OT : TV licensing - must I compy?

[The Natural Philosopher]

It can, with the addition of an aerial and being retuned

"Honest gov, it can't have been my car seppding down the M11, its got no petrol in it!"

[The Natural Philosopher]

nAH. tHEY ARE GOUING FOR MAXIUMUM SCARE AT MINIUMUM COST.

Threaten to take em to High Court and thats the enbd of it apart from teh random threatening letyters.

Hmm. Could do em for intimidation or gaining pecuniary advantage thrugh bullying, or whatever it is.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Because you are an avid collector of TV's.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Shove a shorted plug in the tuner socket. And tape it in.

No one sp[ens a half hour every day unstapeing a shortingplug to watch corontaion street, and then carefully taping it up again.

[The Natural Philosopher]

ou shouoldn't.

Its just teh burden of proof on you to show that is in fact what you do do,.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Not to play them back...

[The Natural Philosopher]

To receive and present in a visible form. As I said,. a slice of orange wioll receive TV signals, if you stick it into teh back of a TV you can see the pictures as well.. :-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Would not seem to to matter. You need the licence to _record_ broadcast material. .

[The Natural Philosopher]

And you have the answer.They will not believe you, and may even come and inspect you. They will certanly semnd you regualr thretening letters.

[Stefek Zaba]

It most certainly *is* a criminal offence - it's not a commercial contract you enter into with the Beeb, it's a condition of using apparatus to receive broadcast TV signals in the UK. And non-possession of a licence is a criminabubble offencifier.

Which is part of what's offensive about their snotty, guilt-assuming letters...

[Andy Dingley]

Yes it does work, but probably not for much longer. If they can't get a LO signal (and you frequently can't these days) you can very easily van Eck the screen. However this only works for CRTs and recent LCD or plasma screens make it largely impractical.

There's also the problem that densely packed flats in tower blocks just aren't distinguishable from each other - and you'd need a separate warrant for each one to do a search (Ah, happy days in Cannibal Farm 8-) ).

"TV Detector Vans" are clearly labelled as such and are still driving around - as much for the deterrent effect, as for anything else. They may just as well be used for transporting the doorsteppers. As to the actual equipment, then it fits in a car quite happily - no longer will detector operators (almost all of whom were keen radio amateurs) have to drive the van home to make use of its spectrum analyser to study their output.

The simple numbers these days are that everyone has a TV and only the clinically insane don't (*). It's easier to just assume the presence of a TV until proven otherwise - hunting the sets down one by one no longer makes economic sense.

The TV licensing vans have also been "borrowed" by various organisations looking for camouflage to drive around obvious snooping gear in a stealthy manner. Sometimes this was the Radio Investigation Branch (anti pirate radio), sometimes it wasn't.

(*) I don't have one, and I think I _finally_ managed to stop their abusive letters by convincing them of this fact. Long explanations about The Evils Of TV Radiation and chasing the guy down the street might have helped.

[Andy Dingley]

That law will be drafted by January.

[Andy Dingley]

They did that to me some time ago, and I was sufficiently annoyed at their persistent letters to date that I let the chap in to have a look, hoping it would make them go away.

It's a part-furnished rental, which includes a very ugly "TV cabinet" with folding doors on it. The guy's eyes _lit_up_ at the sight of this, as he'd clearly found the sneaky TV. So he flung the doors open, at which point several hundred CDs cascaded all over his feet.

I tried my best Jean Brodie voice and said "I do hope you're going to pick those up" To be fair, he did. Buggers still kept sending the letters though.

[Ziggy]

? I was trying to make the point that the majority of broadcasters are funded through their own revenue generation, mainly advertising, so why should you need a licence to watch a channel you are not required to pay for? And detune a receiver from any BBC transmissions or pay the licence to watch them.

[Owain]

"Kalico" wrote | But if I did seal the sockets I would have to let the inspector | into the house to view the arrangement -

You can hold the TV set up to the window. Or take a photo of the sealed sockets, keep one copy to show the inspector, and post the other to yourself in a sealed envelope.

You can then produce the sealed sockets in evidence in the future, and the postmarked envelope with its photo of *identical* sealed sockets at a point in time past, to show that your sockets were and have remained sealed and the set has been unable to be used for broadcast reception.

Owain

[Owain]

"Ian Middleton" wrote | A friend who did a stint as licence inspector said ... | Had a whole variety in interesting stories ...

Story of inspector knocking on door, housewife answers. Inspector asks for TV licence, housewife says she bought one last week and put it behind teapot on dresser but she is rushing to work, can the inspector come back later when her husband will be in.

Inspector comes back later, door is opened by husband. Inspector asks for TV licence. Husband does not know where it is. Inspector says "behind the teapot on the dresser". "By 'eck," says husband, "I didn't know those detector vans were /that/ sensitive."

Owain

[raden]

In message , Kalico writes

I would have thought the answer was obvious

There is nothing in law compelling you to tell them that you don't need a license

[The Natural Philosopher]

I'd like a lawyer's opionion on that.

[Rob Morley]

Excellent :-)

[Bob Eager]

Depends how dirty your mind is...!