TaxSrv wrote:
cabin. But has anybody ever heard a cabin announcement during flight
to turn off any devices?

Fred F.

YES.

I was on a flight from Toronto to Tampa a few years ago and somewhere
over the Carolinas the pilot came on the PA and calmly informed us they
have spent the last 45 mins trying to find the source of a buzzing noise
on their radios. (He also reinforced the fact that they were all still
working, but there was a buzzing noise on the audio.) He politely told
everyone to turn off any electronic devices they may be using. The
flight attendants quickly verified passenger compliance a few minutes
later. About 10 mins after that, he came on the PA to say it was gone
and instructed everyone to leave them off for the duration of the
flight, not that there was any danger, but it was distracting to have a
constant buzzing coming over the radio.

I did notice a couple of laptops had been fired up, but sitting in your
seat is not exactly an ideal vantage point to see what everyone else was
doing.

Do I think someone's radio is going to make the plane fall from the sky?
Of course not. Is there a remote possibility it could cause birdies or
other RF anomalies that 'could' affect things? Sure.

On one flight, a few years earlier still, WITH the ok from the flight
deck (you know, in those friendlier years when you could say 'hi'
through the open cockpit door when you were coming out of the bathroom)
I used my FT-470 handie for a few mins. The pilot knew what ham radio
was, knew I was going to be on UHF (because I told him that's where I
would try for a quick QSO) and he very politely said "Sure, but only for
5 minutes, then turn it off. What seat are you in?" I thanked him
kindly, returned to my window seat, and did manage to get into some
repeater in Maine for about a minute or two. The funny thing was he was
in the galley as we were getting off the plane, I thanked him again, and
he asked if I had any luck, I said 'yep' and asked him if I came over
anything up front. He smiled and said "Nope, and we were up there
looking to see if you would."

The purpose of my sharing this snippet from many years ago is not to
illustrate there's no danger in using a receiver (or in this case, a low
power transmitter) while on a plane, but using one does not
automatically imply you're going to write off the comm/nav systems.

My $.02