air travel with SLA batteries (was Re: OT Carrying radios on commercial flight)

[John Shadle]

Here is a relevant post I recently submitted to the QRP-L lists which
may be of interest to folks here.

For the record, no one asked me to turn anything on.

-john W4PAH

Hi all,
I recently made a trip to Anchorage, AK for work and decided to carry
on two 17Ah SLA (sealed lead-acid) batteries to support my operations.
Some folks on the list said "don't risk it" and "ship them ahead of
time". Others said, "tape the terminals and pack them in your
carry-on".

Since I had done this in the past (with 7Ah batteries) I decided to
risk it again.

I found a web page on the TSA's site which was helpful and printed it
out to carry with me.

http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/assistant/batteries.shtm

This ultimately proved helpful during my departure from RDU (Raleigh
Durham Airport) on Saturday morning. The TSA agent (who had 1 stripe
on his shoulder-boards) told me that "unless I had an electric
wheelchair, I wasn't allowed to carry on these batteries". I explained
to him that I had taped the terminals and packed them in bubble-wrap
to protect them from damage. I showed him the web page which I had
printed out which stated that you must "Place each battery in its own
protective case, plastic bag, or package, or place tape across the
battery's contacts to isolate terminals. Isolating terminals prevents
short-circuiting."

I had followed all of the rules. He brought over his supervisor who
had three stripes on her shoulder boards (I have no idea how many you
can have, but I saw folks with one, two, and three). She read my
printout and looked in a manual she had. After reading it a few
minutes she let me pass. I thanked the one-striper for his patience
(and tried not to do so in a sarcastic or snarky way), and re-packed
my bag. Success!

On the way back from my trip, I was again pulled aside and another
one-striper unpacked my carry-on and ran everything through again. He
said, "Oh, you must be an amateur radio operator". We had a short
conversation. He was impressed with the radios and stuff I had. ;-) No
questions at all, he just wanted to make sure the SLA batteries
weren't concealing something in the x-ray image that could've been
below or above them in the bag.

So, I think in the future the lesson learned is to be prepared by
following the rules for protecting your batteries from the TSA's web
site (tape over terminals to prevent a short, pack the batteries in
bubble wrap or a bubble-wrap envelope), printing out the page from the
TSA's web site, and be patient as you go through all levels of TSA
employees until you reach someone who actually knows the rules.

73
-john W4PAH

P.S. I wasn't able to do much operating at all while in Alaska,
unfortunately. My free day ended up being very rainy and I wasn't able
to find a covered picnic table at the city park where I visited.
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[Doug Turnbull]

John,
    This is an interesting piece.   I note that at the start of the TSA
notice that it specifically mentions Lithium Ion batteries.   Does this mean
that a package of Alkaline batteries with which the battery terminals are
covered with plastic or pasteboard as originally purchased would be okay?
I use to like bringing back a brick/box of forty 1.5 V AA batteries from
CostCo.   These are Kirkland Alkaline batteries.   Battery prices are much
better in the USA than in EI land.

      Thank you for the information and any answer to my question would be
welcome.

              73 Doug EI2CN

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of John Shadle
Sent: 23 July 2010 19:20
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [Elecraft] air travel with SLA batteries (was Re: OT Carryingradios
on commercial flight)

Here is a relevant post I recently submitted to the QRP-L lists which
may be of interest to folks here.

For the record, no one asked me to turn anything on.

-john W4PAH

Hi all,
I recently made a trip to Anchorage, AK for work and decided to carry
on two 17Ah SLA (sealed lead-acid) batteries to support my operations.
Some folks on the list said "don't risk it" and "ship them ahead of
time". Others said, "tape the terminals and pack them in your
carry-on".

Since I had done this in the past (with 7Ah batteries) I decided to
risk it again.

I found a web page on the TSA's site which was helpful and printed it
out to carry with me.

http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/assistant/batteries.shtm

This ultimately proved helpful during my departure from RDU (Raleigh
Durham Airport) on Saturday morning. The TSA agent (who had 1 stripe
on his shoulder-boards) told me that "unless I had an electric
wheelchair, I wasn't allowed to carry on these batteries". I explained
to him that I had taped the terminals and packed them in bubble-wrap
to protect them from damage. I showed him the web page which I had
printed out which stated that you must "Place each battery in its own
protective case, plastic bag, or package, or place tape across the
battery's contacts to isolate terminals. Isolating terminals prevents
short-circuiting."

I had followed all of the rules. He brought over his supervisor who
had three stripes on her shoulder boards (I have no idea how many you
can have, but I saw folks with one, two, and three). She read my
printout and looked in a manual she had. After reading it a few
minutes she let me pass. I thanked the one-striper for his patience
(and tried not to do so in a sarcastic or snarky way), and re-packed
my bag. Success!

On the way back from my trip, I was again pulled aside and another
one-striper unpacked my carry-on and ran everything through again. He
said, "Oh, you must be an amateur radio operator". We had a short
conversation. He was impressed with the radios and stuff I had. ;-) No
questions at all, he just wanted to make sure the SLA batteries
weren't concealing something in the x-ray image that could've been
below or above them in the bag.

So, I think in the future the lesson learned is to be prepared by
following the rules for protecting your batteries from the TSA's web
site (tape over terminals to prevent a short, pack the batteries in
bubble wrap or a bubble-wrap envelope), printing out the page from the
TSA's web site, and be patient as you go through all levels of TSA
employees until you reach someone who actually knows the rules.

73
-john W4PAH

P.S. I wasn't able to do much operating at all while in Alaska,
unfortunately. My free day ended up being very rainy and I wasn't able
to find a covered picnic table at the city park where I visited.
______________________________________________________________
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Post: mailto:[hidden email]

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[Pete Smith N4ZR]

The link below would also be a worthwhile set of pages to select from
and bring with you - note, for example, that "spillable batteries" are
prohibited.  Since they are not prohibited, normal batteries *should* be
no problem.  This might even work better with TSA than the
previously-referenced page, since it deals specifically with
"prohibited" items, which is the sort of thing that TSA agents focus on,
rather than advisory "tips on safe travel."

http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/prohibited/permitted-prohibited-items.shtm#9

73, Pete N4ZR

The World Contest Station Database, updated daily at www.conteststations.com
The Reverse Beacon Network at http://reversebeacon.net, blog at reversebeacon.blogspot.com,
spots at telnet.reversebeacon.net, port 7000


On 7/23/2010 5:10 PM, Doug Turnbull wrote:

> John,
>      This is an interesting piece.   I note that at the start of the TSA
> notice that it specifically mentions Lithium Ion batteries.   Does this mean
> that a package of Alkaline batteries with which the battery terminals are
> covered with plastic or pasteboard as originally purchased would be okay?
> I use to like bringing back a brick/box of forty 1.5 V AA batteries from
> CostCo.   These are Kirkland Alkaline batteries.   Battery prices are much
> better in the USA than in EI land.
>
>        Thank you for the information and any answer to my question would be
> welcome.
>
>                73 Doug EI2CN
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email]
> [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of John Shadle
> Sent: 23 July 2010 19:20
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: [Elecraft] air travel with SLA batteries (was Re: OT Carryingradios
> on commercial flight)
>
> Here is a relevant post I recently submitted to the QRP-L lists which
> may be of interest to folks here.
>
> For the record, no one asked me to turn anything on.
>
> -john W4PAH
>
> Hi all,
> I recently made a trip to Anchorage, AK for work and decided to carry
> on two 17Ah SLA (sealed lead-acid) batteries to support my operations.
> Some folks on the list said "don't risk it" and "ship them ahead of
> time". Others said, "tape the terminals and pack them in your
> carry-on".
>
> Since I had done this in the past (with 7Ah batteries) I decided to
> risk it again.
>
> I found a web page on the TSA's site which was helpful and printed it
> out to carry with me.
>
> http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/assistant/batteries.shtm
>
> This ultimately proved helpful during my departure from RDU (Raleigh
> Durham Airport) on Saturday morning. The TSA agent (who had 1 stripe
> on his shoulder-boards) told me that "unless I had an electric
> wheelchair, I wasn't allowed to carry on these batteries". I explained
> to him that I had taped the terminals and packed them in bubble-wrap
> to protect them from damage. I showed him the web page which I had
> printed out which stated that you must "Place each battery in its own
> protective case, plastic bag, or package, or place tape across the
> battery's contacts to isolate terminals. Isolating terminals prevents
> short-circuiting."
>
> I had followed all of the rules. He brought over his supervisor who
> had three stripes on her shoulder boards (I have no idea how many you
> can have, but I saw folks with one, two, and three). She read my
> printout and looked in a manual she had. After reading it a few
> minutes she let me pass. I thanked the one-striper for his patience
> (and tried not to do so in a sarcastic or snarky way), and re-packed
> my bag. Success!
>
> On the way back from my trip, I was again pulled aside and another
> one-striper unpacked my carry-on and ran everything through again. He
> said, "Oh, you must be an amateur radio operator". We had a short
> conversation. He was impressed with the radios and stuff I had. ;-) No
> questions at all, he just wanted to make sure the SLA batteries
> weren't concealing something in the x-ray image that could've been
> below or above them in the bag.
>
> So, I think in the future the lesson learned is to be prepared by
> following the rules for protecting your batteries from the TSA's web
> site (tape over terminals to prevent a short, pack the batteries in
> bubble wrap or a bubble-wrap envelope), printing out the page from the
> TSA's web site, and be patient as you go through all levels of TSA
> employees until you reach someone who actually knows the rules.
>
> 73
> -john W4PAH
>
> P.S. I wasn't able to do much operating at all while in Alaska,
> unfortunately. My free day ended up being very rainy and I wasn't able
> to find a covered picnic table at the city park where I visited.
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>
>
>    

______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:[hidden email]

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html