Taking radio to a political rally - experience?

[Lscott]

Well I went to a political rally last weekend. My sister wanted to go but her ride wasn't that reliable or fuel efficient so I drove. It was about a 2 hour 40 minute drive on the highway to get there. I've never been to one so it would be a first for me and a unique experience.

I took my Kenwood NX-1300DUK5 along to have something to do while waiting in line. It's programmed for Ham and GMRS. The line was insanely long. Got in line around 12 PM and had a few short conversations on the local Ham DMR repeater. Also heard all the chatter from the local parking garages getting people parked and tracking how many empty spaces they had and local surface traffic on GMRS. We finally got inside and sat down by 4 PM.

Anyway the instructions sent, by text message, made no mention of two-way radios as a prohibited item, there was a long list of items NOT to take in, so that's why I took mine. Also had a spare battery back too.

There were several layers of security at the event. The first was the dudes outside the venue pre-screening people. Their job was to make sure nobody was trying to take prohibited items inside and telling people to clean out their pockets and remove hats before entering the building to make the secondary screening go faster. I got pulled out of the line and quizzed why I had a two-way radio. I explained so I could talk to people, after all what are you going to do standing in line for 3.5 hours anyway? I told him I had a government license to use it AND it wasn't mentioned as being prohibited. At first the security dude was going to get me to go back to the car and drop it off then changed his mind and said he'll let the Secret Service worry about it inside. In all I talked to the guy for 5 minutes. After what happened in Pennsylvania the other weekend they are all on edge and have a tough job to do. Can't take it personally. If I had to take it back to the car, oh well.

Inside was no problem. There were at least over a dozen security check-in lines inside. The one security person at the one I was directed to just turned it on, didn't even ask how, they seemed to know. Saw it powered up. I had it programmed to show my callsign on power up too. Never asked me a question about it. Got the "magic wand" scan treatment, front and back, didn't even beep from my knee replacement implant either that I could tell. No questions there and I was on my way to the seating area on the upper level with my sister.

All in all the experience was a positive one.

[Shortarms]

I flew with mine so I could listen to stuff while in Vegas and they had no issues at either airport. next is a cruise lol 

[Lscott]

I have a buddy who wrote to the airline he was flying on. He got permission to use his Ham HT “on the plane!” Wow. I don’t know the particulars but he’s done it more than once.

[Hoppyjr]

A 2 hr 40 min drive and an insanely long line to get in…..

[Lscott]

7 hours ago, Hoppyjr said:

A 2 hr 40 min drive and an insanely long line to get in…..

Yeah. The line was almost 1.5 miles long from the later news reports! The photo was looking ahead. We must have been at least 6 to 8 blocks away from the arena. It was a constant flow of people walking by the entire time we were in line.

[WRXB215]

9 hours ago, Lscott said:

He got permission to use his Ham HT “on the plane!”

That's amazing. I can see getting permission on a cruise ship but I really didn't expect it on a plane.

[LeeBo]

3 hours ago, WRXB215 said:

That's amazing. I can see getting permission on a cruise ship but I really didn't expect it on a plane.

I think I'd have to use an HT with air band just to listen in.  LOL