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TV detector van

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Re: TV detector van

#111

Have to laugh at all the Americans saying this is crazy or nonsensical when it's legal to carry guns in much of your country :-D That aside, lest anyone think TV detector vans are all over the place, in my almost 40 years of living in the UK I've never seen or had interactions with one. They may as well be the Loch Ness monster for how mythical they are.

[deleted]

Re: TV detector van

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norway is doing the same thing starting next year, and I really like it, even though the content is increasingly getting predictably all-consuming right wing as each year goes by. ;) I actually bought my very first TV (since I discovered I was able to download South Park and The Simpsons and watch it on my computer in the early 2000s) a few months ago hoping to make the cut off so I would be able to say I'd paid the…

A Norwegian friend told me this a few years back; how the licensing people can just go into your homes when they show up and check for the presence of TVs. Crazy.

Well your Norwegian friend was wrong about that. All they could do was knock on your door and ask you if you had a TV, and you could more or less politely tell them you didn't and that would be the end of it, even if you did own one and it was on and both you and the license guy was able to hear it playing in the background. :)

Re: TV detector van

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a child in the 80s I remember my family being scared of this van even though it probably never existed. Because of this my mum got a pay TV instead which we had to put 50p coins in periodically that paid for both the TV rental and the license fee.

You had a coin-operated TV...? At home...? Did someone come regularly to collect the coins? I'm genuinely fascinated by this.

I also remember the coin operated tellys. Yes, every 6 months or there abouts the coiny-telly man would come about to collect the coins. It was a real hassle, as you had to be at your flat all that day. Otherwise, the coiny-telly man would just pass you up. Thing was, the little bin that the coins fell into would fill up every 9 months or so. So, if the coiny-telly man passed you up, you'd have to ration when you could watch TV. I remember the first time my mum made this mistake and the bin got filled. My pa was so angry that he didn't get to watch Emmerdale Farm and Whizz-Bizz that night as no more would fit in the machine. Well, we never made that mistake again.

Re: TV detector van

#114

Have to laugh at all the Americans saying this is crazy or nonsensical when it's legal to carry guns in much of your country :-D That aside, lest anyone think TV detector vans are all over the place, in my almost 40 years of living in the UK I've never seen or had interactions with one. They may as well be the Loch Ness monster for how mythical they are.

> Have to laugh at all the Americans saying this is crazy or nonsensical when it's legal to carry guns in much of your country :-D Not making the connection here, care to elaborate?

[deleted]

Re: TV detector van

#115
post #7

I lived in a flat in England in the early 2000s which kept getting letters from the BBC saying we didn't have a TV licence. The letters were sometimes more threatening for a period, then sometimes more reconciliatory. They were also running TV adverts at the time claiming they had detector vans about, and if you didn't have a licence you'd be caught. I did some research at the time, and it seemed that evidence from a…

The ads were hugely dystopian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NmdUcmLFkw

I am an ex-pat and as an adult I am have become quite disillusioned with the UK and glad to have gotten out a decade ago. I miss nothing about England except my friends, and I'd feel sorry for them, but they all seem mostly happy with life.

Paying a license to have a TV (and it's assumed you must watch TV), opt in porn on the internet, CCTV everywhere, braying in parliament, not to mention the whole Brexit shit-show, I find little to admire about the UK.

Re: TV detector van

#116
I just spend some time trying to dig up the old TV ads for the licensing fee we had in Austria where they also had some kind of detector van with antennas. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find it.

I was always curious how that might work.

Re: TV detector van

#117
post #7

I lived in a flat in England in the early 2000s which kept getting letters from the BBC saying we didn't have a TV licence. The letters were sometimes more threatening for a period, then sometimes more reconciliatory. They were also running TV adverts at the time claiming they had detector vans about, and if you didn't have a licence you'd be caught. I did some research at the time, and it seemed that evidence from a…

The ads were hugely dystopian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NmdUcmLFkw I am an ex-pat and as an adult I am have become quite disillusioned with the UK and glad to have gotten out a decade ago. I miss nothing about England except my friends, and I'd feel sorry for them, but they all seem mostly happy with life. Paying a license to have a TV (and it's assumed you must watch TV), opt in porn on the internet, CCTV ev…

You don't have to pay for a license for a TV, you just tell them you don't watch live broadcast/streaming and they send a letter every free years.

Re: TV detector van

#119
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the US.

yup even brushing your teeth and using mouthwash is not a stymie, often this is viewed as destruction/interference with evidence, if a cop can discover empty aloholic containers.

Brushing your teeth doesn't affect breathalyzer readings at all. Alcoholic mouthwash can give false positives for up to 20 minutes, and cops are supposed to wait and try again for that reason; you've got a good shot at getting it thrown out if they don't.

Re: TV detector van

#120
post #52
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I believe when you buy a TV retailers are required to take down your address Is this for real? I remember thinking "dystopian as hell" when I heard about all the CCTVs in England, but this one takes the cake. I can at least see the points made by the other side of the CCTV argument, even though I very much disagree with them. Why cannot one just buy a TV in England without giving out their personal info?

It used to be true, the law changed a while ago. The law wasn't "you must hand over your details when buying a tv", it was "you must ask for details when selling a tv". Customers were free to supply false information.

I did, I just change the first two letters of my postcode to another town over for all that crap.
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