Hi Craig...
Interesting thought mate... ...!

I keep wondering wether or not to buy a, (cheap £100), scanner to pick up messages from my local airfield..?
..but I would suspect that the messages would be so garbled as to be un-intelligible....a bit like CB radio...(come in, Rubber Duck..)...LOL...LOL...LOL...!

...has anyone tried one of these devices out...?

Cheers...
Paul.
(England).

I have two scanners. My 200 channel one scans all public service (law enforcement, fire, etc..), I also scan FRS/GMRS in the area. I need to get another antenna for the other scanner so i can hear the air traffic...what little there is

Fozzer,

Many Security Patrol personnel here carry the same type of scanner to listen in to Police band conversations. Some of our Patrolmen carry them, although I never did when I was 'out and about' (instead of in monitoring room).

They are only used for eave's dropping etc and to pass the time........lol.
These scanners cannot pick up Air traffic control, even when right next to the Airport Tower. This stuff is on a frequency that it is (as far as I am aware) illegal to have access to, in case of mishap or interference etc.

 Things may have changed since 9-11, but I have had scanners as long as I can remember and I have always listened to air frequencys.
 When living in Arizona, we used to park across the road from runway 26R at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport (KPHX), and I could monitor all the radio transmissions between the tower and aircraft, including ground control and departure, of course this was several years ago.
 Where I live now, I can only pick up enroute transmissions from airliners, or sometimes I catch a regional requesting landing clearance into South Bend (KSBN),  the nearest airport to me now is the small local airfield (C91), which is less than a half mile away, I can look out my kitchen window and see the end of runway 4, but I can still hear the general aviation radio traffic in the area.

 Regulations on monitoring certain frequencies probably vary in different areas of the world, and as I said above, I don't know what may have changed after 9-11, but I know I have been able to monitor ATC in the past on my scanners, My handheld which I use at the airports and when traveling and such is a Radio Shack Trunktracker Pro-90, my main desktop scanner is a Bearcat BC895XLT.
 I have had others in the past, two of which were stolen, including my first handheld which was built before they started blocking frequencies, which was a real loss, because the newer ones block a lot of frequencies, and a $500.00 desktop that covered military bands, most don't cover military.
I hate thieves.

Brensec in the UK scanners are legal. You see loads of people at every airshow walking around with them.
Also I don't see that a scanner would cause problems on an aircraft as it is a recieve only device, it doesn't make any transmissions (other than noise through the speaker), so it won't interfere with the crew or aircraft in any way, unlike mobile phones.......

Ozzy

When did they become illegal Craig? A lot of my friends still use them regularly, including a police officer! Eeek

after a quick check, apparently it is legal to own and use them but it is illegal to listen to airband Freqs(go figure on that one)