TV detector van • Hacker News Board

Re: TV detector van

#201

Post by soneil » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

monkeynotes wrote: post #115

agurk wrote: 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…

I don't begrudge the TV licence too much. I used to, and then I moved to Ireland - where I pay a roughly equivalent amount for a roughly equivalent licence, which funds RTÉ (and tg4? unclear) with nowhere near the same results. And still ads.

It turns out the better half of Europe has TV licences in one form or another - but for some reason, we never hear about them. When the UK has to fund a state broadcaster, it's dystopian. When everyone else does it, it's business as usual.

( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence )

Re: TV detector van

#202

Post by NeedMoreTea » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #135

Balgair wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cou…

I honestly can't tell if this is satire or not.

It's real. The TV rental companies had a range of approaches, one of which was the very expensive option of a coin operated TV. Another common way to pay was by book and visit the TV rental shop weekly to pay a little. If you had one of the coin ops, chances are your electric and gas were on coin operated meters too - with the landlord of your flat or bedsit setting their own markup on that meter...

https://www.tvobscurities.com/articles/cointv/

Edit: To add some context:

Don't forget it was still common for people to be paid in cash, weekly. For those on lower incomes paying a monthly rental was often difficult and many of those cash employees had no need of a bank account. So weekly payments at the shop, collection agents and other options like coin op were far more common. You might get a visit every year or two to pay premiums on something like a life assurance policy, and a little hand written book was your only record of payment.

Re: TV detector van

#203

Post by henryfjordan » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #80

henryfjordan wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's using a telescope and a camera to see what's going on in your house (albeit hopefully in a very limited way)... In the US that'd be an illegal search without a warrant.

To look in your open window, even with a telescope? I don't think that is considered illegal.

I don't know about a lay-person, but any government agent (police, a tv-detector-van driver, whatever) cannot act on the results of a search that was done without a warrant (or probable cause and some exigency).

People's houses are especially sacred in US law and even flying a plane over and looking for excessive heat signatures to find Marijuana growers was deemed an illegal search (someone linked to that case in another comment)

Re: TV detector van

#204

Post by stordoff » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

tomxor wrote: post #62

djmobley wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, a licence is required to watch live TV on any channel, not just the BBC.

I wonder how they define "live TV"? If i watch a live video stream over the internet does it count? I suspect they basically mean the reception of any terrestrial RF TV signal not really caring about it being live, but due to not wanting to go to the trouble of differentiating between BBC and freeview?

It would count - the definition is deliberately broad ("by any means"):

> In this regulation, any reference to receiving a television programme service includes a reference to receiving by any means any programme included in that service, where that programme is received at the same time (or virtually the same time) as it is received by members of the public by virtue of its being broadcast or distributed as part of that service.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/692/regulation/9/mad...

Re: TV detector van

#205

Post by NeedMoreTea » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #199

gambiting wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly can't tell if this is satire or not.

Not sure about emptying them, but the TVs with coin slots where a thing in the UK: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Ftimes... Not for the BBC license though: it was when TVs where expensive (in the 60s and 70s) and so some people could just rent one. Probably sounds alien to US people, but UK was much poorer country, especially in workers areas...

They were originally a US innovation that were imported and duplicated in the UK!

See my sibling link. First thought of by the US International Telemeter Corporation in the late 40s or very early 50s.

Re: TV detector van

#206

Post by rolph » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 9:06 PM UTC

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #182

rolph wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

around my parts, it would be tampering with evidence even if there is no proof or indicator that evidence of a crime existed, before "tampering" the brushing teeth and mouthwash is simply part of a power commuters hygene routine. in NY for example people use the time spent at traffic lights to do all sorts of things.

That's fucked up, I'm sorry. In most places in the US, cops would ignore it, because it doesn't do anything. Breathalyzers detect metabolized alcohol vapor from your lungs; nothing you can put in your mouth will stop that as long as there's alcohol in your bloodstream and you're still breathing.

oh dont be sorry its not your fault and interjections are valid, just to get things on track with the thread, this is about circumventing an authorities ability to detect an offence, and some authorities will assume innoccuous behaviour is evidence probable cause or reasonable suspicion, basically where im sitting, any circumstance you create that causes an investigation to go off script, can be interference if you intended to do it regardless of what you are trying to accomplish.

Re: TV detector van

#207

Post by rwmj » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 9:09 PM UTC

sb057 wrote: post #20

Relevant: http://bbctvlicence.com/

Very relevant. To be honest I'm surprised that TV licensing haven't worked out how this fellow is and added a special exception so he doesn't receive their silly letters.

Re: TV detector van

#208

Post by dewey » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 9:12 PM UTC

m0xte wrote: post #187

dewey wrote: post #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.

AFAIK they detected the emissions from the IF strip on old televisions with a directional yagi antenna mounted on top of the van. This possibility disappeared when the IC based IF sets were developed in the 70s and 80s.

I still remember that van having an antenna like that on top. Might be the case.

Re: TV detector van

#209

Post by jmole » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 9:14 PM UTC

dzhiurgis wrote: post #169

jrjarrett wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you moved to, but is the US anything admirable lately? Guess I should cross the UK off the list of places to flee to.

I moved to NZ. Glad to get out of UK's weather and rat race. Went to Hawaii for couple weeks one year ago. Experienced culture shock. NZ is probably best place in the world.

Care to elaborate on that? Culture shock from what? What makes NZ the best?

Re: TV detector van

#210

Post by msla » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 9:16 PM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #74

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

We can legally own knives yet! ;)