Flying with a mic pre?

[Chinagraf]

Hey all, I have to fly up to Sydney to record a vocal next week. I usually use the in house stuff or hire up there, but this is a bit of a smash and grab one day session with no hire budget so I'm taking my Shep SN8 with me. It's the same size module as a 1073 plus a power supply about the size of a small api lunchbox. I'm gonna take it all as carry on, but does anyone reckon I'll get hassles at security because of the way it will all look like a bomb on the x-ray machine? Any thoughts?

[Barney Loveland]

I travelled from Nashville, Dallas, LA to Sydney in Jan this year with a 4 space rack bag which was probably a little on the heavy side but fit in the overhead compartment. In USA they were more than happy to oblige and understood being a muso. Then I arrived in Syd to hop on and then hop back on the same plane to fly to Melb and some two bit nobody xray man was freaking out saying you have to take it out it's too heavy. Which after arriving on a 6.3am flight I then promptly ignored him and walked off after the second xray. But it could go either way, maybe others have different experiences.

[rick]

i was not allowed to take a leinz digital laser point and shoot digital tape measure on a domestic flight , because they did not know what it was , i think they thought it was a star trek triquarter !
so i made them hold up the plane untill we sorted it out

they kindly offered to hold my evil device and give it back at the other end , so i said "sure" if i said no i think they were going to go to terrorist alert
- which would have been very bad i am sure

my advice is if your unsure bring some documentation like a user manual or a sales brochure .
could be hard with a shep though , i have never seen any such thing

[Chinagraf]

They still have a site I could print some stuff off. I can hear the conversation early one morening next week.....

ME : Yeah it's a mic pre, I use it for recording.

XRAY GUY: So it's some sort of sound recorder, like a big time dictaphone huh?

Me: No, it doesn't record sound, its a microphone amplifier.

XRAY GUY: Oh, right, like those ones the tour guides have. Jeez it's heavy.
Do these buttons turn it on?(Points to HPF buttons)

Me: No, that's a different kind of amplifier, this one basically turns up the volume of a microphone for when you're recording.

XRAY GUY : So is this the microphone here? (Points to red gain knob and
starts singing "Louie Louie" into it)

ME: No, you have to plug a sep-er-rate microphone into it, then you plug this into a recorder. The red knob is kinda the volume and the silver ones change the sound.

XRAY GUY : Yeah right, can it do that Darth Vadar thing, my nephew's got that (does asmatic rendition of "Luke..I'm your father")

ME: No, it's just like the treble and bass on your stereo, just a bit more involved.

XRAY GUY : My car's got a subwoofer...

ME: Umm...ok.....so, is it all cool to go through.

XRAY GUY : Yeah should be fine, just don't operate it during the flight.

ME: That's fine, it needs to be plugged into the power supply to work.

XRAY GUY : The power what?

ME: That black box. That's where it gets it's power from. (Relaxing a little) I know, it kinda looks a little suss like a tiny bomb..hehe..

XRAY GUY : Security! Sir please step this way...

ME: Hmmm, I wonder if I can request that my one phone call be an ISDN hookup?

MAybe I'll send the pre ahead of me overnight or somethin.

[Text_Edifice]

don't think you're going to have a problem - seriously. I flew back to Brisbane through Sydney from Lao last month with two rack units in a suitcase and got all the way to sydney before someone pulled me up on the screwdriver I'd forgotten to take out of my carry on. No problems with the audio gear at all - though I had to take it out and explain it was for recording. The terminal guys didn't get what it was for but didn't hold me up over it.

[bennyboy]

mate dont worry you wont have any problems electritians carry meggers and multimeters etc in ther personal luggage interstate and off shore all the time and dont have a problem at all
you may get asked what it is but just take it out of youre bag when you go through the machine just like you have to take out your laptop


(cut a long story short my brother used to work in exsplosives and detination as an electritian in the mines and carried detinators through the airport terminals to and from port headland) and never got asked once what it was

[rob]

my brother is a chef, and a pretty successful one. He gets asked to do guest stints all around the world. Sort of like flying Massenburg in to produce a recording, he gets flown it to produce a week's great dining and food.
Anyway, he's into native Australian cuisine and when he heads off on these trips he takes a couple of foam boxes of kangaroo, crocodile and other assorted fresh meats with him. The only place he's ever had trouble putting them on a plane is in Sydney. Brisbane, ok; LA, no worries; Singapore...bring it through. He's told me the amusing story off pushing his trolley laiden with foam boxes and other luggage across an airport terminal and the whole lot slipping off and crashing to the ground. The foam boxes split open and he was left standing there surrounded by plastic bags of fresh bloodied meat.

I tried to take my hand tools on a plane once. "Anything sharp in there, sir?" .... "ermm you mean like these box cutters?, and i guess the set of screwdrivers are a bit pointy, and the probes on the multimeter can give a nasty @#$%...oh and that bottle has isopropyl alcohol in it, the big plyers could be used to pull fingernails out. If fact i've probably got all the tools i need here to disassemble the plane from the inside out" .... " I think that bag will have to go in the cargo hold, sir"

R:)

[Kris]

yeah but try taking Vegemite into the USA and see how far you get. It's a no-no now.

[TimS]

yeah but try taking Vegemite into the USA and see how far you get. It's a no-no now.

You're kidding me?

[Jason Dirckze]

You should be fine... I travel with a 4 channel field mixer, 3 radio mic kits (Tx/Rx) and a shotgun mic with me as hand luggage all the time, and I probably have up to 10 international flights per year. I do make sure that all antennae are taken off and all the cables are unplugged so it is east to pull everything out. I also carry an itemized invoice with serial numbers, weights and dimensions and value of each item.

[Martin]

go macgyver style and show us up here how it's done with a pocket knife (avalon) and piece of string (ntk)

:)

[mfdu]

a minidisc and a stereo back-electret?

now THAT's what i call commando!

[bennyboy]

no seriously i was in london last week via hongkong
had a laptop 2 hard boxes u 87 and an m5 in my bag no probs in hongkong on the way there i got asked to remove my laptop before the xray machine that was it

saw my brother to day and he said he had to give up his side cutters pliers and screwrivers but thats it

seriously

you wont have a problem