http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7291578.stm

Very interesting article, I had no idea you had to buy a license to own and watch tv in the UK! Seems to Orwellian to me. Was this an anual license?
Mike

I knew that the UK licenses TV and radios, I think they may have dropped the fees for radios a few years ago. This pays for the cost of the BBC without commercials, or did. I 've seen pictures of specialty vans with detection gear to find people using Radio and TV's who haven't paid their license. :nono: Here is a link to the BBC with a photo of one.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/1/newsid_2521000/2521357.stm

Correction Radio license fees were abolished in 1971

Interesting stuff! I have two people from the UK visiting at work...I'll ask them about the license issue tomorrow.

OTOH: the detection van pic was humoruous. The thing is a complete scam, of course; there's no way to 'detect a signal' from a reciever! Vans similar to this were paraded around my little town back in the seventies by the cable provider, The vans had conspicuous ridiculous-looking "antennae" mounted on top and were used to intimidate the ignorant.
funny stuff.

During my brief research, I've found others who say that it was a scam to frighten people into paying the license fees. But all superheterodyne receivers use a local oscillator in part of the circuit design which has been used to detect radio receiving sets during WW2 namely submarines to find Merchant Marine convoys. Scott Radio Labs developed the SLRM and the RBO Radios with special shielding to prevent the Local oscillator from leaking out of the cabinet. and won several awards for it. Logan

I knew that the UK licenses TV and radios, I think they may have dropped the fees for radios a few years ago. This pays for the cost of the BBC without commercials, or did. I 've seen pictures of specialty vans with detection gear to find people using Radio and TV's who haven't paid their license. :nono: Here is a link to the BBC with a photo of one.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/1/newsid_2521000/2521357.stm

Correction Radio license fees were abolished in 1971

"The TV Detector Van"....LOL !

It's either Orwellian or very Monty Python...

LJB:smoke:

The man from the cat detector van said that he can pinpoint a purr at four hundred yards...

-Ian

The man from the cat detector van said that he can pinpoint a purr at four hundred yards...

-Ian


"...and Eric, being such a 'appy cat, was a piece of cake!"

LJB:smoke:

During my brief research, I've found others who say that it was a scam to frighten people into paying the license fees. But all superheterodyne receivers...
...used to detect radio receiving sets during WW2 namely submarines to find...


There is SOME truth to the concept,yes; Leaky superhet
is the basis of the VG-2 "radar detector-detector" used primarily in Virginia to catch illegal detector users. Many newer-tech detectors are immune this.

None-the-less, the best you could do was tell if there was a receiver on...no way to tell if it was on BBC or cable or HBO or whatever. You possibly detect the existence of a TV.
Unless possession of a TV is an infraction itself...(?)
The local Cable company used to say that the dreaded van could tell if you were receiving premium service (HBO) w/o paying. I'll raise the BS flag on that.

There is SOME truth to the concept,yes; Leaky superhet
is the basis of the VG-2 "radar detector-detector" used primarily in Virginia to catch illegal detector users. Many newer-tech detectors are immune this.

None-the-less, the best you could do was tell if there was a receiver on...no way to tell if it was on BBC or cable or HBO or whatever. You possibly detect the existence of a TV.
Unless possession of a TV is an infraction itself...(?)
The local Cable company used to say that the dreaded van could tell if you were receiving premium service (HBO) w/o paying. I'll raise the BS flag on that.

Well, I've never lived in the UK, but from what I understood, the "TV detector vans" could, at least some of the time, detect the presence of an operating TV receiver in homes as it drove by. I'd say you're correct in that it was due to leaky superhet radiation. I don't think it was entirely fake.

While it wasn't technically illegal to own a TV without paying the license fee, keep in mind that it wasn't until comparatively recent times that there was anything useful you could do with a TV besides watch broadcast TV transmissions-- you didn't have VCRs, or video games, or cable TV, or satellite receivers, or what-not. ...And in the UK, the BBC was basically the only game in town for broadcast TV. So, if you got caught by the "TV detector van" in the days before VCRs and home computers and such, I'd imagine you'd have to be able to produce a pretty good excuse to have the tele on and somehow *not* be watching the Beeb. :)

[BTW, keep in mind that even those of us in the USA pay a "license fee" of sorts for broadcast TV, except that it's partially paid for through taxes, and it's called PBS.]

I asked my visitors about this tax. Interestingly, its called a BBC licence. (sic)
It is apparently one per household if you have ANY TV that can receive BBC broadcasts. You could actually have a TV WITHOUT having to pay the tax IF the TV were unable to receive the BBC channels. Since no one actually MAKES such a set its a moot point, tho.

Nice story but ....
Just had a short look at today's calender.
Reminds me of an april fool's joke that was a great success here in the Netherlands some 35 odd years ago.
A short news item with roughly the same content was aired during our national non commercial 20:00 hrs news.
Only with one, not unimportant, twist: the journalist had discovered one minute flaw in the system: detection was impossible when you covered your TV (except for the screen) in aluminium foil .....
Next day around 12:00 hrs not a single roll of aluminum foil could be bought anywhere in a supermarket througout the entire country. All aluminium foil was completely sold out.
That evening the 20:00 hrs news confessed the story was an april fools joke.
Needless to say that during that same day the number of applications for a TV & Radio Licences rose dramatically.