<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by jss:
Never brought a scanner on board but when small GPS units first came out brought one on board. It works if held up to the window and is at the right angle. I was sitting upstairs on a 747-400 and one of the pilots came out and saw it. At then time he had never used one of the hand held type--so he was very interested in it. He wanted to check was the accuracy of my GPS versus plane's GPS. Asked me if he could take it to the cockpit for a few minutes. Came back about 20-minutes later and reported that it was pretty close to plane's GPS. </font>
GPS units are specifically allowed, while scanners are prohibited. I'll also echo another comment - you're not missing much by not hearing air to air (only used over water, usually quiet), or company communications. Most of the company communications in the air is done via ACARS anyway.