let’s watch a rare old clip from a show following real tv licence goons / inspectors and we get to see inside an actual tv detector van. It’s good this. ---- I have T Shirts, Mugs, Hoodies and more. Get Yours Here - chillijoncarne.creator-spring.com/ Products I recommend For Watching TV Without a Licence - www.amazon.co.uk/shop/chillijoncarne Need to email me? You can do it here - www.tvlicencestop.co.uk/contact/ Want to watch more of my videos? Here are some great playlists for you - Not Paying TV Licence - ru-vid.com/group/PLMva1clw0IhyOi2KXTMuD5tiNrpA98vts TV Licence In The News - ru-vid.com/group/PLMva1clw0Ihz0sy_s30QMmOuRmzUNEAvv TV Licence Letters - ru-vid.com/group/PLMva1clw0IhytPD8cm81rWRHQuVaRijdR The News (Non TV Licence News) - ru-vid.com/group/PLMva1clw0IhwUpMGnQpO_iThaeIjv5EN1 Mr Funt & Anita From TV Licensing - ru-vid.com/group/PLMva1clw0IhyG7JsgHqghHJGWrMZhdRz3 Your TV Licence Questions Answered - ru-vid.com/group/PLMva1clw0Ihwl6fRnMgZQ3QAjrCXkMOzn Check my channel for all my great videos here - ru-vid.com
They used to store a TV detector van in Bishop St main sorting office in Coventry that had a multitude of aerials on top of the roof but there was absolutely no equipment in the van at all, a completely empty van.
ChilliJonCarne I think that anyone who defaults on their TV license should do 20 years hard labor breaking rocks and fed on bread and water. The license fee goes to the BBC and Channel four to provide some of the best television content in the world. I am typing this comment with my nose as my arms are currently strapped into my straitjacket, oh dear now they think that I'm acting like a chicken and are going to inject me, oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.
In the USA they know no better, but watching TV there ( and I've been many times over the decades ) would drive a UK viewer crazy. It's essentially a constant stream of adverts, chopped up by snippets of a program. I sat through a one-hour top News program and there was not one item of overseas news, and that was at the height of the Bosnian War! When the UK started buying USA TV shows, the advertisers here were delighted because a 30-minute show actually runs for 22 minutes.
The BBC is so reliable, they would never lie to their audience, oh wait, they do and in the most insulting way (they treat British people like they are clueless bumpkins). I really don't get how the BBC got its reliability reputation.
There are even more crazy laws today here. But this was just wicked. Pure lies about how they could detect. They even got the wrong bloody house and that poor woman suffered. She should have sued the pants of them.
It's the same with everything. If you can't afford it, you will incur charges. It's just a stick for beating the poor with. It's a fucking joke in 2021.
These days they'd probably co-ordinate your time in prison with a demand to have a Dept of Work & Pensions interview and then cancel your benefits for not turning up ... !
Victorian law demands the poor house for plebs... Onward to our future "Technology ( Victorian law) demands you stay at home in your own poor house" PLEBS!
Years ago I had a TV licencing goon on my doorstep insisting I was watching TV without a licence. I genuinely didn't have a TV but couldn't resist letting him in just to see his frustration at being unable to find anything. It was more entertaining than actually watching TV.
As an electronics engineer I used to work for Marconi. We built TV transmitters, video equipment etc so we knew what we were talking about. We sat down and tried to figure out what they were detecting. After many attempts to try to detect anything from a TV we could only pick up the output from the time base oscillator. This generates the signal that controls the scan of the screen. This would only allow someone to know a screen was active but nothing else. The signal is so weak they would have to be very close, possibly just outside the property. If there was technologies that could detect receivers then the world's military would have it not some TV company.
I'm an Electronics Engineer too, and I too have tried to work out what they are "on", that said, I have friends who worked for the intelligence services, I was shown a really cool piece of kit. We sat outside a building, and after a little twiddling we had an image on the screen of what was on one of the computer monitors in the office. We could read everything (this was before the days of EMC paranoia). I was told they use it to strip data from suspected terrorists, or criminals, foreign nationals etc.
@@Choober65And it was way bigger, and more complex than that bit of aluminium with a beeper tied to it those those two morons were carrying around. (detecting a "CRT" - at all - is definitely possible, but the noise coming off of it is very weak. detecting what's on the screen is way, way harder to do... well beyond the budget of the BBC.)
So true. When you look back, everyone was so dumb if you think about it. But that’s the problem with 1-way media. It’s so much better now with all the tools we have at our disposal to share information.
In my case (and speaking solely for myself), I view the BBC license fee as a subscription in much the same way as I would for Netflix, Sky or Britbox. I pay for access to entertainment I want to see. Sure there is a lot of dross on the BBC, but the same can be said of other broadcasters and streaming services. As long as they provide programmes I want to watch and I can afford the fees, I will keep subscribing.
@@markhorton2920 Thats fine and why it should become a subscription service. I don't watch ANY BBC productions nor do i listen to the radio, use Iplayer so why should i have to pay for something i never use and don't want. Also, why should the world get a to watch OUR OWN BROADCASTS without paying a penny while we do? Would you be happy paying for a car, but never using it while everybody on your street does for free, all the time demanding you pay for the petrol?
I worked in IT for TV licencing enforcement in the late 90s. All the technology they claimed to use was utter rubbish! They had a list of every address in the country and if it didn't have a licence they sent out a letter and you went on a list for a visit. I found the attitude of the people who worked for TV licencing to be just horrific, they were generally nasty and bully's who assumed everyone was on the fiddle! The way the law worked for years was that TV ownership was equated to TV use. This was challenged with the advent of Video cassette recorders and eventually the internet and streaming. Things have changed since then! The commentary is quite right in that you don't get custody for TV licence evasion you get it for persistent refusal to pay a court-ordered fine and compensation. Today the inspectors are trained to do certain things to get the details of anyone who answers the door and even if they don't gain access or see a TV they issue a summons in that person's name and seek a judgement in default if you don't answer it. It is bully tactics! No right of entry, no right to your details and they will lie to you about why they want your name...it is not for the form it is for the summons. They can get a warrant of entry from a Magistrate but that is incredibly rare and typically only if the resident is both a blatant offender and has been aggressive! You should pay the licence fee, but even if you don't do not fall for the tactics used to coerce you and never allow access to your property or give your details to an inspector. If they have a warrant they usually come with the police and it is incredibly rare for that to happen so tell them to leave. If you are worried then buy a licence, they cannot prosecute for the period up to you buying a licence without evidence of usage so give them nothing and tell them that they are trespassing and that if they do not leave you will call the police and say that you find their presence and behaviour threatening and intimidatory (assuming this is true!).
I cancelled my T.V. License on 9/11 when the BBC reported wtc building 7 collapsing about 20 mins before it did collapse and I didn’t get one when I moved into my present house. I’ve had 100s of letters off them and a couple of visits and there’s absolutely nothing they can do, as soon as I know they’re from T.V. licence I just stand and stare at them and say nothing. 12 years I’ve been this property and all the letters from T.V. license are all addressed to the occupier and they can’t get anything from the court unless there’s a name to go on it.
That sounds like too much dialogue. If you do answer the door, ask them who they are and don't give them your details. When they say TV licence, just say no thanks and shut the door
I'm 59 and have never had a TV licence, i've had thousands of letters over the years, and hundreds of visits, but they still haven't any evidence to prove I've been breaking the law and they have never been able to get a warrant either, I just love winding them up
My Dad was in the Royal Signals from 1954 to 1976. He always laughed at the TV Detector Vans. I remember him saying that if the BBC had that kind of technology, the Military would have confiscated it.
If he were REALLY in the Royal Signals he would know that the military spend a bloody fortune on shielding and protecting equipment from exactly this kind of equipment (well in those days anyway, even the military have tended to move away from CRTs these days)
The Batman What a load of bollocks! The vans were not owned, nor operated by the BBC. They were apparatus used by the GPO, a Crown Dept. The Military would have no such authority and even less interest. Sheesh, there is some real crap on here!
@@MauriatOttolink you do realise that the MoD can and does confiscate technology from private businesses if it's a matter of national security. It can be done either with a compulsory purchase or just a straight up confiscation.
Back in 1988 my wife and I got rid of our TV so our child would spend more time on her homework, instead we visited the library once a week and read books for entertainment. A TV licence guy came around and asked why we did not have a licence and I told him we got rid of the TV some years earlier and he just went away and never came back. Those were the days.
@@JAY1892 Red of course :D Always have been, always will be. I was held by Ian Rush when I was a baby :D he was my dads hero. you might also like to know, if you decide to smash up your TV you might have to pay 100 pounds for a new one, :D unless you can explain it as an accident, yeah Boss, I accidentally launched the TV across the cell when I found out Coronation Street was canceled tonight. I'm not sure if prisons pay for a TV license as such, and if they do is it based on number of cells, or wings, or the whole jail as one, but I am sure that if you have 500 prisoners all paying 50p a week = 250 pounds a week, 13000 a year, do you think all of that is going to the BBC, or towards the Staff Christmas Party.
@@Scouse_Wayne Same here bud, that’s why I’ve got the 1892 after my name. 46 years and counting. It’s sucks not to have our Brazilian lads for the Leeds match…😬 I stopped watching TV about 5 years ago and don’t miss it one bit, as it’s all too depressing. Appreciate the info though, you learn something new everyday. I’ll have a pint in the Arkles for you next time I’m at a game. 9YNWA7
Gambit771, MauriatOttolink : Granted when it was first introduced it may have had some validity however in all honesty, the idea should have been retired by the 1970s or 80s.
@@vinnyganzano1930 Couldn't agree more but these things are given low priority OR clung onto when they realise that they're on to a good thing. Income tax and the not SO long defunct Dog Licences were both introduced as TEMP. measures to finance the Napoleonic Wars. Ho Ho! Remember that the C in BBC was originally Company and had to survive as a viable business, paying royalties and patent fees to the owner of these rights for new inventions. Should have been publicly funded when it became a corporation but............. I was correct with what the detector vans had available to be detected but there really were some phoney ones as well.
That's what you think. The total Charlies which are past, present and probably sadly, future at number 10, its just a brilliant excuse to squeeze a great chunk more pennies out of the poor. It wouldn't touch the stinking rich now would it?
Totally agree, I’m Australian and lived in London for a couple of years in the early ‘90s. The tv licence thing always blew me away, we used to just hide from them and not answer the door!!
It was only abolished in Oz in 74 and the funding covered by the government, so no different really, you still pay for it in your taxes whether or not you watch telly
This is true. I remember the TV licensing authority claiming they could detect a signal when a TV is switched on - from outside your house! They must have had detectors everywhere - there were a lot of houses and a lot of TVs. I knew for decades that analogue TVs don't transmit a signal, they just receive one, but not everyone did. While I was a away from my student home in the mid 90s, my housemates got busted by letting a TV inspector in, who saw the rented TV and video recorder we had. Divs!
When I used to work for the Post office in the 1990s occasionally we would get the TV licence vans to park in the PO car park, One day they left the doors of their vans open and I had a peek inside, The cabinets which suppose to house all the electronics for catching the public were open, Guess what these things were empty, Nothing inside them!!!!!
I'm glad I read these comments. I was just about to ask if these detector vans actually existed? I do remember as a child my parents & grandparents talking about not being able to watch tv without a license otherwise the vans would turn up & you'd get caught
I know someone who got a job on the vans when he retired. He told me the van was empty. The idea was just to let it be seen to scare folk into buying a license.
@@albalkun Of course there were taxes. I was born in communism and I can tell you most of the country's production goes to export and the wage is very low. This would be equivalent of taxation if there would be no taxes but there is. Communist system is just like capitalist system the difference is communism is like one big company where you have no chance to change company so you basically working for nothing.
Growing up we were known as latch key kids and curtain twitchers. We always peeped through the curtains to check before answering the door. We NEVER had a tv license and we never opened the door to the goons and best of all we were never caught.
I plug my computer into my 42" TV via the HDMI socket as well as gaming consoles and I use the TV as my computer monitor. I game on the TV, watch RU-vid videos, watch the streaming services I pay for. The TV license is the most draconian thing I've ever heard of.
They just visit addresses that don't have a licence. Not forgetting that it's the house that is licenced and not you. Why change address when you move? Probably to fuel their "We can detect if you have a TV or not" by visiting addresses (not people) that don't have one. Visit a few and you'll get someone.
It was interesting to see how Americans reacted to us requiring TV 📺 licensing. Funny 😂 indeed but I’m ashamed of seeing people go to prison for failure to pay the fine. That is utterly ridiculous
Yes but they had to watch American TV and that was like a prison sentence had they have known. They would though have paid to watch the stuff the BBC were producing as we had to, but!, as we all now know those in charge at the BBC just used it to feather their own nests and push their Marxists agenda.
@@yorkshirepud6676 always enjoy telling American friends about the backwards bs we have to deal with. They always think I'm winding them up. Till I show them a picture of the letters they keep sending, trying to intimidate us with the threat of investigating us
In the 1960s I worked as a TV engineer in Liverpool working for a large rental company. One day while I was repairing a rental TV in a house when there was a knock at the door yes it was a the TV licence mafia using the old trick "You have a Television aerial on the roof," quick as a flash the house holder said "It has OXO on the sides of buses but they don't sell it" conversation stooped and door closed.
🤣 Reminds me of the one about the TVLO demanding entry to view receiving equipment: Householder: "If you enter here I'm reporting you to police for sexually assaulting my wife". TVLO (horrified): "What makes you think I've done that!?" Householder: "Well, I presume you've got the equipment".
I remember seeing those threatening ads from the late 60s. The best description of TV detector vehicles at that time was: "two men in an empty van, with a coathanger on the roof." Just like Ivan and his minion...
Those adverts used to frighten me to death. It wasn't just the fine you would get, it was the shame and the neighbours might find out. 😩. The BBC were despicable then and still are today. Those poor women given a criminal record and put in prison with god knows who just because they were unable to pay. Its like Dickensian times when they had the debtors prisons.
I agree it's terrible the fact they had no money and then were fine and then when they defaulted were sent to prison the hole system should be held responsible for the waste of time, money and the respectability of these mainly poor women
I seem to recall that the detector system was looking for radiation of the Local Oscillator. This LO frequency is mixed with the incoming carrier frequency, and after filtering, would produce a difference 'Intermediate frequency'. The Yagi aerial that he's carrying about wouldn't be able to locate the direction of the TV local oscillator though. I'm sure as TVs became more solid state, and did away with valves etc, that detection wouldn't have worked anyway, and was just used later as bluff ?
@@RobinPhillips1957 The principle is superheterodyning, quite old radio tech now. Basically mixing frequencies, and filtering, to produce another frequency. In HF radiocomms, for instance, the 1st local oscillator frequency may run at a few 100Khz, above, or below the incoming carrier frequency. After mixing, the output frequency, the IF, is then amplified and detected etc i.e. extract the information on the carrier a voice signal, a morse signal, whatever. This is how it was done decades ago. The local oscillator isn't the IF, as I say, IF is the resultant of mixing an incoming frequency with the local oscillator freq. Nothing sinister or spooky about this stuff, my background was Merchant Navy / Civilian radiocomms., Anyway, going back to TV, it's the local oscillator radiation that the vans used to pick up, back in the day of valves. Shielding the local oscillator board with aluminium could prevent external radiation, I think (it's been decades since I worked on this stuff). As I say, solid state boards, with low output and leakage etc etc meant detection wasn't possibly (unless they paid a shedload for super hi tech, not worth it)
@@RobinPhillips1957 I remember now, the 1st IF is high, for Image rejection and 2nd IF was low for adjacent ch interference rejection ? Haven't done that stuff since the 90s, went into IT after that !
My wife is Brazilian and still after 5 years of being here in England cannot get her head around this issue! We have now stopped paying after watching your guudance, THANK YOU Mr CHILLI!
I don't know what Ivan and Andy are doing now, but I hope they're helping to prop up a motorway flyover. Being given prison time for defaulting on a debt is Victorian. People in such a state of poverty that they cannot pay their debts should not be treated as criminals as a matter of course.
@@Jester-RiddleNo one said unlicensed. I live in a flat in a coastal town, but my family have a large farm inland. The guns are locked up in a security cabinet there. The licence inspectors are put through the wood chipper and fed to the pigs. Old school East Anglia style. The guns are polished and pristine.
I broke my ankle badly and was stuck for a long time convalescing ... in front of a TV. When I could walk again I realised how much mindless cr*p I had been watching and wasting my life with, so off went the TV . Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how I look at it, many decades later I discovered being able to selectively watch films and videos that I wanted to watch on the Internet ... I am still keeping a wary eye on whether the 'one-eyed God' is taking up too much of my valuable time. TV really is 'opium for the masses'. It depresses intelligence, interferes with proper learning & communication and is generally bad for your health. We should receive payment if we watch BBC propaganda !!!
I know a woman who went to prison. While in there she studied for a degree in criminal psychology. She still doesn't pay her fines, but now she knows why.
25+ Years ago I was sent by a employment agency to drive one of those vans for 6 weeks. The only thing the equipment could do was pick up tv broadcast signals and could not detect if you had a tv. My briefing was to drive to a certain area and drive around and if there was a row of shops i was to park up for a while. It was all about the fear factor.
@@Dedubya- It's regressive taxation, just as with motorists being effectively being charged more for having an older car because they can't, for example, afford an Electric Vehicle. It's ridiculous and so unfair ...
Remember my dad telling me a story about a bloke who only paid for the black and white TV licence, when they came round he grabbed the colour tv from downstairs took it upstairs and brought down the black and white set . One day whilst doing it he ended up dropping the colour tv down the stairs, this was the days when you were lucky just to have a tv , needless to say he was stuck with the black and white set for a while 🤣🤣
The TV licence clip that makes me laugh is the one featuring the little jobs worth that looks like Captain Manwaring and he states that Columbo is being watched on a TV they’ve detected.
If I remember right the shop used to fill in a form when you bought a TV and you had to give your name and address, when I used to live in barracks I had to hide the TV during inspections.
I remember that it used to be an advantage to buy a second-hand TV because if you bought a new one then they took your name & address ... clever, as you needed it for the warranty to be valid ....
Yep. happened to me about 10 years ago, when I was doing what I thought was the decent thing. To my shame I advised the sister-in-law to get one also, despite her struggling to get by. Now, license cancelled and the vile politicians who allowed this gangsterism to occur are even further in the cesspit of humanity.
"Hello Madam, are you watching live TV" - "No, I'm stood at the door talking to you - I haven't got eyes in the back of my head !" That Mother should have blamed her kids for turning the TV on without her knowledge, seeing as they were all under the age of criminal responsibility.
it is obvious that you are so angry and saddened at watching those people who got put in prison , you are so passionate about this cause and at times it looks as though you are close to tears , thank you for giving up your time to support us , take care and stay safe my friend
thousands and also thousands for the court and prison time thats the law for you..I am only surprised they didnt put her on a moored hulk on the Thames and then shipped her to the colonies
Loo... Back in the mid 1980's in my late teens I was receiving lots of threatening letters from TV licensing, one evening two guys with the van turned up on the doorstep and gave it the usual routine, you are watching TV. Oh! OK I said come in and check. In they came and much to their discomfort found themselves in a living room with 10 or 12 large gentlemen wearing leather motorcycle jackets with denim cut offs, who were having a few drinks and enjoying a movie and a little bit irritated as having their evening disrupted. Told one of the inspectors to check the Ariel connection from the wall and tell me what he saw. "The Ariel connection goes into the back of the radio receiver on the stereo" he replied. Ok I said, see that TV, its a playback monitor, that video recorder its a playback recorder, neither of them are capable of receiving TV signals! I pointed out that I managed video rental shops and that I had written to them multiple times informing them that I did not require a television license and yet they persisted in sending me threatening letters and unannounced visits with cards dropped through the door and was unhappy with their behaviour implying I was breaking the law, after all when you have a captive audience its seems like an excellent opportunity to make your point. End result they left and I never heard from them again....
My defence mechanism. First, have a split level house with balcony over front door. Second, have white hair AND my trump card, be very deaf (true) and do a lot of fiddling with the remote for my aid. Thirdly , quaver that my family have told me NEVER to buy from cold callers...and close door. The tv can't be seen and furthermore is "built in" in cupboard. Actually, it's a long time sone I bothered to watch..poor sound/lighting make it difficult and content is rubbish. Am i sufficiently fortified ???
The American show is TV Nation. The segment shown was from the September 8, 1995 episode. I remember watching it and thinking how crazy it was that you have to have a license to watch TV in the UK!
OH DEAR GOD! - imagine someone looking like that turning up at your door carrying a cheap portable TV ariel??????????......s'cuse me sir, my moustache would like a word with you.
Hope this doesn't give these "gurus" any ideas. We need to DEFUND THE BBC COLLECTIVELY. THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO GET RID IF THE "OUTRAGEOUS, OBNOXIOUS " TV LICENCE
That Ariel was an ITV Ariel that picked up signals from the station when positioned on a roof of a home. They were fooling big time it would have registered nothing.
1995 the license was £86.50 I was always brainwashed into buying a license until I went to live in Malta where the license had been abolished, probably because they realised what an antiquated system (left over from British rule) it was.. Since returning to the UK I have been watching your videos and now refuse to buy a license, you have saved me a fortune :-)
There has got to be a series idea there. I would almost be tempted to buy a TV and licence.. just to watch" Ivan and Andy- crime busters" in a very 70's style lol
Yes, love the idea, like The Office, would be hilarious. Let's get the BBC to fund a genuine British comedy mini-series on the total nonsense of a TV licence....
Ah, but this is the "Publicity Van" with whizz-bang flashy lights and screens and gadgets to bullshit baffles brains the media, so they can then feed that same bullshit out to their audience. And it worked on a lot of people.
i remember back in the 80's and 90's, someone in your street would say "the tv detector vans are ub the area, antone without a licence would not watch telly for a week, lol
Hahaha I remember that! They basically had a van with a coat hanger stuck on top. We had one of those Tv's with a colour slider on. My Dad would always buy a B&W licence and if anyone did ever knock on the door he'd turn the colour down 🤣
I bought an apartment off plan years ago, the footings weren’t even finished and didn’t even have a door number, only a plot number. I started receiving loads of threatening letters from tv licensing at my home address regarding the not yet built property so I called them and led them on a bit and was told if I did not get a license, I would be getting a visit at my door from them. I asked them to let me know what colour the door was as I didn’t even fucking know yet!!! When I explained the total mess up to him he apologised and was extremely embarrassed. What a joke!
Quite correct, the old CRT set could be detected. How ever, the new LCD set are undetectable, pre the latest GDPR regulations a retailer had to give your details to TVL
The Horizontal and vertical scanning coils in the old CRTs do give off there own frequency’s. Through VAN ECK PHREAKING it is possible for a specially designed RF receivers to pick up those signals and reproduce them. But what they were picking up could have been any RF frequency. Scaremongering that all it was. A load of bollocks.
Pay in cash for your t.v IF you want one.(cash is untraceable hence why the ‘system’ is so keen to erase this freedom) Personally I read 📚 and listen to music 🎶 🎧 🔊. The bbc is government run for propaganda purposes.
I know I'm late to the party, but you absolutely can detect a CRT-style TV from quite a distance. Remember, the back end of your tube consists of a high-voltage electron gun shooting electrons at the phosphor on the front end of the tube, guided by a couple hefty electromagnets. That electron gun, the high-voltage transformers, as well as the signal amplifiers in that thing leaks RF energy like nobody's business. Hell, you could reconstruct the picture on the screen remotely just by all the leaking RF from all the components - something spy agencies used to amuse themselves with, especially for computer CRTs. Now, I'm not saying the license snoops had access to anything even vaguely like that, but picking up and giving you the rough direction of noisy RF-sources like CRT-TVs? Absolutely doable. Thing is, they can't really tell if it's a somewhat noisy CRT, a quite noisy bad spark plug in a car, 50m behind your house, or a really noisy transformer in a power substation a quarter mile away. Or something else giving off lots of RF-noise in your home. Or you might have a Tesla coil in your backyard shed. Hell, it could be coming from an airplane.
Ha! Ivan and Andy talked about locating signals "to within 2ft" Armed only with that dinky aerial and a list of unlicensed addresses, it beggars belief that they could stand outside a block of flats and accurately pinpoint rogue use let alone prove it in court.
OMG this was hilarious! I cancelled my licence because i genuinely never watch the tv.. don't even know where the remote is. The last time i turned on the TV i had to use the power button as can't find the remote, so that my Grandson could watch a DVD. TV Licencing have written to me several times, all of which I have ignored and have threatened to 'Send a man'... omg could i be lucky enough to get these two goons? *note to self... bake a cake just in case*
I'm from Germany, until 2013 we had a simular system like in the UK. You had to pay the TV license (often called GEZ or Gebühreneinzugszentrale) if you used TV or radio. I never paid the license, they came so often (sometimes several times a week), but just couldn't proof that I was using or owning a TV. Now it's like a TV tax, everyone has to pay it, even if you never used a TV or radio in your whole life. I also remember them having some sort of crappy aerial and receiver and saying they can see that I'm using the TV. In theory, it's possible to detect high frequency harmonics of the CRT's flyback transformer, but clearly not exactly enought to proof that someone is using a TV. I mean, it could also just be an computer monitor or oscilloscope, you clearly don't need an TV license to own these... Edit: You could actually also detect the TV's local oscilator frequency which is usually a few MHz lower or higher than the received broadcasts frequency. That means that 9:10 could be legit. I would still say that it's nearly impossible to use this as evidence to proof that someone isn't paying the license.
My father was a Radio / Radar specialist in the R.A.F. and flew in Nimrods (even the one Blair scrapped) and guess what... £120,000,000 worth of avionics couldnt tell where TV's were!
They used to detect the I.F. (Intermediate Frequency) which unfortunately all superhet receivers emit. With digital receivers it wouldn't happen today. That daft alarm was fake, the oscilloscope display would have been true at the time. Richard, G0OJF, UK
The display is a spectrum analyser and it's a fake setup, the baseline would show more noise and other signals as well as the sharp peak if the signal was being received through an antenna & front end amplifier. It looks to me like a signal generator was connected to the spectrum analyser so as to give a convincing display. Steve, was G6KEX.
Quite a few of the older CRT TVs used a system where the signal was processed using an internally generated signal known as the Intermediate Frequency or IF..using a variation of a Heterodyne system. To separate the Audio and Video signals..... As all Radio Hams know, TVs are built to a price, not to a specification ... They are filthy, horrible contraptions, with virtually no RF shielding..... It was the IF that was detected by the TV chappies. That's why the detected signal looks so terrible on the scope. TVs are known to receive everything, including Ham transmissions, taxis, ambulances etc, which they were never designed to do.. And as anyone with any sensitive equipment will attest, they used to transmit all kinds of rubbish and spurious emmissions (Sproggies) ... This problem has been greatly assuaged by the introduction of Digital systems.. Peace, Keith (G4TDA)
I'm pretty sure there was a time when a license was required just to own any device that recieved radio or TV signals, this changed to TV recievers only in 1971. I know that retailers once reported sales of televisions to TV licensing. The license fee was £86.50 in 1995.
That was a great video. They could never get away with that today thanks to channels like this, online forums and facebook groups used to educate everyone about this scam. Great work Chilli John!
Absolutely hilarious I was in the era of this as a young lad thinking that this a major crime I can’t wait until the BBC totally collapses and goes out of business 🤞
I remember my mum being worried she couldn't afford the license so she stored our TV at a neighbours house whilst she saved up. Within a week the TV licence goons turned up n insisted not only were we watching TV, but we were watching vhs videos on it too 😳 They were jokers then n only worse today
I can understand why people fell for it back then but the introduction of high speed internet and communication killed those silly threats dead in their tracks 😂
I really loved this video! Well made, it was light and lots of humour despite the really shameful behaviour of the government back in these days allowing to sent these people in an actual prison. Keep up the good job.
In the 60s it was practical to receive leakage of the local oscillator of a TV tuner, by identifying the frequency using a spectrum analyser and knowing the standard intermediate frequency of TVs you would know the chanel being watched. A handheld directional antenna will help locate the TV. I viewed the inside of a TV dector van in the mid 60s, although I would not recall the specific manufacturers. For modern equipment, see Rhode and Schwarz DDF systems. Modern TVs do not leak so much. As for use of RDF, that predates monitoring wild animals by decades, it was in use in WW2 to find spy's.
Years ago I was sent to carry out a survey on government premises in Yeading, West London. In one of the many buildings on this site was a huge Workshop containing a large amount of ‘TV detector vans’ being prepared and painted to go out patrolling the roads. The interiors were empty and the ‘aerial’ on the roof was a large shaped block of plastic, looking like two cones, back to back. . There may well have been a few genuine vans in service throughout the country but the large majority were bogus vans sent out to roam the streets and scare people into buying a license if they didn’t have one.
Ahh, the Boob-mobile, can remember seeing one of those bad boys drive slowly down my road when I was a whippersnapper. The only van I feared though, was Busby (BT), catching me on my old AM CB radio lol, of course, he did catch me, but luckily only gave me a warning, as I was interfering with the next door neighbours BBC watching at the time.
You reminded me of a story going back to the AM CB day`s next door were forever knocking on saying we were interfering with there tv as he made more contact he took me in his front room showing he had set up an wire and was listening in to us, things went from bad to worse, he loved to bash on the door an shout and rant till FM came legal, I bought a CB FM licence the very next time he came banging I shoved the licence in his face shouting LEGAL ........LICENCED !!! LEGAL LICENCED !!! felt sooo good to shut him up....... was a good day after all the shit we took.
@@yorkshirepud6676 I went one better, got my Class B, then Class A ham license lol, went from about 4-10 watts, to 100 watts on 28Mhz, that of course blew the neighbours TV away, especially when proved it was their tv at fault. I did try to offer help though, suggesting filters, am not a vindictive person, but he refused, had 1 or 2 visits from Busby, but ultimately he failed. He often complained though, when I was not using the radio, so probably some other CB'er causing the problems.
I would have known knew you had to have a license to watch TV if I hadn't stumbled across one of your videos. I had to google it to see what the hell is going on. Completely Mad! Not wishing anyone harm, but I smile thinking about the reaction they would receive in rural AZ where open carry is the norm and someone demands to come into their house.
Tube tv receivers use Local Oscillators to re-insert the signal (vestigial side and) some of which is transmitted. I learned this in 1980 studying high power radio transmitters and Radar technology and the design of the electronics.
I laughed when Ivan the terrible or Andy Pandy looked through the rear end of the TV Ariel as if it was a rifle sight ready to take out the license evaders lol. That monitor in the back of the cowboy wagon was a CCTV monitor So connect it to a video recorder and you can watch any video you liked. I had a letter from the goon office today telling me They've written to me before but I need to buy a license or I'm breaking the law. Last goon letter was we have opened an investigation one with all the usual threats but this one today was almost like the first one being almost polite. Shivering in my boots I was so I shredded the evidence immediately lol
Astonishingly, by the early 2000s, 30% of inmates in UK women's prisons were there because they didn't pay their licence fee and could pay the fine. We have Thatcher to thank for making TV licence avoidance a criminal offence rather than a civil matter. I am always reminded of Monty Python's sketch about the "cat detector van" that could detect purring and Eric the cat was, always such a happy cat he was a piece of cake.
