[MilCom] Radio Scanners at airshows

[Ken Windyka]

As far as possible spoke persons for the hobby, some people that come to
mind are:  Harold Ort (editor, Popular Communications), who is a retired US
Army public affairs NCO.  Also Larry Van Horn (assistant editor, Monitoring
Times), who is a retired navy CPO who I believe also worked public affairs.

My personal experience, basically the decision makers on the Scanner
ban is the Security Police and perhaps the installation commander.  The
airshow coordination folks (e.g. project officer & assistants) & public
affairs will defer to the security police on this decision.  I've found that
the Security folks tended to VERY conservative on any "carry in" issue.  In
other words they want to ban as much as possible from entering the show area
because from a practical operational standpoint it's one less item they have
to inspect.  Of course the more liberal folks (e.g. Public Affairs) would be
pushing to allow as many items as possible for the OVERALL ENJOYMENT of the
visiting taxpayers, thus one sees that various cameras are allowed & also at
many bases it's not practical to install payphones on the flight line so
thus cellular telephones are allowed.

I'm not advocating that visitors to military airshows disregard the rules,
BUT even
at the Hanscom AFB airshow last year, although there was a scanner ban
listed on the website, the actual signs at the show entrance made no mention
of scanners being band (but others things were listed); my understanding
is that some hobbyists did successfully enter the show line area with their
scanners.  Hanscom basically inspected everything and even guests had to
endure to an electronic pat down for weapons, etc.

Personally, it increases my comfort level if I can have the scanner going
(with earphone of course) while on the flight line show area, BUT it
wouldn't stop me from going to a show if the scanner was banned in the show
area.  Again as an alternative, going back to your vehicle &
watching/monitoring might be possible.  Actually, depending upon the weather
conditions, the show area tarmac can be very uncomfortable, while back in
your auto you can run the air conditoner,  etc...

Ken
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin S Burke" <photoz@juno.com>
To: <MilCom@mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2003 11:05 PM
Subject: Re: [MilCom] Radio Scanners at airshows


 I think
> we need to find someone who can represent us as scannerists, and ask the
powers that be why scanners are allowed at races but not at airshows.