We also have a fleet of detector vans that can detect the use of TV receiving equipment at specifically targeted addresses within minutes. Find out more about visits, prosecutions and fines. Please enable Javascript in your browser. Cookies on the TV Licensing website Close We use cookies to improve your experience on our website and to make sure you can use all of its features. Close Continue. TV Licensing.
Sign out. Home Easy read Cymraeg Sign out search site Search. They have no more legal power than if any member of the public came round. Tell them to leave and they must immediately comply else be in breach of law. I was in a flat without a TV without a licence , and the intimidating letters never stopped in spite of me sending them letters confirming I did not own or possess or use a TV set, over several months.
The "sophisticated" vans and detection tools failed to detect the absence of a TV in my place Dean Grant, Glasgow, Scotland If an address that previously had a licence shows up on their database as currently not having one, they assume that you are cheating them.
They issue a couple of letters telling you a licence is needed and then they turn up one day out of the blue. Its hardly rocket science as most people own TVs the chances are good they will catch you out. My mother was arrested one day for watching an unlicensed TV , but they certinly didn't need a detector van they looked through the window.
I have never seen a detector van but they probably do exist. If you have no licence and no TV they will eventually visit your home. I went a number of years without a TV and they turned up every single year to check up.
I had a friend who was prosecuted 3 years on the trot for not having a licence but here again it was very easy for them to prove she was using a set. They can get a magistrate to issue them with a warrant to search a house they suspect is using a set without a licence.
If the property you live in has never had a TV set then you might get away with it but I would not bank on it. I suppose you should be able to shield your equipment from detection although it might be a lot more trouble than it is worth. Personally I think the licence fee is actually worth paying to keep the BBC independent of advertising but I am in a minority I suspect. Ross Burger, Swindon Wiltshire My friend's dad used to work for the TV licensing people, and according to him the vans are empty.
The BBC always seem to publish stories about the latest TV detecting technology, but no-one else seems to. I wonder why. James, Maidenhead UK First of all, line flyback, line sync, sync seperators. These are a part of all CRT circuits be it T. All CRT devices and appliances are adequately shielded to prevent the emission of harmfull radiation, and in any case, the EHT and shielding earthed ,would prevent smaller signals from interfering with other equipment thus eliminating any signals that tranverse the air waves before they get a chance to.
No Aerial, no CRT etc. Gordon Brown will doubtless introduce a licence for having a computer - and it will be known as a 'Windows Tax' - what goes around comes around! Think about it, they claimed to have had this advanced technology in the s?
Surely they'd just have cruised around anonymously? Anyway things have moved on and they can detect signals with handheld devices. They recieve audible signals and some work by picking up lines i. I don't have a TV and was harassed by a man who visited and spent about ten minutes scanning and an hour hanging outside. Its bullying, and I refused to let him unless he was accompanied by a female.
No one has the right to push there way into your home without a warrant regardless of what they say! Also, they need to see the TV with their eyes before they can nab you. By the way, how much does all this crap cost..? More than a bloody licence. The vans worked by receiving stray intermediate frequency radiation from the TV with two directional antennas and could indeed pinpoint the location within the house and the channel being watched. I had a technical specification on the vehicle and receiver equipment at the time.
The operators of the van told me they would do only one detection run on a street because as soon as one offender got the knock on the front door they would phone the others and all of them would turn off their TVs. Earlier detectors, before ITV started in , detected the 10,Hz line oscillator radiation from BBC only, line TVs that had no intermediate frequency oscillator.
Some of those old TVs whistled so loudly at 10kHz and you could even hear that outside the house on the street! They might have tried using variations of it to find the similarly non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. Oh how we Brits fall so easily for the rubbish we're fobbed off with from government.
Nick Harper, London UK Why is it that people that dont know what they are talking about make mind boggling statements that are complete fantasy and quite incorrect. If you dont understand the law concerning search warrants and arrest, dont make idiotic statements claiming first hand knowledge and experience.
John, Falkirk, Scotland Well, there is a detector van outside my home at the moment and has been there since 6. It is unmarked too!!! Stacy, London, UK Whether or not they work is immaterial. Evidence cannot be heard in a court of law unless it is available to both the prosecution and the defence, and since TV Licensing and the BBC refuse to disclose the technology they use, its results cannot be admitted as evidence.
Joe, Lewes, England I have always wondered if TV detector vans worked or if they are scare tactics propagated to ensure compliance and raise revenue. I don't have the technical knowledge to evaluate or reason what signals may be given off by my TV but the register of license holders and notification by retailers of TV purchases is certainly correct.
You cannot buy a TV without providing your name and address. Having read this page I had a look at a press release from the BBC regarding the latest generation of detection equipment, vans come complete with removable 'TV Licensing' signs, so you can't see them coming!
The Beeb claim that the latest detection systems are so secret that even the engineers who developed the systems worked in isolation from each other so as not to know how the systems work! This reminds me of a Monty Python sketch in which the British Army developed a joke during WW2 so funny that the enemy would die from laughing upon hearing it, a joke so funny it had to be translated into German by individuals in isolation, translating one word each, so that they were never exposed to the full horror of the jokes consequences.
Is the case of TV detector vans a case of life imitating art? All that rubish about vans detecting if you have a TV. Some of the arguments about how they might detect a TV is interesting but unlikely. The idea about pin pointing a TV like you see in the war movies is rubish. The germans pin pointed transmitters because it was the only one transmitting in that area. With TV reception the air space is flooded with signals.
Tv licence officers come to your house unexpectedly walk pass your window and see it, or lie there way into your home and see the TV. He was checking the reception in your area! Unless they actually see the TV they cannot do any thing. If they call at your house you do not even have to let them in. Blocks of flats are license officers worst nightmare for catching people.
If you get caught by a speed camera on the road they produce the photgraphic evidence in court to prove it. If you drink drive they produce a breath test and bood test in court to prove it. There has never been a case in court where the TV license officer has produce evidence from any mythical detection device to prove you had a TV. The only way is for the license officer to photograph your property with some thing distinctive identifying your house and showing a TV on in your lounge.
Call me a cynic but several of the replies sound like scaremongering from the TV licensing bullies. The police really don't have the resources for that! If the "detection" system is so sophisticated why do I get so many "reminders" to pay when I have told them I don't own a TV in writing? A rhetorical question there. This seems to be a place where privacy and civil liberties are unknown. This is the nation of Orwell no less. Werner, Regina, Canada Detector vans were used successfully back in the early days of radio and TV prior to radios also had to be licenced and they detected the local oscillator in the target receiver.
In the days of valves the mixer required quite a high level of LO signal. It was also very easy to detect the low intermediate frequencies common in the old line days. There were some "straight" ie TRF or non-superhet single-channel receivers in use during the late '40s and early '50s which had no local oscillator and were therefore safe from detection.
However it must be borne in mind that back in my young days TV aerials were large, TV ownership was relatively sparse, and licence enforcement was by the GPO, not unskilled, non-technical salesmen as now. Detection nowadays is a moot point as the general "electrosmog" that unfortunately smothers our environment would make pinpointing any discrete radiator at UHF very difficult. Want to try detecting a working TV yourself? Find a radio receiver that can tune Picking up the sound channel is a little more difficult due to the "intercarrier" method used to transmit the audio on the UK line system.
It isn't a technological explanation but a logical one - assuming they could detect signals, they'd pick up every single TV set in every house without distinguishing who has a license or now. They won't be cruising around and suddenly pick you up. Yes, they may get the addresses of those without a license, but it'd be much cheaper for them to use a handheld device, or look through the window, or probably even get a warrant.
You can, however, protect your privacy by building a small electronic gadget called Television Cloaking Device. It's all explained on BBCresistance. I know as I've had this a few times, when I didn't have a TV, but they still came round and asked to see. They had my name somehow and my new address but still kept showing up at my old address asking for me and asking to see a TV, even though the new tenant didn't have one, so was nothing to detect.
He let them in,showed them a blank space and they left him alone Paul, London GB I like all the techy explanations as to how tv detector vans work but you'd have to be a complete idiot to think that the government would spend millions of pounds sending vans round every town in the UK just to pursue a few license fee evaders. Get a life. Chas Likely, Brinkingham Middle England "Television and radio transmitters broadcast at a frequency that is so high it is unintelligible to the human ear.
Electromagnetic waves are completely different from sound waves. If they weren't, the 50 Hz waves given off by the wiring in your home would be deafening. Tom Spraggins, Palmyra, Virginia, USA Well, to reply to several of the above comments: Just because the details of the patent and technology are not available to the public, doesn't mean they are not available to the justice system - indeed, this is the case for many prosecuting methods.
Secondly, I know that the vans exist for a fact as a good friend of mine worked in them for a couple of years - they provided excellent easy work for electronics and radio engineers. Also, several local radio station billboards in America use the same technology to detect whether a driver is listening to their station - and if not it flashes up to ask them to change to it! These billboards have been tested and respond to changes in the tuned frequency of the target receiver.
Anyway - that was my input! Laurence Stant , Cowes, Isle of Wight Someone here said his mother was arrested for not having a licence. Don't know why he says this, but watching TV without a licence is not an arrestable offence. Even a police officer can't arrest you for it! John Kibbey, Runcorn Either there are a huge number of trolls here, or some people are incredibly psychotic.
Detectors and detector vans and cars do exist and have existed for years. An American friend of mine who was living in the UK in the s is the only person I know to have beaten the "must have a license" rule in court.
The court agreed with him and his claim that he did not require a license, and the case was dismissed. That can include a VCR, because it usually has a tuner. The exception used to be if you were a student living away from home at uni, say and using a portable TV set. However, your parents had to have a current license that also covered your portable.
That may have changed since the last time I looked it up. We have had numerous letters threatening us that if we didn't buy a license we'd be in big trouble. They said they'd come round and check and if they found anything by god we'd be sorry.
It's all just a clever viral urban myth to make people buy the license. And do you know what? It works. Anyway we just sit and wait for them to show up one murky evening whilst we're reading the Guardian or listening to the wireless the pictures really ARE better or - god forbid - talking to each other.
We've had them round once in the past and they just took a quick look round the living room, which was rather tame compared to the threats they made. I had hoped at the very least to have my bed over turned and books strewn all over the room. Reality never quite lives up does it? Tony, Manchester UK I saw one of these so called detector vans which was labelled as such. The sun was shining through the blacked out windows, and I could see that it was just a minibus with blacked out windows.
No equipment whatsoever, just seats for carrying around the dudes who come knocking on your door. It's all down to whether you do, not whether you can. Or all of these are true 1. Your out-of-term address is covered by a TV Licence 2.
AND you only use TV receiving equipment that is powered solely by its own internal batteries 3. AND you have not connected it to an aerial or plugged it into the mains. David, Stockport, UK When a "TV inspector" arrives at your house he requires you to sign what is effectively a contract for his private company to enforce a legal statute on you, breaking a statute is not breaking a law, legal and lawful are not the same, breaking a statute it is a offence, a violation of your contract with that office.
Without this basic information they can be no prosecution. Simple Law. You have a right to silence- use it! Couldn't afford a TV immediately -no probs- all my friends had one should I have withdrawal symptoms from a favourite programme. After a while I realised I quite liked the extra quality time in my life sans TV so I never bought one.
Was visited by an 'inspector' once but declined to let him in since he was a he and I was a she wrapped in a towel just out of the shower. Having said all that yes its irritating having to 'excuse' youself annually for being one of life's 'weirdos' that can live without a box License evaders nothwithstanding I think it is understandable that they check up.
Yes the letters used to be quite threatening, now they are less so. Apparently not. A licence is required in order to watch live television as it is being broadcast from any channel. However, for those innocent people that do not have a TV, nor watch live broadcasts on any other gadget, the licensing authorities have a hard neck expecting people to waste their own money on stamps in answering their pointless questions, which have no SAE enclosed by which to answer them. The thing to do is to completely and utterly ignore their letters.
In this country, a person is innocent unless proven guilty. It is therefore not incumbent upon an innocent person to prove their innocence, but it is incumbent on the accuser to provide the evidence for guilt. And, if it is correct that evidence must be available to all parties, there can be no prosecution if the evidence is withheld as appears to be the case by the BBC.
It seems that prosecutions have only been possible because people have let these people into their houses, and have signed a form admitting guilt perhaps inadvertently admitting guilt where none exists. In fact, if you do accidently open your door to these people, you should simply close it without comment in their face. Better still, you should never open your door to anyone unless you know you are expecting someone.
So do not open your door, even if they call through your letterbox or hammer very loudly. As a previous person here has said, you have the right to silence - use it.
They work their seedy practices by calling people's bluff and succeeding because people are intimidated by "authority". Don't be. Adopt some of the Churchillian bulldog spirit and call their bluff instead. David Anderson, Dundee, Angus Just been reading through all comments and whether or not vans work I haven't a clue. I notice everyone saying if you already own a tv you need a license. You only need a licence if you use it to watch live tv.
I own a tv but only use it to play online games as I don't watch tv. I have told them this but still get all the letters and visits so I'm guessing they ain't got a clue what you are watching they just know addresses without a licence. Andy, Staffs England Rodger Burger, good post, along with plenty of others.
TV detector vans, I think just an urban myth, like some others said, if you move to a house with no licence, they will send you a letter. I had this a few years ago and paid up, thinking a detector van had caught me out, think I was wrong, as for people coming to my door I have never had that, but I can believe it to be right, if you don't pay up. Do people get taken to court? I don't know. To finish, I pay the licence fee, it's a pig, but until someone comes with a better idea, then i have to, just as long as the BBC use my money well, that's all that matters.
John Chrisite, Cramlington uk The license is nothing more than a tax - an unfair one at that. It is used to fund the BBC - none of the other channels receive money from it. A tax is based on your use of services - you drive, you pay road tax. You pay council tax some might say unfairly for council services. If you don't watch the BBC or use any of its services you should not have to pay a license fee. However, you are forced into paying one if you watch TV, even if that's not the Beeb.
They also like to imply that you need a license for DVD players, computers, mobile phones etc on some of their letters. You do not.
You only need a license if you watch or record live broadcast signals i. TV detector vans do not work, it's all based on your address and they are not valid in a court of law. You are paying an unfair tax simply to keep the BBC running. You buy a shop's products to keep them running - proft and loss. If you don't watch BBC's programming, why should you be paying money towards them? However, the television set must be incapable of receiving all live broadcast programmes.
Gary, Birkenhead England As a previous poster mentioned, it does not matter if they exist because in court, the defence MUST have full access to documentation of electronic equipment used to gather evidence so a technical person can challenge whether the equipment it is working correctly.
TV licence claim on their website that their detection equipment is so "secret" that not even their own engineers know how it works. It went from being a fee payable in order to receive televisual services to a tax that was charged for watching the same services.
While this had no discernable impact on the way the fee collected from the licence was distributed among the BBC and other broadcasters, it did set a precedent that preempted a number of legal challenges that questioned the validity of the licence following the reclassification. Contrary to popular belief, the TV License actually covers the address of the holder rather than the holder themself, so anyone registered as living at the same address as the License holder is legally permitted to watch any device capable of receiving a television signal either at home or any other place of their choosing.
Emboldened by the evidence that their detection equipment has provided them with, TV Licencing can then decide to proceed and they are legally entitled to approach and question you about any suspicions that they may have. While the database and their detection equipment can give them just cause to question you on your doorstep and they can ask you to enter your residence in order to search for any equipment capable of receiving a television signal, legally you can refuse to let TV Licencing into your home.
The only time that TV Licencing can enter your home without your express permission is if they have obtained a warrant from a magistrate. But in order to obtain that warrant, they must put forward direct evidence photographic or otherwise, actual physical proof that you have that equipment in your possession and residence that proves their suspicion beyond any reasonable doubt.
However, rather than being asked to attend court to plead your case in front of a magistrate, the same magistrate will more than likely issue you with an SJP or Single Justice Procedure.
0コメント