Paying for TV License

As one of the earlier posts pointed out, the BBC is funded by a government mandated tax (which actually pays for other things as well), and thus is not illegal...

It's also theoretically independent of the government (unlike some other state broadcasters), with it's management being at arms length via the Commons Media committee's* oversight of the BBC trust who in turn monitor the BBC to ensure it's run in line with it's charter (which iirc does specify it should be editorially independent of the government), and the BBC tends to be quite critical about the government fairly often, regardless of who is in power (unlike a lot of state broadcasters that will never make any real criticism of their governments).

I got through about 30 seconds of the video right up until he came out with the line "I realised the BBC is a propaganda machine for big corperations" amd saw the caption for a 7/7 conspiracy :/

Personally whilst I don't watch a great deal of stuff on the BBC, I do find it a heck of a lot better than most of the commercial broadcasters whose interest is primarily "will this get the viewers my advertisers want" and "Will this upset X if this programme says their product is rubbish" ;)

You need a TVL if you watch or record any Live TV in the UK.
It doesn't matter if it's from Sky, VM, ITV or the BBC, nor does it matter if you're watching it on a 50" plasma TV, or live on your PC through one of the streaming services.

You do not need a licence if you only use your TV for watching DVD's, playing games, or only watch catch up services.

*Although a lot of the MP's on that comittee seem (like many politicians) more interested in preening in front of the cameras, and being popular than actually asking any real questions or questions that can be answered.
Like that twit who asked "how many paedophiles work at the BBC" towards the start of the Saville situation, when not only is it a question no company could accurately answer, the BBC had just launched an investigation to try and found out what had happened in the past, and the twit then made it seem it was odd that the DG couldn't answer the question.
 
do_ron_ron said:
Not this one again!!. You pay to receive a television signal NOT to pay the BBC.



A detector van can provide enough evidence.
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Or, and probably far more common I suspect, someone with at least one eye, one ear, a watch, and a copy of the TV listings, given many people have TV's easily visible (and audible) from the street or front door.


shoot1st:
From memory every turning circuit for radio or TV uses an oscillator to help with the tuning, that produces a weak signal at a known offset from the tuned in frequency.
Hence if you've got a suitable receiver you can pick it up, add in a basic directional antenna (it's worth looking in networking for some of the discussions on getting a wireless signal over a long distance for information on that), and you've got the basics of the detector.
IIRC CRT's also put out a huge amount of RF noise (relatively speaking) from part of the CRT's display which would give you an easier but less precise indication of the TV being turned on.

I think there are a few examples of complete detector vans from the 60's etc in the hands of radio enthusiasts now, as it's the sort of thing I suspect appeals to some enthusiasts.

Of course most detector vans were probably more PR than real, and given that if they could fit it into a van in the 60's the chances are the equpment now could be fitted into a hand held unit, think of how TV's, radios, and even just mobiles have shrunk over the past 10-20 years, let alone from the days of tubes and early individual transistors (my MP3 player is smaller than the battery I used to have to use to power my transistor radio!).
 
I've heard that the detector vans look for local oscillator leakage from the receiver at the target location. This is technically plausible but I've no idea if it's actually true.
 
UncleRuckus said:
It is my understanding that home aerials only receive signals not broadcast them. So I'm not entirely sure what evidence these vans can provide?
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It's not the aerials, it's the tuning from memory and even with Digital TV's you still need to tune into (and lock onto) a specific frequency for the MUX.
So it's quite likely still possible to work out if you've got a TV tuned into a broadcast, it's almost certainly not possible to work out if it's say BBC1 or C4 (if they're on the same MUX).
I'm no electronics engineer though.
 
We was talking about this today, and if theres any Irish here they can answer this.

I was told that, there are that many people in Ireland refuse to pay the TV license only 5% of Ireland do? is that BS or true?
 
Werewolf said:
It's not the aerials, it's the tuning from memory and even with Digital TV's you still need to tune into (and lock onto) a specific frequency for the MUX.
So it's quite likely still possible to work out if you've got a TV tuned into a broadcast, it's almost certainly not possible to work out if it's say BBC1 or C4 (if they're on the same MUX).
I'm no electronics engineer though.
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Correct. Almost all DVB receivers will use the same intermediate frequency (IF) since the components (e.g. SAW filters) are cheaper if a standard value is used.

Therefore all you need to find is the LO frequency (just use a directional antenna pointed at the building) and subtract the IF to find the tuned frequency. As you say, this will only give you the frequency of the block and I believe there are 6 DVB channels per block.
 
Werewolf said:
It's not the aerials, it's the tuning from memory and even with Digital TV's you still need to tune into (and lock onto) a specific frequency for the MUX.
So it's quite likely still possible to work out if you've got a TV tuned into a broadcast, it's almost certainly not possible to work out if it's say BBC1 or C4 (if they're on the same MUX).
I'm no electronics engineer though.
Click to expand...

its 'possible' to detect the oscillator but pretty hard these days with so much interference from other electronic equipment - they are really to scare people though - there has never been a case brought before a court where detector van evidence was used - never in the history of the bbc as a foi request recently showed.
 
I think it's generally a good service, I like plenty of BBC content and it's probably value for money.

But I have reservations about paying it as you can use iPlayer and the rest without paying for it... what is the incentive? Some kind of moral obligation isn't good enough when I could pay it and my neighbour could not... they need to bring it up to date and do something about this I feel?

It should just be taken out of tax and be a general arts and content budget for the country.
 
I think the BBC provide a good service and have absolutely no problem paying them £150 a year for it.
 
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