I am not terribly interested in hearing about whether or not EMF/RF is hazardous to ones health (as this is frequently discussed in my house).
What I would like to know is; how much EMF/RF does an average scanner emit?
Edit: I would be using this in my house - near my bed for example.
What I would like to know is; how much EMF/RF does an average scanner emit?
No more than your TV, electric lights, or phone charger. In fact, quite possibly less. Certainly far less than your cell phone, laptop, or Xbox controller, all of which contain intentional transmitters.
A scanner does not emit anything intentionally because it does not transmit. There are, of course, unintended emissions, but then this is true of any electrical device. It is especially true of modern, high speed digital electronics.
Most jurisdictions have some authority which limits the maximum permissible unintended emissions for devices. For example, in the USA this is the FCC. To sell a product, a manufacturer must submit a prototype to an electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) testing facility which measures the very small, unintended emissions of the product. The results are sent to the FCC which must certify the device before it can be sold.
So if you want to know more specifically how much EMF your scanner might emit, check out the regulations in your jurisdiction.
As mentioned earlier, the answer is along the lines of "not much at all", and "about the same as your TV set".
But remember that in the UK they have TV detector vans (to detect people watching TV without a TV licence. Yes, this is real - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_United_Kingdom#Detection_technology) that are rumoured to operate by detecting unintentional emissions by a TV receiver - especially around the local oscillator and IF.
Most common radio receivers are "superhet" receivers that work by mixing a locally-generated signal with a received signal and generating an intermediate frequency from these. This is then optionally mixed down still further to a lower IF, and finally converted to baseband.
Apparently, TV detector vans work by looking for the IF and local oscillator, rather than other electrical signals generated within a TV (such as flyback transformers etc. in a CRT TV), because other signals would also be generated by a computer monitor that does not receive TV signals.
Having said that, there have been reports that TV detector vans are a ruse, to frighten people to buy a TV licence.
