I recently travelled to Amsterdam, from Boston, with a stop in London, and back to Boston a week later.
I carried a RadioShack DX-398 shortwave radio in my carry-on bag, with an extra reel up antenna. I felt that for sure the bag would be closely examined at Boston, since this is the point where two hijacked planes departed on September 11th. However, no security screeners at Boston (or London, or Amsterdam) ever took a second look at my bag and it's contents. Security is still a joke (at least in US airports, better in European ones). For example, one individual who checked my passport prior to the x-ray machine in Boston spoke practically no English. The screeners target people who obviously pose no realistic terrorist threat. It's surprising that I should walk through with a bag full of electronic equipment (shortwave radio, digital camera, extra batteries, etc) while the middle aged woman behind me gets her purse carefully disected by someone who has no idea what they are looking for anyways. Damon -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, July 01, 2002 11:48 AM To: HCDX Mailing List Subject: [HCDX] DX-ers as potential terrorists...... Dear DX ers, The times that shortwave listeners who received mail from R. Moscow and R. Peking automatically obtained attention of the secret service, are way behind us. However, in the post 9.11 days other dangers are emerging, as my experiences show : During longer international travels I usually take my Grundig Yachtboy receiver with me and also in most cases a small ferroloop antenna (amplifier box + separate ferrite rod), to boost local MW reception. To make sure thing do not get lost, I keep these in my hand luggage. During the last months I made four trips to the USA. In the increased security environment, the presence of my hobby gear has produced several reactions: 1. No reaction at all (not spotted on the X-ray, or ignored) 2. The bag is selected for further inspection and the contents produces puzzled looks at the faces of the inspection people. So far the explantion that this was a radio + antenna was accepted. 3. Further chemical analysis for explosives (wiping with tissue). So far always negative. 4. General excitement, as below : Duirng my last trip, in Atlanta security people picked out my bag as "suspicious" and created a lot of problems. My SW radio was described as "funny" and also the satement was made "we do not have such radios in the USA" (although I bought this radio in the USA some years ago). After another security officer stated "I believe it is German", this argument was put to rest (so much for German industrial design). However, the combination with a small black box and ferrite rod prevented a quick solution. It did not help that I stated this was just an innocent radio + antenna. Things were run again and again through the X ray scanner. (Nice pictures!). The printed circuit boards + electronic components that were clearly visible only helped to feed the suspicion. After I showed some obvious signs of irritiation (after explaining to a third person that this was just a radio), things became a little bit tense and I was afraid I was about to make some unvoluntary headlines. In the end things were settled, after someone from the airline came along and allowed me to take things on board (though stored removed from my place and with the batteries of the radio removed). It helped that he recognized the ferrite rod as "something from a radio". I am not sure if the above should serve to ridicule the efforts of the security personel, or to praise them beacause of their stubbornness in trying to get information. However, I am sure there are other people on this list who occasionally travel with radios and/or antenna gear. I was bit embarassed by the way this went (and the time that it cost me), and I wondered if there are ways of preventing this confusion. Is it possible to obtain a kind of document that describes equipment as being innocent ? Storing it in the luggage that you check in, is not a solution because (apart from the risk of loss), in some cases this luggage is now also opened and inspected. Regards, Aart Rouw B�hl, Germany ---[Start Commercial]--------------------- Keep in mind EDXC Conference 2002 in mid-August - the biggest DX and SWL meeting in Europe! See http://www.sdxl.org/edxc/edxc2002.html, come to Pori, Finland and enjoy! ---[End Commercial]----------------------- ________________________________________ Hard-Core-DX mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www2.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ _______________________________________________ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt ---[Start Commercial]--------------------- Keep in mind EDXC Conference 2002 in mid-August - the biggest DX and SWL meeting in Europe! See http://www.sdxl.org/edxc/edxc2002.html, come to Pori, Finland and enjoy! ---[End Commercial]----------------------- ________________________________________ Hard-Core-DX mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www2.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ _______________________________________________ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt
