Garmin beanbag mount causes a stir at airport security

In all the years I've been using my beanbag mount (since my eMap days),
it's been "noticed" in my carryon twice, but only yesterday was I
inconvenienced.

The image on the X-Ray never caused the folks at MSP to look at it
twice; I hope it's because they know what it is and not that they're
asleep at their posts. Once at ORF the guy manning the X-Ray looked up
and yelled to me "Do you have a GPS in there?" and let it go after I
yelled back "YES!"

Yesterday afternoon at RSW it made them pull my carryon out of line and
give it the full hand search ("Do you have anything sharp in there?"),
complete with wiping down the interior with their little wetnaps,
looking for who-knows-what.

It's amazing that of all the junk in that bag, the 76CSx itself, two
cellphones, two iPods, AC cellphone charger, car cellphone charger, iPod
charger and enough cables to trip up a horse, it was only the beanbag
mount that attracted their attention.

Maybe from now on, I'll take a few minutes in the rental car return lot
to stuff the beanbag into my checked luggage.

--
Bert Hyman        St. Paul, MN        bert@iphouse.com

On 21 Apr 2010 23:13:55 GMT, Bert Hyman wrote:

I do. I think the granular nature of the fill material and the
compartmentalizing of it must look really odd on x-ray..

--
They got rid of it because they judged it more trouble than it was
worth. (And considering they'd gone to great lengths to minimize its
worth, I suppose they were right.)
-- J. D. Baldwin

I have had the bean bag mount looked at from time to time by security,
but they always return it.

Peter H. Coffin wrote:

I'm sure that's the case. I got frisked coming back from Jamaica with
snorkeling masks and snorkels in my carry on. They couldn't figure out
what they were from the scanner.... apparently not the sharpest tacks in

--
Steve

: In all the years I've been using my beanbag mount (since my eMap
days),
: it's been "noticed" in my carryon twice, but only yesterday was I
: inconvenienced.
:
: The image on the X-Ray never caused the folks at MSP to look at it
: twice; I hope it's because they know what it is and not that they're
: asleep at their posts. Once at ORF the guy manning the X-Ray looked
up
: and yelled to me "Do you have a GPS in there?" and let it go after I
: yelled back "YES!"
:
: Yesterday afternoon at RSW it made them pull my carryon out of line
and
: give it the full hand search ("Do you have anything sharp in
there?"),
: complete with wiping down the interior with their little wetnaps,
: looking for who-knows-what.
:
: It's amazing that of all the junk in that bag, the 76CSx itself, two
: cellphones, two iPods, AC cellphone charger, car cellphone charger,
iPod
: charger and enough cables to trip up a horse, it was only the
beanbag
: mount that attracted their attention.
:
: Maybe from now on, I'll take a few minutes in the rental car return
lot
: to stuff the beanbag into my checked luggage.


For those not familiar with your acronyms, can you expand so we know
where we should be more conscientious?