Heavy handed TV Licensing!

nej

Petmidget wrote:

I used to love the bull about detector vans. Think about the science.

A TV receives a signal, it does not broadcast in any way shape or form (or at least pre digital it didnt)

So what are these "vans" detecting. It was all just propoganda.

This isn't true - they do work. I work in an office with a bunch of very experienced RF engineers and one of them once explained a lot of radio transmission principles to me, including an example of how exactly detector vans can pick up signals. I can't remember the exact science behind it. Something to do with a Super Het is all I can remember.

Incidentally there was a case reported only a day or two ago about a guy who went to court because he had a TV but no licence. His claim was that he didn't use the TV to receive any broadcasts. He was found "technically guilty" but not given a punishment. He went back to court on appeal as he wasn't happy being "technically guilty" and won the appeal.

taxi97w

rjm2k1 wrote:

Never been really sure about detector vans, I always had my doubts, but I saw something internal to the industry which suggested they did work, but they didn't currenly use them because of some EU privacy or interception issue. You don't really need a lot of equipment to drive around late at night looking for tv's which are on in peoples lounges, even with the curtains closed you can generally work out if they have one from the light changes.

Jeez this sounds like what the Nazis did when they were out to get the Jews.:rolleyes:

tomstickland

Just bin the letters. I received about 20 of them when I bought my flat. I don't have a TV. Don't pay to phone the 0870 number.

Detection can work since the TV itself emits electro-magnetic radiation.

rjm2k1

taxi97w wrote:

Jeez this sounds like what the Nazis did when they were out to get the Jews.:rolleyes:

Bit of an extreme comparison, methinks!

moonrakerz

Petmidget wrote:

I used to love the bull about detector vans. Think about the science.

A TV receives a signal, it does not broadcast in any way shape or form (or at least pre digital it didnt)

So what are these "vans" detecting. It was all just propoganda.

TV sets DO "transmit", they need to generate RF frequencies near to the signal you are receiving in order to get a signal of the right frequency to produce a picture !
Accordingly, detector vans do actually work.

Having said that, I totally agree that the TV licensing people are a bunch of jumped-up little "Hitlers".
I recently saw a report of an old lady who went to her local Post Office to buy a TV licence:-
a. She didn't have a TV
b. If she had a TV she would have had a free licence

The poor lady had been so frightened by the letters she was getting - she thought the only way to stop them was to buy a licence !

taxi97w

rjm2k1 wrote:

Bit of an extreme comparison, methinks!

moonrakerz wrote:

The poor lady had been so frightened by the letters she was getting - she thought the only way to stop them was to buy a licence !

I thought I may have been a little over the top, until I read this! Frightening people into submission- same as the Nazis.

moonrakerz

ts_aly2000 wrote:

The older televisions with tubes, which are effectively analogue RF devices do give off energy. The old vans could even tell what channel you were watching.

The newer digital televisions, such as LCDs and which process the signal digitally, give off practically no RF energy whatsoever. So the vans are now next to useless.
.

It isn't the tube that generates the RF that the detector van can pick up, it is the oscillators that generate the frequencies required to "strip out" the channel you want to watch; hence the van could tell which channel you were watching by the frequency being produced by your television.

Modern televisions (even those with a CRT) produce much less stray RF nowadays mainly because of the use of ICs instead of discrete components, these use a fraction of the power required in older TVs.

The vans didn't have to "triangulate" (been watching too many war movies !).
They had a list of addresses with no TV licence, so all they had to do was drive around and point their aerial at the appropriate houses.

ScoobieGirl

They are complete gits. They kept pestering me when my new house was empty as I was renovating it (no radio either). When I finally moved they backdated it!!! :mad:

If that wasn't bad enough they wouldn't give me a refund on the remaining 6 months from the license from the previous address (while I moved in with family) as I "would need one again in the forseeable future" Grrrr :mad:

Alfie_E

nej wrote:

This isn't true - they do work. I work in an office with a bunch of very experienced RF engineers and one of them once explained a lot of radio transmission principles to me, including an example of how exactly detector vans can pick up signals.

Yes, all electronics give off RF to some degree or another. The questions are how much, is it shielded and what can be inferred from it? I’m not sure that, as other have suggested, leaking out RF at a single frequency is an indication of anything. CRTs certainly do put out a lot of usable RF. It’s possible to reconstruct a fairly good approximation of what’s being displayed from the RF being emitted, whether it’s a TV or computer monitor. That how you can detect a TV. The next question is: is it live? When there were three or four channels, that was easy. Now, with so many channels, unless it’s a major channel, how do you know if a signal is “live”?

nej wrote:

Incidentally there was a case reported only a day or two ago about a guy who went to court because he had a TV but no licence. His claim was that he didn't use the TV to receive any broadcasts. He was found "technically guilty" but not given a punishment. He went back to court on appeal as he wasn't happy being "technically guilty" and won the appeal.

See, TV Licensing abandons case against unlicensed TV owner. Presumably, dodged by TV Licensing to try to avoid setting precedent. I can see how this happens though. The person has equipment that handles TV signals that are either not live or not broadcast. TV Licensing will say that that demonstrates use of a TV, and unless the person can show the signals are always not live or not broadcast, they are “technically guilty”.

The faster the TV license is abolished the better. It’s outmoded the modern communication age. A good proportion of the problem is, in order to enforce it with any degree of success, you have to harass, intimidate and criminalise too many innocent people.

taxi97w

Alfie_E wrote:

The faster the TV license is abolished the better. It’s outmoded the modern communication age. A good proportion of the problem is, in order to enforce it with any degree of success, you have to harass, intimidate and criminalise too many innocent people.

I saw an advert on telly last night that was asking 'If you haven't already registered for digital, go to some website or other and register'. What's that all about? Someone please tell me they're not asking us to compile a license database for TV licensing.