BBC's TV detector vans to remain a state secret The Information Commissioner has ruled against a request to force the BBC to reveal the inner workings of its TV detector vans. Although most detection is done by database the Beeb still claims to maintain a fleet of vans which can tell if a particular address contains a TV. If you buy or rent a TV or buy a PC tuner card in …
you didn't need special equipment to detect TVs. hell, i could and still can, HEAR the 15.7khz whine off of tv tuned CRTs enough to tell which houses had tv's in and which didn't.
these days, plasma's and LCDs are a welcome silence to the constant scream of standard definition tele tubes.
I'm a Yank and I'm constantly amazed at the quality productions which come from, the Beeb and would be pleased to pay for access to all of those services. Right now, I get a mere shadow of the real thing and am forced to watch truncated versions of Top Gear, Dr. Who, and Torchwood because BBC America has to run commercials. At the same time, I get to see fantastic, high quality shows which originated on the BBC get whored to US broadcasters and ruined. Most Americans don't know that Life On Mars and Eleventh Hour were originally BBC productions. They just get to see the crappy US copies.
"If you use a digital box with a hi-fi system or another device that can only be used to produce sounds and can't display TV programmes, and you don't install or use any other TV receiving equipment, you don't need a TV Licence. "
[http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/information/index.jsp]
Do i need a license to watch catchup tv on my pc, if i have a tv (with no aerial) and a console?
maybe im wrong but when i bought my tv from the bloody shop i thought that it was in fact paid for in full (just for console or DVD use)
heck i dont know what to believe, everything i read is contradictory and the license site makes out that just because i live at place A, and Place A is on their database, they automatically assume that place A has a tv and aerial in use, and this isnt always the case.
I just love all the shills (great word!) on here comparing the punative licence tax to Sky subscription - the BBC/TVL/Crapita really have got their PR agencies working overtime tonight. Of course, the point they all conveniently forget to mention is that if you fail to keep up your Sky subscription you get cut off, but if you have the temerity to not pay the TV licence tax (for any number of genuine and completely legal reasons) you are constantly threatened with a hefty fine and/or imprisonment. All for a bloody TV, that most essential of appliances without which we would all die. The fact that we, the UK sheeple, continue to let this anachronistic leech suck us dry with barely a whimper of discontent is the real tragedy du jour. Viva la revolution!
Jimmy Floyd.
"3) "We should have a choice over what we pay for (but, in reality, I'm too stupid to make decisions for myself because I prefer paying to watch utter dross followed by adverts on Sky)""
Ah, the stock answer in favour of the BBC: what they produce is better for you, despite what you think. Well, show me an objective test of the superiority of one form of art over another which shows this and I'll support it. In the absence of that, choice is a better option.
Channel 4 is already making better TV than the BBC. Five is now a better choice than BBC1 for House and The Gadget Show alone.
When the Tristrans at the BBC aren't producing dull-but-worthy costume dramas, biased and simplistic news coverage, cookery shows, miserable cockneys, celeb/talent shows and low-grade sitcoms, it does mean that I get Top Gear, QI and Heroes. For £135 a year, that's just not worth it, and given the choice, would forgo it.
Same old crap that gets trotted out every time the licence is mentioned (and that's licenCe with a C. LicenSe with an S is a verb, unless you're american and can't speak English).
You need a licence to have the equipment installed for use, doesn't matter if you use it and doesn't matter if you don't watch the BBC.
Most (maybe all) European countries have TV licences, and all except the UK carry commercials on their public channels as well (soon to change in France).
Detector vans work.
They don't use TEMPEST techniques.
Just like speed cameras they aren't all filled with real innards.
Can we stop the silly uninformed arguments now?
(sorry about the correct spelling and lack of swearing, couldn't be bothered aiming for FOTW)
They used to run around hunting down people who had radio recievers (think back to the 1920's) with the cars with little round loop antennas on top...
Remember the war movies with the nazis running about in similar trucks, hunting down the french spies...
You can (if you got Q' to play about with the fiddly electrics) decode any signal from Tft's, CRT's radio's etc..
Just a case of having DARPA etc... messing about with toys that transmit and recieve signals that can and will effect the signal you reciever / display uses.
The TV nazis will will blip your tv signal with a extra carrier and if they get a returned signal your stuffed 4 good...
but then they used to say that if you could display static on your CRT TV you'd be stuffed for the licence fee, even if the set was stuffed..
The CIA/NSA//KGB are always spying on others computers from nearby buildings, you can watch the super leaky CRT's and decode the keystokes, there was some tv program where they showed it being done from an ajacent building.
They even hunt you down in Germany, for having a car radio (broadcast reception tax) so they go after everyone...
mines the one lined with tin-foil.... lots and lots of tin foil...
They do work
By Anonymous Coward Posted Monday 27th October 2008 12:28 GMT
Having worked with people that developed some of the equipment that goes into these vans (although not in the same department) I can tell you that they do work.
So what department of the Beeb License Team are you in, sir? You are obviously well up on the spin of this ere wonderful country of ours. I recently heard another rendition of BBC. It was Bolshevik Broadcastin Company. Love it, 73 de Gary
The TV Tax is a stupid anachronism. As people have pointed out already, it would have been very easy to switch to technical enforcement (encrypt the digital signal; post-switchoff, no licence = no TV reception) - but that leads down the slippery slope to offering us a third option, having other TV services without being forced to pay the state monopoly broadcaster. (It is a monopoly because we are offered no alternative: we are not permitted to subscribe to other services *instead* of the BBC, only in addition to their tripe.) That, of course, is why the BBC rushed to rip the encryption facilities out of Freeview as soon as they got their hands on it: for all the astroturfing on here, they know perfectly well that many of us would be delighted to terminate the subscription given the choice.
Apart from anything else, WTF should I pay a tax on *TV* ownership - to fund a website and a bunch of radio stations I have never listened to?
Now... in the "old days" (twenty plus years ago) there were *real* TV detector vans... these had two long cylindrical cones on the roof wrapped with lots of wire... they were able to detect the 15.625KHz radiation from a (relatively unscreened) TV Receiver in your premesis...
Things have moved on... we have EMC standards... and equipment is (relatively) "quiet" these days... especially if you are using LCD or Plasma and are not using 26KV and scaning a huge chunk of glass with electrons!
So... Auntie Beeb's enforcement officers depend, primarily, on a database of residential addresses - less the ones that have licences - to do their enforcement work... sure they still drive around in a number of "enforcement vans" but the ones that I have seen are *fake* in-so-much-as they have a couple of UHF aerials on the roof to "look menacing" rather than do anything useful...
I would bet beer that they cannot detect a modern TV or PC/laptop with a USB connected DTT (Freeview) receiver... other than by knowing existence of the address... which is what they work on.
The FOI request was met with a brick wall because they do not want to admit how much tecnology has moved on and what they have to deal with today...
Mike
Paris... why? Because she probably doesn't know what a TV licence is... let alone how to buy one :o)
I suppose it would be very naughty of me to take the EMP cannon (which I /do not/ have in my basement) and direct it at large vehicles with odd looking antennae which I suspect of operating on behalf of a government agency, in order to see if doing so results in sounds of annoyance and confusion from the occupants?
The whole system for collecting license fees is cumbersome and inefficient. I would suggest replacing it with a tax on advertising revenues from other broadcasters, as advertising is ultimately paid for by us consumers anyway. Except that as there are fewer people to collect from the whole process would be more efficient with less tax avoidance problems.
@AJ Stiles
I suspect the reason not to go with an all card system is that every tv tuner would require a card - so if you have more than one tv you would have to buy more than one card (license) otherwise you would be able to claim to have four tvs, collect four cards with your single license and pass three on to your mates.
I once saw a TV detector van, circa 1990. It looked like an old camper van, with 4 TV aerials bolted to the roof, on on each corner. Peering in through the window I saw what appeared to be 1950's TV production equipment. There was nobody inside it operating anything, they were walking around the university campus (without permission, with it we'd have had 3 days warning of their arrival) knocking on doors asking people if they had a telly.
I don't doubt that detecting operating TV's is possible, but that wasn't happenning here.
I have just ditched my license. I removed the UHF tuner head from my telly. I wrote a short note telling them this and sent it in the envelope that came with a red final demand letter. I got a reply thanking me for letting them know that I don't need a license, and that I should expect a visit soon from one of their agents^h^h^h^h^h^h officers. Once the officer has confirmed this, the letter goes on to state that I won't be bothered with further letters or visits for at least 3 years.
I work for a living, so if they really want to check then they should arrange a date and time with me so I can be at home.
As some people have already pointed out, the TV license can fund some amazing programming from the BBC. Trouble is, it mostly funds crap programming now, and crap technical standards.
Anyone else noticed short glitches (jump back and repeat 3 or 4 frames) on analogue live news programmes?
You must be talking about the bouncing the laser beam off the windows to listen to the sounds inside the room trick. Wooops, did I just say that? At least I didn't say that they were infrared lasers and a handfull of infrared LEDs around the windows would fix the problem, or use headphones.
If these things were at all *effective*, the BBC would not bother harassing people like me without TV sets. Instead I would find my self challenging their van's evidence in open court.
Court proceedings are a matter of public record - can anyone point to a case where "detector van" evidence was used?
If I saw a TV van in my street I'd be delighted. If it actually worked, the harassment could stop. It doesn't, they don't.
The don't exist for one reason.
Why to people buy empty alarm boxes for their houses?
It is a far site cheaper to run a tranny van with "Telly Detexion" written on it and a few metal cullinders on the roof than to pay like £100,000 for the technical equipment needed in each van to pick up the IF frequency or the scanning coils or whatever.
Oh yeah, the Beeb have coughed up big wedge to kit out and staff all this mobile equipment, course they did.
Or they could just get a couple of students in a tranny with flashing lights and funny noises.
Don't forget they are in the production business where make believe earns their crust.
Think about it!
I read half way down and got bored. One commentator was correct the rest seemed to be flights of fancy. The local oscillator, produces a signal at a set frequency - 4.33 MHz I think, long, tong time since I did anything with this stuff - and that frequency is transmitted from the telly. A receiver can pick up the signal on that frequency and therefore know that a telly is in use. Needs a tuner and a local oscillator. Forget all the guff about CRT/LCD and the rest; as long as it's got a tuner - which differs between colour and monochrome tellys - you'll have a signal. Live in a Faraday cage if it's that much of a problem. Also, 'license' is a verb and 'licence' is a noun. Learn the Queen's English you ill-educated oafs; now go and buy a licence so all those nice senior managers from the USA, currently employed at the British Broadcasting Corporation can keep their big, fat salaries and keep churning out dross and USA-centric news.
If you can hear RF noise from your own television on a SW radio, so can detector vans.
To reduce RF from any receiver, one might try these measures, where applicable, legal and safe:
1) Shield the receiver with a metal cabinet wires from which are either shielded (and shields properly connected to the cabinet) and/or filtered so only power and audio can get in and out of the box.
2) Use a filtered, shielded mains power cord. if you can still hear RF noise, add a mains plug powerline filter.
3) Put an RF preamplifier on, with an attenuator at the television connector. This reduces RF that may get to the antenna and be radiated. A high-pass filter just ahead of the preamplifier is a good idea as the amplifier is susceptible to overload.
4) Use headphones. It does no good to be RF quiet if anyone prowling around can tell you're cheating the government. Crystal earphones emit no magnetic fields, but sound terrible -- and one's ear canal gets sore.
The author is not liable for anything that happens as a result of trying these things. Do not work on electrical equipment unless properly qualified.
One might consider whether the cost of evading detection might not be less than paying the fee.
... your probably best off going for the Database, which will tell you if there are too many anomalies in a particular area which then gets a detector van equipped with parabolic mics. Why don't they want to tell the public, probably because it's not entirely legal for them to use parabolic mics to snope on the general public.
It has become apparent to many over the last six or so years of how deeply the BBC has become in Govt Propaganda payed by you the licencee. It's worth remembering that Orwell worked for the BBC back in the day.
Hatchet jobs against 11-9 investigators, Mislaying (and subsequent re-appearance after an outcry) of 11-9 broadcast footage and other vested interest content/bias has shown the BBC lose it's reputation all over the world.
Google "Shayler" and "BBC" on Youtube to see the evidence for yourself.
The BBC has become known as the "Bias Broadcasting Corp" to many across the world. People know when they are being lied to.
The reason you are forced to pay for licences is that if the BBC were to allow you to not pay for the content most people wouldn't.
This presents them with a problem.
How are they to influence and indoctrinate a nation if the nations refuses to watch and/or listen to their broadcasts?
Hence the force feeding of content at your expense.
Do't expect any change soon.
Thank goodness we here in the US have something called Freedom of the Press, which applies to the airwaves as well. I would not want the gov't controlling such a major source of information as TV programming. We already have enough ignoramouses who believe what they hear on Fox News.
If the gov't here tried to institute such a thing you would see pirate TV stations popping up on every corner.
The real vans stopped being used in the 80's. Think 'Everyday Electronics' magazine did a story about it and them using handhelds. The max total number of vans one any one time was very low 12 to 35 depending on sources. The Bedfed DTI depot had a few vans in the late 80/early 90's but setup for CB radio hunting. I have never seen more than 4 handheld boxes at one time and of that only one 'lite' up. I have no information after 96 about the DTI so not sure if they have them at all now.
If there are real detector vans, the gear inside would be worth a small fortune to anyone who knows how to steal vans. The story alone could be worth 5 figures to many of the tabloids yet no one has stolen any of these vans. Of course the BBC does have at least one van full of nice expensive gear to check out their transmitters that could be used to find at least some old school TVs as well as a few dodgy USB TV tuners.
did they ask them how many people pay actually pay the tv tax?
i heard from an ex bbc tv exec it is "below 40%", but they like to keep the official figures quiet for the same reasons stated in the article.
Well, well, the ico in cahoots with the .gov
So much for the information commission. disgraceful decision....in the public interest my arse!
"we work for them" should be their slogan.
Is restricting ones ability to tv not against human rights legislation or something?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
