Chuck Harris wrote on 10/28/2020 2:14 PM:

I used to take my brand new 2465 on a lot of plane flights
as carry-on luggage.

<snip>
Hello--

During the mid-1970s hijacking wave, I was working for a  corporate research lab
that was supporting the company's agricultural division based in Pennsylvania.
Returning home from a one-day business trip, I boarded a Philadelphia-to-Boston flight carrying
the following:

--One steel shaft measuring 3 feet by one inch (gun barrel)
--One prototype machine controller in a steel enclosure the size of a shoebox (bomb)
--One complimentary (from Avis car rental)  manual razor contained in a sealed steel can (hand grenade)
--One boxed shoo-fly pie (bacteriological weapon)
--A briefcase containing small tools

At the time, airports had installed  various companies' metal sensors for weapons detection at
boarding gates.  I walked through without tripping an alarm and was pleased to see that
the detector wasn't one of our company's products<g>.

73--

Brad  AA1IP

I was in Kansas City about 25 years ago and found a rare Apple II
prototype. I made the mistake of trying to hand carry it back on an airline
the next day. I literally spent about 4 hours in the head of security's
office talking to him about everything *except* what I was carrying. After
all that time he finally announced that he was going to send me over to one
of the maintenance departments so that they could open the computer to be
sure that there was nothing inside. I said "Oh, you want to see the inside
of this" as I popped open the lid. Luckily I had gotten to the airport
about 6 hours early so this episode provided an entertaining diversion.

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 3:58 PM Brad Thompson <brad.thompsonaa1ip@gmail.com>
wrote:

Chuck Harris wrote on 10/28/2020 2:14 PM:

I used to take my brand new 2465 on a lot of plane flights
as carry-on luggage.

<snip>
Hello--

During the mid-1970s hijacking wave, I was working for a corporate
research lab
that was supporting the company's agricultural division based in
Pennsylvania.
Returning home from a one-day business trip, I boarded a
Philadelphia-to-Boston flight carrying
the following:

--One steel shaft measuring 3 feet by one inch (gun barrel)
--One prototype machine controller in a steel enclosure the size of a
shoebox (bomb)
--One complimentary (from Avis car rental) manual razor contained in a
sealed steel can (hand grenade)
--One boxed shoo-fly pie (bacteriological weapon)
--A briefcase containing small tools

At the time, airports had installed various companies' metal sensors
for weapons detection at
boarding gates. I walked through without tripping an alarm and was
pleased to see that
the detector wasn't one of our company's products<g>.

73--

Brad AA1IP

Not Tek instrument related, but still relevant. During the mid-late 80s I just to often have to travel to remote sites via air travel, and to avoid airport delays used to take everything aboard as hand luggage, including a Wavetek 3000B radio service monitor which I would just sit it on the floor in front of my seat between my legs and also carried a canvas tool bag with various pointy and some sharp tools in it which could be stowed overhead. One time on of the stews or flight attendants as they are called now wanted me to try and push the Wavetek under my seat during take off, needless to say it was not possible so she just waved me an ok.

Nowadays security looks very closely at you should you even dare to have left a toe nail cutter among your carry on bag contents.

Things have gotten more challenging for air travelers who need to carry
expensive equipment rather than risk it to baggage handling or loss. I once
had a computer security cable that TSA would not let me take aboard. This
is after I had carried it aboard on several US and international flights
with no problems. My choices at the security checkpoint were to: Put it in
my checked baggage (how? It had already been checked), hand it back to
whoever gave me a ride to the airport and have them mail it (my wife
dropped me off and left), or have TSA confiscate it. I let them confiscate
my $30 security cable. The problem for me was the inconsistency of the TSA
screeners. An attorney who was behind me at the security checkpoint said
that someone gutsy enough could sue the TSA over stuff like this -
inconsistency, or lack, of well-defined rules (this was about ten years
ago). I did not dare to point out to TSA that if they were worried that the
cable could be used as a garrote, I could have taken out my shoelaces and
used them for the same purpose were I interested in hijacking the plane.

Years ago, I used an instrument called a Computer of Average Transients. It
may be the first digital oscilloscope - built in the early ‘60s. It used
core memory for signal storage. It was not a wideband instrument - designed
largely for things like biological signals to average out noise. Though I
never had to travel with one, I was told they were designed so they could
be carried aboard. The instrument is about 8 x 10 x 20 inches. I don’t
think it would fit completely under a seat now, but seat pitch in aircraft
was a lot larger in the ‘60s. The same company also built pulse height
analyzers and waveform correlators in the same-sized case (and with the
same blue color theme). I bought one of these CATs at a hamfest and the
only thing wrong with it was a zener diode used as a voltage reference in
the power supply.