Do the dreaded TV vans still work ?

[Simon]

having seen the rather unpleasant and almost abusive letters my father and myself receive demanding we pay our TV license I've been wondering. Neither my father or myself watch TV so we don't have to pay but periodically we get these abusive letters from the TV licensing people.

It makes me wonder and for all the pathetic threats of legal action and of "TV vans" being sent round I think it does just amount to a threat. Do TV vans still work ? what is their principle ? from what I know it is very difficult if not impossible to detect if one is actually receiving a signal, but surely it is so much easier to detect the 15+KV a TV set puts out, but wait, we are all buying flatscreen TV's now with no HT voltages involved.

Is it a coincidence that as fast as we changed TV technology TV van's are becoming a mere mith ? perhaps they can't operate anymore ?

So how do they tell from the outside of your house if you are using a TV set

[PeterG]

The UK is the only place that i know of where a TV License is required to watch TV. Interesting system, i am thinking it must run on the honer system. Tracking a TV in use would be a very complex task, made even harder by making the tracking system mobile.

Regards

[alm]

It seems hard to me to distinguish between a computer monitor and a TV, since they employ the same technology. Do they knock on the door of every house with a computer without a license?

Even if they have no way of detecting it, as long as the can convince most people that they can, they will be effective in enforcing: 'the TV van drove along yesterday, better pay soon before the come again'. Didn't they have a similar 'illegal software detection van' way back?

[PeterG]

Hey i remember the 'illegal software detection van' rumor. Maybe that van was made be the same company who made the 'This DVD has been copied' detector the video rental stores were said to have....

Regards

[Mechatrommer]

having seen the rather unpleasant and almost abusive letters my father and myself receive demanding we pay our TV license I've been wondering. Neither my father or myself watch TV so we don't have to pay but periodically we get these abusive letters from the TV licensing people.

this is how they do the detection. just send a dumb ass letter, when you come back to them with havoc anger, then they'll know (detected) that you dont own a TV.

[Simon]

having seen the rather unpleasant and almost abusive letters my father and myself receive demanding we pay our TV license I've been wondering. Neither my father or myself watch TV so we don't have to pay but periodically we get these abusive letters from the TV licensing people.

this is how they do the detection. just send a dumb ass letter, when you come back to them with havoc anger, then they'll know (detected) that you dont own a TV.

yea they did get a mouthful out of me. I won't have people writing to me telling me I'm a criminal

[Mechatrommer]

yea they did get a mouthful out of me. I won't have people writing to me telling me I'm a criminal

have you recorded the conversation? if yes then the second time the letter arrives, meet them in court

[NiHaoMike]

Remove any outdoor antennas so they won't think you're pirating anything.

[Simon]

well I'm not pirating anything anyway, I have the old falling down areal and that's all. It just struck me that with all the threats they make it sounds more like them trying to bluff. I think you could possibly genuinely detect a CRT TV but not detect that your receiving a signal

[Nermash]

The UK is the only place that i know of where a TV License is required to watch TV.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina it is also mandatory to pay TV license fee monthly. Because of state TV "high quality" programming and inefficiency 
to collect it from people, they have tied it with land line telephone contract and bill, inspite of consumer protection law strictly prohibiting it.
So, for people in UK, if you have to pay bear in mind you're not the only one

[the_raptor]

The UK is the only place that i know of where a TV License is required to watch TV. Interesting system, i am thinking it must run on the honer system. Tracking a TV in use would be a very complex task, made even harder by making the tracking system mobile.

Regards

The point of the TV license in the UK is to fund the BBC in a way that allows it to be separate from government. Here in Australia the ABC receives funding from the government (although with a charter saying it is independent) which allows the government to tug on the leash occasionally.

I don't know much about RF stuff but on previous discussions on this topic I have heard that they can detect a TV (at least old CRT ones) that is hooked up to an antenna due to some principle of radio technology. However the vans aren't omnipresent and the licensing authority tends to just send threatening letters to everyone who isn't listed as having a TV license. I also believe they were thinking of making people pay for Computer licenses as well due to all the BBC online content.

[Simon]

In Italy you have to have a TV licence although thousands don't pay. The thing there is if you want to stop paying it's hell to get them off your back. My grandmother told me of when a friend had a lodger in an joining house who died. the licensing people would not leave her in peace until my grandmother got out her sense of humor and wrote a letter for her as she could not read and write telling them that the person had moved and that they should send their requests for money to the following address, she then gave them the address of the local cemetery ! job done never heard from them again.

[Simon]

maybe the TV's HT signal backs up the areal so you can receive it from areals that have a working TV attached, but then that still makes them useless in the modern age.

I really can't understand why the BBC make their content available online. and actually according to their terms and conditions I am allowed to use it to view prerecorded programs even if I don't have a license, so they can go get stuffed, I never asked them to make it available.

[slburris]

So what happens if you were using a TV to play a video game?  Are you taxed for just
having a TV in your home or just using it to receive TV programs?

It sounds like a very odd concept to someone here in the US :-)

So the government doesn't fund the BBC, but sends vans around looking for RF
signals looking for illegal TV's?  Then collects taxes to turn over to the BBC?

Scott

[jahonen]

what is their principle ? from what I know it is very difficult if not impossible to detect if one is actually receiving a signal, but surely it is so much easier to detect the 15+KV a TV set puts out, but wait, we are all buying flatscreen TV's now with no HT voltages involved.

Well, one way is to detect the leakage of the local oscillator of the TV tuner. It's nothing magic, all superheterodyne receivers have this oscillator. It is usually IF frequency above the received frequency. You can try the principle yourself if you have two FM radios. Tune first one to relatively low frequency and second one 10.7 MHz above the first one. Now, the second one goes silent when it is tuned to this magic frequency offset. What you hear is the spurious leakage of tuner local oscillator of first radio receiver.

In fact, this same principle can detect almost any receiver. Modern flatscreen TV's too.

Regards,
Janne

[Simon]

what is their principle ? from what I know it is very difficult if not impossible to detect if one is actually receiving a signal, but surely it is so much easier to detect the 15+KV a TV set puts out, but wait, we are all buying flatscreen TV's now with no HT voltages involved.

Well, one way is to detect the leakage of the local oscillator of the TV tuner. It's nothing magic, all superheterodyne receivers have this oscillator. It is usually IF frequency above the received frequency. You can try the principle yourself if you have two FM radios. Tune first one to relatively low frequency and second one 10.7 MHz above the first one. Now, the second one goes silent when it is tuned to this magic frequency offset. What you hear is the spurious leakage of tuner local oscillator of first radio receiver.

In fact, this same principle can detect almost any receiver. Modern flatscreen TV's too.

Regards,
Janne

lovely, thank you, so the vans can pick up the IF that the set itself makes and will retransmit, which I presume in only generated when it is used to receive ?

In the UK you are allowed to have a set with no license providing you are not using it to receive. In our case we watch copious amounts of DVD's although we have a family tradition of removing the tuner just to make things plain. So presumably the reason for the threats and no vans is that it's cheaper. In the UK the license is collected by a company that does just that and probably keep all the fines so are more than happy to go all guns ho to catch people

[baljemmett]

So what happens if you were using a TV to play a video game?  Are you taxed for just
having a TV in your home or just using it to receive TV programs?

The latter, almost -- the license is required to watch any television transmissions 'as live' regardless of how -- so if the only TV set in the household is just used as a monitor for the Apple ][, you don't need one.  Conversely you do require a license if you watch the online stream of something that is being transmitted at the same time, regardless of whether you own a TV.  You also require a license to watch TV using a PC tuner, or to record transmissions with a VCR / PVR.

So the government doesn't fund the BBC, but sends vans around looking for RF
signals looking for illegal TV's?  Then collects taxes to turn over to the BBC?

Not quite.  The BBC pay for TV Licensing (the organisation that collects the license fee and sends the goons round to harrass people with no television) -- this of course comes out of the license fee!  The charter that allows the BBC to operate has to be agreed with the government periodically, and it's within that framework that the license fee is set and imposed etc.

There were/are some functional detector vans (sometimes said to be Tempest-like so useless against LCDs I guess, sometimes said to be picking up the IF leakage which will still work), but it's likely that a lot of them are stuffed dummies.  Driving a van marked "TV Detector Van" around a few residential areas for a day or two apparently often results in a sudden rush to buy licenses, whether any real enforcement action was taken or not.

However, more often than not the only enforcement is in the form of periodic threatening letters to the occupiers of addresses where no license is held (because of course everybody has a TV and anybody who says they don't is a liar!), eventually followed by a visit from an inspector -- who as I understand it has no legal right to enter the property so can be left on the doorstep!  All good fun...

[JohnS_AZ]

Curious ... is the BBC the only over-the-air broadcaster there?

Here in the US there are loads of broadcasters. The main networks, churches and schools can broadcast. Heck, with the switch to digital TV *I* could easily go get a low-power UHF broadcast license.

Maybe I should ... broadcast Dave's videos 24-7. 

[Simon]

yep, thats why I gave them an earful by email and told them not to be offended if i was not waiting by the door to show the inspector round as having a life and a job means that I'm out a lot of the time and don't care for the garbage on TV (you really thing I'm paying for the likes of big brother ). Nobody ever came round and I got a bemused letter telling me that they make letters "aggressive" because there are lots of bad people that don't pay and need convincing. I replied telling them that a strongly worded letter was not going to deter criminals and that I did not appreciate being accused without even any reasonable evidence. Haven't heard from them in ages.

It's just how the vans do work that bugged me for so long.

[GeoffS]

According to tvlicensing.co.uk, you need to be covered by a valid TV Licence if you watch or record TV as it's being broadcast. This includes the use of devices such as a computer, laptop, mobile phone or DVD/video recorder.

If the quality of UK broadcasting is similar to Australia, I'd demand that the government pay me to watch it!

[Simon]

Curious ... is the BBC the only over-the-air broadcaster there?

Here in the US there are loads of broadcasters. The main networks, churches and schools can broadcast. Heck, with the switch to digital TV *I* could easily go get a low-power UHF broadcast license.

Maybe I should ... broadcast Dave's videos 24-7. 

the BBC is the only one with limited advertising that is paid for. otherwise your getting stuff like sky that is strictly controlled and paid for, technically you could own a TV and not watch any BBC channel and not need a license but they will never believe that. so once you've bought a sky or virgin media contract your automatically liable for the generic TV license that only pays the BBC as you can get all the "free" channel on any paid service. I guess it's a no mans land caused by the fact that we still work on the logic used when the BBC was the only broadcaster and there was not recorded media so having a TV equaled being liable for a license

[Simon]

According to tvlicensing.co.uk, you need to be covered by a valid TV Licence if you watch or record TV as it's being broadcast. This includes the use of devices such as a computer, laptop, mobile phone or DVD/video recorder.

If the quality of UK broadcasting is similar to Australia, I'd demand that the government pay me to watch it!

correct and agreed, that's why I told them in no polite language what to go do with their programmes, TV is utter garbage, and they want me to pay for it now that's a joke

[JohnS_AZ]

TV is utter garbage

I would agree with that as far as the main-stream broadcasters are concerned. I can receive a ton of stations here at my house for free, yet I pay a fair amount for DirectTV satellite service. That's the only way I can watch...

Discovery, Science Channel, History channel, NASA, Smithsonian, The Learning channel, and a few other somewhat obscure channels, like the BBC! 

(I must confess to being a little hooked on Top Gear)  hehe

[Time]

Its weird that anyone even watches TV with over the air broadcast... and even more strange that anyone would charge for it... and very very strange that there probably are people paying fo it...

I guess I am spoiled with my 25 MBps fiber data line and my 100 HD channels.

[GeoffS]

Its weird that anyone even watches TV with over the air broadcast... and even more strange that anyone would charge for it... and very very strange that there probably are people paying fo it...

I guess I am spoiled with my 25 MBps fiber data line and my 100 HD channels.

I watch digital  broadcast TV as it's free to air. I can get a number of cable (30Mbps) channels but nothing worth paying $30 or $40 per month for.