jgallaway81 wrote:Okay, lets add a further question...
What about a railroad employee who has his handheld radio in scan mode, while in a company provided vehicle, deadheading to an outlieing location to take charge of a train?
Ah, who cares? Its just another wonderful example of the idiocy of the ******** in Albany.
Yes, it is a stupid law but let's clear up one thing.
The law does not prohibit, in fact it never mentions, "scanners". It prohibits radios capable of receiving "police" frequencies.
So, the fact that your railroad radio can "scan" is not an issue. As you said, your radio is programmed to only receive railroad frequencies. FCC regulations require that railroad and other business radios can not allow end user "direct frequency entry". The user can only select from licensed frequencies pre-programmed by a dealer or authorized radio shop.
Now we get to the stupid part of the law. As you said, it is possible that a RR frequency in your radio could be used by some police department somewhere. But, it is pretty much a given that the RR's FCC license for that frequency trumps any local law that says you can't use it.
I was surprised that your RR radio has scan enabled. RRs have been reluctant to allow scanning in operating crew radios since you could miss calls on your assigned channel while the scan stopped on another channel.