpoint, it's on them, not you, so you're okay, just relax.

Transportation Security Administration - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

FLAIRPORTSECURITYMAN

 

[N_Jay]

As jumpy and untrained as airport personnel generally are now I wouldn't do it if I were you.

I wouldn't worry about it.

You have to be doing something fairly improper to get hassled.

Just people watch for an understanding of what passes for "normal activity".

 

[JoeyC]

I've done it, nobody cares. If anything, you will find out that your flight is cancelled a good 15 minutes before they announce it in the terminal or at the gate if you listen to the company frequencies. Other passengers are usually curious, I've never seen TSA give a rats ass about a scanner.

 

[ecps92]

Ear buds or headphones and never a problem.

I know there are a lot of postings about monitoring during flights. But do many of you,while you're waiting for your flight sit there and monitor ATC and airport communications? I do. I make a point of sitting near or at least within shouting distance of my family. I get my scanner out, a note pad. and my little kodak camera just in case I see something interesting.

It's fun to find the company freq for the airlines I am flying . In this case mostly Delta airlines and Southwest. If it's a lay over it's interesting to try to find the local police and such.

 

[K4IHS]

I wear headphones and do it all the time. Never had a problem. I usually fire up my laptop and watch the radar on FlightAware - Free Flight Tracker / IFR Flight Status / Flight Tracking / Flight Planning too.

 

[Stavro35]

Of course I wear a set of ear phones. I took a couple of fun pictures while waiting for my flight from ABQ to SEA to board. I missed a chance go get a shot of an airplane struggling to take off. I now have i pod earphpones. So I am hoping to travel by air sooner than later!

 

[bm_north60]

During my last cross Canada trip, from BC to New Brunswick, I fired up my scanner in Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, and Moncton without any issues. Found lots of interesting comms.

 

[xjf79]

never had a problem flying anywhere with a scanner either in the US or Europe and Ive been to some of the largest airports in the world over the years... sfo, lax, jfk, heathrow, charles degualle and Barcelona Airport
no one batted an eye at my 396t

 

[N0IU]

never had a problem flying anywhere with a scanner either in the US or Europe...

Another really nice program to monitor air traffic similar to Flightaware, especially in Europe, is RadarVirtuel The developer is in France so most of the reporting stations are in Europe, but a few US stations on the east coast are starting to show up.

 

[K4IHS]

Scott: I've seen the RadarVirtuel and the concept looks nice. But it might show only 1 or 2 plans over the whole state of Florida when Flight Aware shows hundreds... :-(

 

[N0IU]

Ralph, I guess RadarVirtuel is not really meant for the US market. I mean why would someone want to compete with FlightAware?

 

[Jay911]

Not only have I listened to air comms at airports, I have brought out my netbook and fired up Unitrunker during layovers, for up to 3 or 4 hours at a time. Nobody cares. The biggest concern I ever saw from security was a CATSA guy who took a second look at my power cords and programming cables for the two scanners and one netbook, then sent me on my way.

 

[guitarbrian30]

not an issue really

the only problem I had through TSA was when I had everything tossed into one bag. They said can you remove all your items please. and pushed me through the x-ray machine again.

Now I toss my lappy and scanner into the same bag. just different slots. the other issue I think they had with that super x-ray machine is that all the wires and battery's. all together. SO I made them happy and the line faster by keeping every thing nice and pretty.

I listened to my scanner for 3 hours in Denver. while watching flight aware. and drinking coffee.

I preprogrammed my scanner for easy scanning.

Happy scanning.