An 802.11 Station on entering a new regulatory domain will not initiate an active scan (i.e. send probe requests). It will passively listen till it receives a beacon which contains the Country Information element. On reading the Country Information element and ascertaining the country of operation – the device can later scan actively for an access point to connect to via probe request with the appropriate power setting allowed in that regulatory domain
NOTE: Most devices are pre-configured with a default country table which is termed as World Wide regulatory. The World Wide regulatory contains a very restrictive channel set and also contains a very restrictive power setting. However, most devices follow the operation specified in the previous paragraph that entails scanning passively and setting the channel/power requirements of that regulatory domain via a stored country table