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It never ever been the case that you need a licence for equipment "capable" of receiving "live" tv. The moment that you do receive a "live" broadcast then you need a licence. "live" means received at the same moment that its broadcast (give or take a few milliseconds transmission delay), Iplayer is a delayed transmission which is why you don't need a licence.
You also don't need a licence if you only use your TV to watch DVD's or play computer games on.
It's equipment "installed or used" for the purpose of receiving broadcasts. Lose the arial.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/692/regulation/9/made
http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/search?q=install
Has it changed recently, or have I been wrong for years?
You've been wrong for years, it's a common misconception though.
"live" means received at the same moment that its broadcast (give or take a few milliseconds transmission delay), Iplayer is a delayed transmission which is why you don't need a licence.
Rockhopper - interesting, is there anywhere you can direct me to that states this?
From The Communications Regulations Act:
[i]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, [b]where that programme is received at the same time (or [u]virtually the same time[/u])[/b] as it is received by members of the public by virtue of its being broadcast or distributed as part of that service.[/i]
I would have thought that would cover "live" broadcasts on the iplayer?
I must admit that I didn't realise you could watch live TV on Iplayer - if you do you need a licence. If you watch their stored content then you don't.
he's kept his name off the electoral roll.how's he managed that then?
Easy, he's only registered for Council Tax as you have to do. That doesn't mean you have to automatically register to vote. Some official paid him a visit and started talking about a 1000 quid fine until it was pointed out that it was for false information (not the same as no information)
"It is a criminal offence not to complete and return the annual registration form, or to provide inaccurate or false information; liable to a fine up to £1,000."
http://www.stratford.gov.uk/council/council-404.cfm
Oh well, he's the sort who wouldn't care anyway. They'd have to find out who he is first.
Never minded paying the licence fee. The BBC provides me with a lot of services that I use. iplayer, radio and their web site. Much better without adverts every 10-15 mins.
What I do object to is the threatening tone in the letters. They must waste an absolute fortune on paper alone. Mountains of the bloody stuff.
Make some real money and bring back the dog license
Would the licence be cheaper if you got a black and white dog?
Every year student halls here get a letter for EVERY bedroom warning they don't have a licence. That is several thousand letters wasting paper and money and I wonder how many other Universities get the same. I used to write "return to sender" on all of the 240 we used to get in halls and send them all back. It was worth the effort (was getting paid for being on reception).
I lived without a TV for a couple of years and kept getting the "you are officially cautioned...bla bla bla". In the end I called them and told them if they didn't stop sending me letters and accusing me of having a TV I would take them to court for harassment.
Last year I gave my TV to my GF and called them to cancel my licence - I instantly got questions of "do you have a laptop?" "a desktop PC?"....I told the guy I was cancelling my licence and that was the end of it and what other things I own is no business of him or the TV licensing people. They now assume that because you have a laptop you have internet and watch live TV. What happened to being innocent until proven guilty? For the record I also had no internet connection so my laptop was purely for work.
IIRC there is a rule saying that if you are only away from home for a short time (ie a term) then you are covered under your home license, which means that they are wasting their time mailing Uni halls, in general.
I think it is pretty shocking that the onus is on you to prove you are innocent. I thought we lived in a democracy.
Good luck. 🙂
I think it is pretty shocking that the onus is on you to prove you are innocent. I thought we lived in a democracy.
Those two things are not linked at all!
Sorry I forgot to point out that the letters were sent in the summer and if the students who lived there the previous academic year had registered on the electoral role it was addressed to them personally - or if they had got a licence while they were there. If not it was just addressed to the bedroom.
If your room in halls has a lock you need your own licence. In a student house you just need a shared one for the house (provided there are no locks on doors).
But the point was they were sending it to halls were students only live in their 1st year from October to June in the summer around August accusing the person living in that room of not having licence but having a TV. The rooms were all unoccupied and no matter how many times we contacted them about it they still sent out letters the following year. Complete idiocy.
I used to sub contract to BT. They kept the 'TV detection vans' in the car parks of the bigger exchanges in Manchester. It was basically an empty van with an aerial on the roof. Nice trick though. I'll happily pay the license fee myself, I think the BBC provides a superb service.
That's a funny site.
Some dodgy reasoning on that site though
The highlighted paragraph says that there are two dedicated members of staff working on each of the vehicles every week, completing the vans in a six month period. The conclusion to be drawn is that there are 26* vans.
Nothing there says that they only have 2 members of staff in total - just that 2 members of staff work on each van. Hence the 26 van conclusion is flawed. Lots more examples of similar levels of reasoning (eg the legal evidence thing - they don't use the evidence from the vans to prosecute, simply to advance the legal process in other ways, hence the evidence laws are different).
I have no evidence whether or not they have working detector vans, but it would surprise me if they didn't use such technology, given it's very straightforward and could be very useful in determining whether somebody really does have a TV - I note a distinct lack of evidence from those who use a TV but have no licence on whether a detector van was involved.
An amusing anecdote - many years ago I was involved with doing radio trials in Scotland which involved driving round in a white Tranny with a great big retracting antenna in the middle of the roof. One morning after staying the night at a pub in the middle of nowhere on Skye the landlord asked if we were a TV detector van, and commented that lots of locals were busy buying licenses 🙂
However many vans they have is irrelevant, what they don't have any of is "detector" vans. They might have plenty of vans full of pushy men in important-looking suits (though I've never seen any of those myself either).
Our chimney had a bit of an incident and we lost both sat and ariel. Cancelled our license until it was up and running again (about 6 months). They were fine about it but did warn that they might visit as 80% of those who claim that they don't need one in actual fact do. Don't have a problem with it. It took as a couple of months to get round to cancel it. I would pay it for the radio alone if that was the rule - Radio 4 Comedy rocks!
😯
Certainly the science of detecting a TV is possible, in fact tracing local oscillator radiation from a Superhet receiver on known frequencies was a proven method of spy detection.
However whilst that may have been effective in 1950 with one or two televisions in a street, the chances of being able to track down a single television on a street with 50 of them on at any time causing interference seems somewhat far fetched...
Certainly the science of detecting a TV is possible, in fact tracing local oscillator radiation from a Superhet receiver on known frequencies was a proven method of spy detection.
Even for a modern TV with say digital freeview, or sky/cable?
Digital TV is, and always will be, transmitted in analogue.
The principles used in decoding the incoming signal are always the same.
Even Sky and cable? Sky is much higher frequency tho is it not? Will that not travel as far?
Yep.
With analogue TV you use a simple analogue decoder to recover an analogue signal. In the old days the signal was then amplified and fed straight into the CRT display.
With digital TV you use a much more sophisticated analogue decoder to recover a digital signal.
Whether its sat, terrestrial or cable, the incoming signal is converted into a common (analogue) frequency (used to be around 39Mhz) It was that frequency that the detector vans used for monitoring. Actually not strictly true, but I dont want to go into Local Oscillator principles here 😕
Savvy license dodgers could change that frequency, but it needed sophisticated test gear to do properly.
Yes I understand how receiving the TV works. What I don't understand is the secondary radiation to which Z11 refers.
We had a visit from the Licence inspector man once. We hadn't had a licence for almost a year because the person in our student house who we'd given the licence money to (we later found out) had spent it on beer instead and had obviously hidden every TV licence letter that must have arrived.
The inspector could see the TV from the front door and wrote on his form "TV on and watching BBC1"
All he said was "best get a licence lads". We got a licence the next day and we never heard from them again.
Yes I understand how receiving the TV works. What I don't understand is the secondary radiation to which Z11 refers
The spy stories I'd heard where related to reading screens remotely, and this depended on an electron gun scanning the screen.. so LCD/plasma wouldn't work.
Don't know if modern TV's even use a superhet or replace it in software now?
I have simply wrapped my house in bacofoil
When they come round, just cover yourself in chicken blood, and answer the door wearing only a balaclava and a pair of wellington boots.
They won't come back again....
Don't know if modern TV's even use a superhet or replace it in software now?
Signal is too fast and low level to do in software.
One day perhaps.
When they come round, just cover yourself in chicken blood, and answer the door wearing only a balaclava and a pair of wellington boots.
Ahh, that'll be why it didn't work. I used goats blood
Schoolboy error. 😐