WA Radio Scanner Users' Group

Perth Domestic Airport, Virgin T1.
In the last week I have been to the airport twice, once to pick up someone and the second time to drop off someone. The first time last Sunday, I noticed that once I had walked into the building T1, that my scanner died. Couldn't receive anything, when I walked out of the building it came to life again. Ok, so made I had stuffed up the settings, so toady the same thing happened. My scanner squawking consistently outside the building T1 but as soon as I was inside quiet as a church mouse.

So im wondering f anyone else has noticed this, and if it means that there is some type of RF screen installed in the building

I can honestly say that I have not noticed any interference, however I have not used a radio in the terminals for years.

Given the amount of RF in that terminal however (Ramp staff/Check in staff radios, engineering radios, repeaters for air to ground links) it does not overly surprise me that there is issues inside the terminals. Having said that, I operate out of terminal 2 these days and no longer carry a radio with me away from the aircraft. When i did work on the ramp at the airport years ago I was working from the old T1 and T3 I did not have notice any radio issues both with a digital system, and an analogue duplex system on commercial frequencies. Whilst we did have Air to ground radio communication at that stage it was through a commercial frequency repeater.

Perhaps try the Terminal 1 viewing deck (assuming it is still open). While the view is not as good I have not had any scanner issues up there myself - although it has been a little while.

You also have radar and other high-energy RF sources in the vicinity of airports. Scanners have zero front-end filtering on their receivers (being so wideband) so they're going to get swamped pretty easily.