BBC's TV detector vans to remain a state secret

Accurate Database?

We have always paid the licence in one hit, but this year decided to pay by direct debit. We now have three letters from the licencing authority. One letter thanking us for paying by direct debit, another containing the licence, and the final threatening us with prosecution if we dont get a licence.

I can only asume a 'database' error.....and am praying that no-one corrects it. I want the pleasure of being door-stepped and and telling them to take a hike, and then being taken to court. I really really want to see their faces as I present my licence as evidence.

Paris..cos one can dream

@Master Baker

Sir, you owe me a new keyboard and monitor...

Seriously though the government and bbc need to wake up and realise that its 2008 if advertising revenue is good enough for 99.99% of channels around the world why does the UK need publicly funded channels - especially those that the majority of people with a telly in the UK no longer watch!

Yes i'm licenced but no i have not watched the BBC (or listened to their radio broadcasts) for several years - mainly because the quality of programming has gone down and the fee has gone up.

Counting up the number of people in my family that i know can state the same comes to 38 of 42 people - its futile but WAKE UP BBC you have lost and are continuing to lose viewers...

I can exclusively reveal

That TV detector technology is based on a microscopic black hole-driven subatomic polarised wave filter developed using parts from a crashed alien spacecraft. Unfortunately it doesn't work that well on viewers that don't have much brain activity, which basically makes it useless for finding viewers of daytime ITV.

@Master Baker

Don't you know that databases are never wrong? ;-)

A few years ago I didn't have a tv. The licensing authority harassed me to distraction despite me informing then of the fact. One day an inspector came around - I sent him packing. Then another came demanding access to my home. A third and then a fourth. I sent them all packing with an instruction to get a court order. That was the last I heard.

A couple of years later I moved out of my house and rented it out. The tenant bought a licence.

A couple of years after that, the tenant moved out and I moved back in. Among the mail popping through the letter box were demands for a tv licence. I politely informed the authority that the tenant had moved out and I was now the incumbent, but without a tv. The letters kept coming, but were addressed to the "occupier" instead. It made no difference that I informed them I had no licence and so, the merry-go-round with threats and inspectors began once again and continued until a few months ago when my girlfriend moved in with her telly. Now being the very conscientious type, she insisted that she bought a licence....much to my annoyance.

Their database is often wrong; their tactics are threatening, unreasonable and intimidating. I dislike the licensing authority with passion.

@They do work, and @Richard

Right, I've got it. Putting together the info from the two posts above, I'm thinking they have got some kit but not the techie stuff everyone here is thinking of. How about: a telly in the van, a newspaper TV guide and one of those directional mics that looks like a handheld radar with a set of headphones. Bloke in van listens on mic for audio being emitted from a house. If audio matches anything that is on TV (courtesy of his portable and copy of TV Week), bloke can double check target property by observing which house has fluctations in the lighting (observable from outside) to match what's on his telly, or the telly of a nearby house (which may or may not have a license). Bingo. Bloke knows they have a telly, and can even (see @They do work) tell which programme is being watched.

Or maybe they are full of sh1t and simply match the DB records with all available houses. Talking of which, it would be interesting to know what percentage of properties have a license, and see a demographic map of 'offender' concentrations UK-wide.

Revenue Earner

We have a TV licence but that doesn't necessarily stop the threatening letters.

A year or so ago we bought a cheap LCD TV to watch DVDs on in the bedroom. As it was bought on the OH's card, we gave her details. Within a month we were getting letters saying "We notice you do not have a TV Licence *under your name* at the above address", even though we have a licence under *my* name at the same address.

I can only imagine that they want to trick stupid people into buying a licence for each occupant of the household. Nice revenue earner, that.

They're so effective

that they kept detecting the TV set I didn't actually have. Once a month on average for about a year. "We have detected the television you are using, sir!"

Have you. Have you really. Impressive, perhaps you actually picked up me thinking about that nice 52" LCD? Now that's effective...

TV licensing is ridiculous

I live in halls at uni, recently EVERYONE in the entire hall received a threatening letter that basically said 'YOU DO NOT HAVEA TV LICENSE SO PLEASE PAY US SOME EXTORTIONATE SUM OF MONEY' with a tiny bit at the bottom for if you don't have a TV. I was very pissed off when I had to phone them to tell them I don't have a TV too (I watch tv via bittorrent...)

It isn't even a good quality service you're getting for the license fee, as it only pays for the BBC.

If I had the choice I would opt out of receiving BBC channels and not pay the license.

Shs? WTF @ SHS

<Quoth Reg.>

If you buy or rent a TV or buy a PC tuner card in the UK your address is passed onto TV Licensing

<Unquoth Reg.>

How the heck is that supposed to mean anything in a caught @ law?

The law is that 1 licence must be held for the TV or tuner at any address used. It doesn't have anything to do with the ownership and it can't prove the set was used is usable. Nor does it indicate the premisses where it might.

I believe they can obtain the set/card but I imagine not before you pass it on or break it. Or pay the TV tax.

And WTH is going to put a signature on anything that indicates otherwise? Not that it applies to me. I buy second hand or from computer shows. (Plus: I have a license.)

Waiting for the van - does Godot drive it?

Even if you reply to their nasty "YOU DONT HAVE A LICENSE - PAY UP RIGHT NOW OR ELSE" letters, they still send around a guy to check that you really don't have a TV.

Now many years later, I don't respond and don't let them in - I'm waiting to see a TV detector van parked outside my house.

@Electrons...

...are not alpha particles (nor indeed are they beta particles, before you start). Moreover, the emmissions of electrons, along with x-rays, are so miniscule you'd have extreme trouble detecting either at a distance of 1 foot.

@AC who said..

"....and a nice large LCD TV to use them with. True I could plug in an aerial and watch TV if I really wanted to - but I don't - I can't stand the majority of the trash that is on these days - those seasons I do like I simply buy boxed sets once they come out."

So, you still have to pay for a TV license regardless of whether you plug an aerial into it or not. The law states that if you have a device capable of receiving BBC broadcasts then you must have a license. A device capable of receiving BBC broadcasts is called a tuner and there's one in that LCD telly of yours that has to be licensed. Oh, and when you say "can't stand the majority of the trash that is on these days" then you mean that you do in fact watch some telly then. Suspect it is moronic US imports by your use of the word 'trash'.

I for one am happy paying my tv license, without it there would be no Mighty Boosh, QI, Buzzcocks, Planet Earth and a million other high quality, watchable TV programmes, not forgetting the radio programmes that the license also pays for.

Freeloaders! }:-(

Paris because that's what watching brain mushifying US import TV does to you.

A few points

My uncle was a postmaster in those pre-Internet days - he told me that the detector van in his yard was empty - they relied on the list.

However, the MoD wouldn't go to the trouble and expense of installing Tempest cages around their equipment just for nuclear blast EMP protection, would they? When I had a room integrity test to do on one of their refurbuished rooms, the operators in the adjacent working room were sent on a tea-break.

Meanwhile, spare a thought for all those people in house shares - if the landlord doesn't pay the fee, then every individual tenant is meant to have one. Fortunately the licence database doesn't go into that detail, so one licence surfices, albeit with the tenants being at slight risk of discovery.

Paris because no-one else has yet!

It pays...

The license fee pays the wages of Russell Brand and Jonathan Toss.

Keeping these two talentless, offensive twats in beer and scratchings isn't something I want to pay for.

Likewise Strictly Cum Prancing, EastBenders, Wholly Shitty or any of the other inane crap that fills the schedule.

Some of BBC2, 3 and 4 is worth watching, but there's so much money wasted on the lowest common denominator that I'd rather see the license fee abolished and the BBC have to compete like any other broadcaster for the advertising shekels.

Mines the one with the taser in the pocket, for when they come knocking...

@ Simon Painter

"Of course there are many ways to soundproof your flat and if the precise technical details of the vans were ever to get out into the public domain it wouldn't take much brains to produce a device similar to noise cancelling headphones which sticks onto your windows."

IIRC, it's even easier than that. I'm sure I recall reading a novel, many years ago, where the protagonist circumvented directional laser mic eavesdropping by simply gaffer taping a vibrator to the window...

PH because - well it's obvious, isn't it?

How it works

As has been mentioned in other comments, the receivers in TVs are super-heterodyne type receivers, which have one or two (depending on designers choice, normally two) Intermediate Frequencies. These are well known because the filters need to be reasonably tight and thus are produced by third parties and thus reasonably standard.

The detector vans simply have very sensitive equipment that listens on those IFs with very directional aerials.

Easy.

Analogue or digital, doesn't matter... it all goes through the receiver;

The 'tuning' occurs aerial side of the mixer; the IF is a fixed frequency the other side.

With good enough equipment, they could feed the received IF into a TV and watch exactly what you're watching!

As for the 'detect the detector van' comment... their IF would match the second IF in your TV, so would be extremely difficult to detect! Best bet would be to look out the window!

And for those who claim that there isn't enough signal to get that far... I've successfully used 50mW over a distance of 7 miles on UHF, through normal brick walls, with no problems. That's about the same power as a reasonably bright LED.

Spouting Rubbish...

Stop it! its not CRT's!

Remeber an article a few days ago about eves dropping on wired keyboards? ever wondered how that worked?

its all about crystal oscilatiors... and leakage.. TV tuners leak associated frequencies which can be detected allowing you to determine the exact frequecny being recieved. it still works with digital (as a block of channels is on one frequency) and videos, pc cards etc.. but, and this is why its gone quiet, it can also detect other emissions from other devices with oscilators, ie most PC's, Phones and pretty much most digital equipment. including keyboards! and pretty much any network device!

(note this is about detecting a tuning crystal, not a transmitting device, but a device that leaks)

Tin foil on stand-by!

AC because they dont want you to know, that they know what you know...

Of course...

maybe the real reason for them denying this request is so that the plebs don't find out what the vans are *really* capable of / equipped for detecting...

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to line my house with tinfoil (just to help my fuel efficiency, you understand).

Aaron Kempf proved right

It turns out that the databases are coming. Heaven help us.

Yes they do work..

Yes TV Detector Vans do work, they always have but as one poster as already mentioned they do not look for what you think they are looking for and I am also not going to say exactly what this is for the same reason as the other poster other than to say that what they look for and how they do it is quite obvious really when you think about it.

A TV only RECIEVES a TV signal but it does give out other emissions and it is these that they look for.

The TV dectector vans have always been able to detect a telly if it is on however as some other poster has already said the knack is to pick out the target from all the other tellys in the area. The aerial on the van and the hand held units they use is highly directional and it will only detect in a very narrow band along the axis that the thing is pointing. A bit like a long distance directional microphone.

The old grey vans could detect your telly but they were useless which was why they used to have TV DETECTOR VAN written in big letters down both sides. They used to park them up in town where everyone could see them and the word would get out that the detector vans were in town and everyone without a TV licence would crap themselves and go out and buy a licence. As they used to drive around the council estates with the van the man in the back used to wind the DF handle in the back that spun the aerial around to make it look as though they were detecting things as everyone knows from what they saw on TV that an aerial rotates like a radar dish when it is detecting things but the chances are that as soon as they pulled into the estate, unlicenced TVs all over the estate would get switched off as kids ran home to tell mum and dad that the TV van was driving slowly up the street with the aerial going round.

It was all scare tactics and the way they used to actually catch people was to visit houses without a telly licence and listenin for the sound of the telly or look for the glow on the curtains before they knocked on the door. That was why they used to call on a night. The van could detect the TV but the chance that they would be detecting for you watching BBC1 when you were actually watching BBC1 and it was your telly that they picked up was a little bleak and they might need to drive down the street a few times by which time you had probably turned the telly off. Once they had caught you though for evidence purposes they would go out of town with a battery powered portable TV, sit it on a wall and drive past it to get the "evidence" they used for taking you to court.

The new vans are indeed much better but rely on the same principles however the equipment is more compact and they can simultaniously scan a lot more channels at the same time where as the old ones scanned a channel at a time. They can tell which channel you are watching by what they detect coming from your TV and they can tell which room the telly is in due to the highly directional nature of the scanning gear. They have to point the equipment directly at the telly for it to detect it so they can say it is upstairs in a bedroon because they had to point the aerial at the upstairs of your house etc.

You dont see the vans as often now because they dont need to park them in the centre of town to scare people. They have a database that tells them who has a license and who does not and they now send letters out and send people around to visit. The vans are now deployed simply to detect rather than to scare people and are used as a last line of enforcement.

All this talk of CRT detection is toss

What a load of crap, I tell you right now there never has been and never will be a TV detection service.

I don't need to post this anonymously but I didn't pay a TV licence for over 5 years. The minute I looked into getting cable TV flag went up on database and I had a reminder that I needed to get one.

This guff about detecting CRT based televisions is toss as well. Distinguish the alpha frequencies between a CRT TV and PC Monitor? Nobody and I mean NOBODY who has trained with enough technical skill to even be able to tell the difference between the two through several feet of concrete, steel struts a drive way and a main road is going to be willing to take a job that dull and that shit.

They never existed they never will exist and the BBC should not be in control of the so called licence fee.

You honestly trying to tell me that the entire BBC is solely funded from the TV licence? Is it fook, it wouldn't even cover the cost of wages for a quarter. So they already get money from elsewhere without the use of advertising so they can stop taking mine to produce a load of free to air radio signals that I can pick up however the fuck I like. You can't charge for a wave.

They're not from the

Ministry of Housinge, are they?

I'm very observant, you know.

TEMPEST

TV detector vans work using a principle called TEMPEST (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TEMPEST). Most of the research for this stuff is military and classified - hence why the BBC are reluctant to give up information about it. Essentially any modulator generating signals tends to give off unintended signals (either radio waves, or signals coupled onto power cables). The radio waves can be picked up from a reasonable distance away and reconstituted onto a screen without too much difficulty. You need to have some fancy kit to cope with problems with timing signals (vertical hold for example gets completely shot on old analogue signals, and digital signals are crammed full of noise). Presumably for modern digital signals, you just pick up the signal and run a correlation with the source - that would almost certainly be enough evidence for beyond reasonable doubt. You wouldn't try to create a picture since modern encoding schemes tend to make error recovery poor.

From what I recall, on old analogue sets, you aren't picking up signal from the CRT per se, but instead from the modulator that drives the electron guns. Similarly, it was possible to pick data up from graphics cards etc. Because data rates are high, the modulation frequency is high, and these things are damn tricky to shield effectively, so tricky in fact that government and military establishments (especially in other countries - like the UK embassy in Moscow) spend a lot of money shielding equipment, or placing them inside Faraday cage rooms.

@AC

"So, you still have to pay for a TV license regardless of whether you plug an aerial into it or not. The law states that if you have a device capable of receiving BBC broadcasts then you must have a license."

More bullshit FUD... You have to be using it to recieve a signal not just have the capability...

I can't work out if this comment section is full of shills or muppets...