Air Band Receivers on Aircraft

[radeng]

The requirement on privacy and the action on Administrations 'to prevent unauthorised interception of radiocommunciations' have been in place since the first international radio telegraph conference in Berlin in 1906: shortly after that conference the first International Radiotelegraph Convention was signed, which incorporated that rule. So it is not exactly new. Doubtless, if you trawl through the US CFR Title 47 you'll find the same thing somewhere.

In the UK, it isn't often enforced, but it has been on occasion, back in the analogue days, when people had used it to intercept police messages during operations. In the US, however, once the news media had picked up on a few politicians using analogue cell phones to make dates with mistresses and prostitutes, the manufacture, import and sale of scanners capable of covering the cellular bands was banned.

Provided a piece of equipment meets the relevant regulatory requirements, it can be sold, but cannot necessarily be used. Same in the US. For example, you can buy private mobile radio e.g. for taxis, without having a licence, but you can't legally use it.

PAX Vobiscum, in this case CE shouldn't mean Chinese Export. However, a recent survey by the market surveillance committee of the EU (TCAM) found that a high proportion of CE marked professional radios didn't meet the requirments of the Radio and Telecommunications Terminals Directive, although most of the failures were in the paperwork, not the technical perfomance. Most of them are made in China anyway these days - except for those made in Israel.