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From: paul@cgh.UUCP (Paul Homchick)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Do You Protect Portables/Disks in Air Travel?
Message-ID: <658@cgh.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Aug-87 20:06:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: cgh.658
Posted: Fri Aug 21 20:06:35 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Aug-87 11:51:34 EDT
References: <862@dasys1.UUCP> <695@uhccux.UUCP> <19@splut.UUCP> <114@europa.UUCP>
Reply-To: paul@cgh.UUCP (Paul Homchick)
Distribution: na
Organization: Chimitt Gilman Homchick Inc., Radnor, PA
Lines: 29
Keywords: portables disks x-ray metal detector

/* From <114@europa.UUCP> in comp.sys.ibm.pc by demillo@europa.UUCP (robert demillo) */
>In article <19@splut.UUCP> jay@splut.UUCP (Jay Maynard) writes:
> ... (And I am talking: O'Hare, Logan, Atlanta, etc.) *Never* in four
>years of travelling with computers have I *ever* had anyone insist that they
>take the thing apart, power it up, have it sniffed by dogs, etc. And I have
>never heard the bit about "they aren't supposed to hand check."

It depends on the airport.  Most airports will let computers through
with little problem.  However, the last few times I have been to St. 
Louis they have insisted that I take the thing apart and power it up so
they can see it run.  I was always tempted to tell them that the battery
was run down just to see what they would do.  I have also had this
request in Pittsburg. 

I finally found that this was so annoying that I took to letting them
x-ray the computer (Toshiba T1100) and the disks at all of the airports. 
I have been doing so for about a year now and that makes over 100 trips
through the x-ray machines.  Nothing has gone wrong yet.  My advice is
to give them both the machine and the disks and let them x-ray away.  To
be logical about it, X-rays aren't going to hurt anything, and I haven't
seen any of these big, dirty, power-supplies and motors that people are
warning about.

There really is too much fear of this, that, and everything else in
modern life.  The airport x-rays haven't hurt my data or processors in
the past year, and I doubt very much if they are going to hurt yours. 
-- 
Paul Homchick            {seismo | allegra | ihnp4 | rutgers} !cbmvax!cgh!paul
Chimitt Gilman Homchick, Inc.; One Radnor Station, Suite 300; Radnor, PA 19087