All a detector van could do, assuming they exist, is detect that a TV is on and what it is displaying, but if cannot tell who is actually watching the TV. The law says it is an offence for a person to watch live TV/iPlayer without a licence. So to prosecute they have to prove the the particular person they are prosecuting watched liveTV/iplayer. Just because a TV is on in your house does not mean you are watching it. For example you might have gone out and your lodger decided to turn it on without your permission. In practice therefore the only real way the BBC can successfully prosecute is with a confession.
Might want to make them nounce vans Some perverted actions are fine just not socially acceptable but they aren’t harming anyone Being a pedo is far worse Plus you can easily rest them on Andrew
They don't zoom up and down the streets. What they do is get a list of houses that don't have TV licenses and stand outside to see if they can see a blue light indicating a TV is being watched. They tried bugging my parents about a TV license and threatened them several times and sent threatening letters. We didn't have a TV nor even any blue lights. It is possible to detect what's shown on a cathode ray tube screen from the street but that technology was only developed about 30 years ago, just before LED TVs took over. I find it truly amazing that anybody even bothers with broadcast TV any more. I get my entertainment from watching RUclips videos. I'd much rather a shaky, blurry video by somebody who's showing something they do with all the passion they have for it than some fakery done by professionals.
To prosecute they need to prove that a particular person was watching live TV / iPlayer. Proving that a TV is on does not prove that that particular person was watching it, it might have been someone else or no one at all if the room was empty. Remember it is the individual who watches without a licence that commits the offence, not the householder.
' technology was only developed about 30 years ago ' the governments were aware of this this far far earlier than people realise thats why government buildings were protected against this but we the people were kept in the dark, it became general knowledge during the era of CRT computer screens which were the only game in town
They're not using the CRT viewing technology. They're looking for the local oscillator in the tuner, which is present even in digital TVs. They might not know the subchannel, but they can tell which carrier channel this way. However, it's not proof of a TV, just proof of that particular frequency in an electronic device.
@@512Colorado the demonstration I saw in the 90’s showed them (not the BBC) using the radiation from the CRT to reproduce the image on a dumb terminal. The line output transformer puts out around 20,000 volts, which creates plenty of radiation. I can’t imagine any circuit in a low powered modern TV producing anything like that amount of radiation.
I've lived in England all my life. 52 years. In cities, towns and villages, north and south, and travelled around the UK a fair bit. I have *never* seen any of these vans in real life. I'd at least expect to have seen them a handful of times. They are obviously lying. If they are happy to lie about that, what else are they lying about? I'm sorry, I can't believe anything the BBC says anymore.
The other things they're lying about - these days at least - is that they produce anything worth watching, or that their management is worth a fraction of what they pay themselves.
I have. In the 1980s. They used to park these vans up, or at least a transit with a sign on it. They would combine this with a local ad campaign. The idea being to frighten people into buying a licence. There was no equipment in the vans. As stated, they knew who did not have a licence and would speculatively visit properties. This would all be followed by a PR campaign detailing all the people caught and the fines they received. A conviction and gaoling, for not paying the fines, would also be trumpeted as a win. Now Crapita just visit non payers and try to frighten them into paying. People who wilfully annoy them also get a visit. I have not seen a van since the 1990s and that was in London.
Their Authoritarian, threatening tactics should be criminal. It is like being stalked if the vans are real and if not then they are just playground bullies. Disgusting!
@@dylanmurphy9389 No. I'd be a resident there. It would make no sense to beg to stay where I lived. Besides, that's irrelevant. The unacceptable behavior of a company within a nation doesn't define the nation. Are you really suggesting that we should just let institutions act however they like in our society?
@@Pooknottin I didn’t say you’d beg to stay where you lived, I said you’d beg to come back home and we are lucky to live in Uk, stop acting like an oppressed victim. It’s not what WE do
Having worked as a TV field service engineer in the seventies, I can tell you it was certainly not possible to detect a TV, even more ludicrous is them saying which channel was being watched. It was not possible to detect a TV then, and never has been.
@@andycleary6209 that's because there are a lot of sex offenders in the world ,and saville had senior Yorkshire police officers round for weakly tea parties,the BBC never actually had any evidence against him both Yorkshire police and the news of the world did and chose.not to do anything,so who is more guilty
@@jake6112 what if you never watch BBC and yet if you want to watch live ‘as it’s being broadcast’ ITV you’re still expected to buy a TV Licence. Absolutely insane rubbish rule
Leave the Lounge empty, and live in the back of the house or flat. What will they see then. Better still, fit wooden shutters inside, and they 'won't c nuffink'.
No one should pay, I've not for decades now. Just ignore their warnings. We've got to stand together and end this legal theft. Laws can change but only via public outrage and direct action.
Someone near us (Chichester) has just been fined £300+ by single justice procedure for not paying their tv licence. It seems they are starting to take people to court now.
Whether or not these vans are real or do what they say they do, there's a good reason why evidence from "detector vans" has NEVER been used to prosecute anyone in a court of law. In order to use any electronic equipment to prosecute someone, the defence is entitled to examine the equipment to ensure it is working properly. The equipment is "top secret", the BBC said. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 If they can't reveal how it works it can't be used as evidence. 👍
To be honest, if they could indeed do this, it would be a massive infringement on personal data tracking and actually knowing what you are physically watching is ludicrous
your tv provider and internet provider both know exactly what you watch and the times you watch it. your network provider for your phone also know your exact location and all the contents of your calls and texts. its 2023 mate privacy is a joke, and you act supprised? im sure your parents wouldn't want you watching this.
Radio receivers, to include TVs, generate a frequency slightly offset from the frequency that they are receiving to "tune in" the desired signal. Some of this frequency can (will) leak back out of the antenna and can be picked up by sensitive equipment. If Colombo is on channel 9 at 8pm, and the van drives by and picks up the TV's frequency as the offset for channel 9 and it's 8:10pm, they do indeed know you're watching Colombo. A simple preamplifier between the TV and antenna can block this leakage from coming out through the antenna, BTW...
My late mother was terrified of them. For years I told her to stop paying but she was utterly convinced they'd come with the vans and the courts and slap her with a criminal record! Nothing more than a racket.
Most of the Live TV is trash these days as well and to be fair most of the new stuff on Netflix too lol Probably why I watch a lot of the old stuff again I have not seen in years recently.
@@MikeEveswe have just been informed that they know we watched a few programs on I player it's literally a couple of programmes now they are on our case
In the late eighties, a friend of mine who was a former Police officer went to work on the TV detector vans. He was mind blown when he found out it was all fake and empty boxes with dials that did nothing. Their job was to knock on the doors of addresses that did not have a license, simple as that.
@@g0fvt Back when there was a single channel, and most homes were single floor houses, and televisions were really rudimentary, they worked, but nowadays when the average building is 4 story and most people use LCD, it's nigh impossible
@@AdrianOkay I am not disputing any of that, although there were devices developed to locate television receivers in the likes of tower blocks. Effectively directional microphones "listening" for the 15625Hz line oscillator. The detector vans of course worked by detecting local oscillator radiation and there were commonly just 3 channels active at the time.
My brother is a windscreen fitter he fitted a screen in one of these vans many years ago now and all that is in the back is a chair for the driver to go round and sit in when they pull up in your street.
Exactly. I've never even seen a van. But it wouldn't surprise me if at one time they had a fleet of propaganda vans, which they paid people to drive around in, park up, sit there, and basically just put fear into people. I imagine they sent them out into areas with low payment rates before they employed Crapita goons as bully boys. When you think about it, it's classic BBC. Very Orwellian. They are what they accuse us of being.
About ten years ago, a Ford Transit "TV detector van" was parked-up in the town where I was living at the time. They'd parked it outside the shops. Probably in an attempt to intimidate the locals into buying a licence. There was no-one on board. So me & my friend at the time decided to take a peek inside. We opened the rear doors, only to be confronted with an empty van. All it contained was a hand crank in the van ceiling to turn the "radar antenna" on the roof.
Back in early 80's, me and a school mate was hanging around on our bikes just chatting away, when one of them pulled up just at the side of us. A bloke in the drivers seat then rolled down the window, called us over and asked us if there where any public toilets nearby. We told him there was one just around the corner about 50 yards away, on a neighbouring street, right next to the park. He wound up the window and a few seconds later, the side door of the van opened up and an out stepped another bloke. He asked which way they where, which we then pointed it out to him. He said "Thanks lads" and hurriedly set off in a half jog in that direction, (obviously in desperate need). However when he did, he had inadvertently left the side door of the van half opened (he was in so much of a hurry). Once he had vanished around the corner, we both inquisitively but casually peered inside the van and likewise surprisingly saw a very similar thing. Which was mostly a empty van with just a few boxes and some brick n' brack on the floor, along with a fitted swivel seat (bolted to the floor) and a small table, which had a thermos flask and newspaper on it. No "TARDIS" looking electronic equipment, No blinking lights, No super computer.... No nothing!! I guess the guy inside the back of the van had nothing else to do all day, but too sit down, read the newspaper & chat with the driver while drinking tea. Hence, is probably why he desperately needed the toilet, so much. The vans where all just a massive hoax. Well at least some of the vans where, like the one that we saw inside. BTW, I didn't see any crank handle, just a large 5 foot round and 6-8 inch deep metal disk on the ceiling, straight below the radar dish. It probably was just motorised and made to randomly rotate at the flick of a switch, from inside the vans cabin.
I believe you. But I don't understand why they needed a man in the back if the "radar dish" was being controlled from the front seat? Unless part of the scam was to send out an "operative" to be seen asking local kids the way to the public toilets. "There's a bloke in the back, he must be doing something technical in there".
@jayawilder3835 The "radar dish" was in the roof in the middle of the Transit van. At the same point where you sometimes see ventilation fans on vans used to transport food or livestock. It needed someone in the back to turn the hand crank which was affixed to it.
Thanks to you John, I have absolutely no fear of the licence goons coming to my door. Many years ago, I was taken to Court and received a fine (which I never paid) but the stress of that situation had me paying the bully tax. Opted out 3 years ago and now they are on my case again with their threats through letters and sending the goons again. I honestly don't give a toss and it feels so powerful that they don't have that hold over me.
@@Uncle-Albert I didn't attend Court or submit any paperwork to plead my case. I was so scared of their tactics back then, I literally bought a licence as soon as I could afford it and prayed Warrant Officers wouldn't come to my door for the fine and Court fees, they never did. I honestly considered that a result. Now, I know better but back then, I was a mess everytime my door would knock unexpectedly until I bought that licence.
@@queeniepatra7418 You were summoned not taken. So you didn't attend? If you were fined? You would of got it in writing. Find what you're saying very hard to believe?
@@cplcabs Nope, you can detect a transmission being sent but the only way they will know you have been watching illegally is if you invite the inspectors into your home, switch on the telly and admit to being guilty - silly fools!
Many moons ago, I used to service these vans, Commer PBs etc and can confirm that only one out of nine in our district had any form of gadgetry on board. A simple oscilloscope, instant photos' were taken of any trace but this obviously could not be linked to any one piece of receiving equipment. It was used by the door knockers to scare people into obtaining a licence. Another tactic was to park near schools during the afternoon so the word would spread that the vans were in the area, feedback from PO counters would normally show a huge spike in takings on those days.... there was no kit in those vans, they were just decoys. Most information came from TVL, Bristol for properties not showing a current licence so they in turn were targeted. There were also a fleet of unmarked, small vans that simply drove around in the evenings looking for the distinctive glow from a TV set. Random checks were made via TVL, any addresses that didn't show as being up to date were subsequently visited. Pure chance and scaremongering was the order of the day!
They may have had the ability to get a general direction back then from the output of the cathode ray screen. But no way could they pinpoint the location. Now with the modern TV I believe there is no "return signature" and no way or determining if a TV is switched on. The Biased Broadcasting Corporation is just scaremongering again. 😂
I guess it is entirely possible to point a device at a house and see if any appliances are powered and in use and probably in some similar way that the likes of wifi signal strength can be determined etc but I know very little about any of this to say with absolute certainty. Would it even be possible to determine what is a TV considering they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, makes and models and an entire spectrum of power consumption and how do you determine those from other sources of similar power consumption with any form of reliability. I doubt they can determine it easily or that they even have devices or men in vans doing this anyway given none of the salesmen have been seen doing this heh
@@Nodster CRT sets were used for home computing too, so if you had a home computer in those days you had an alibi. Keep you curtains closed, and don't answer your door to strange people holding clipboards.
Back then, technology was a lot better and more sophisticated than it is today. We were able to send people to the moon and talk to them on a landline. We can't do that now lol 😂
Not sure we even landed in the moon, they can’t even do it today with 21st century engineering, supercomputers and AI. How convenient the tapes with the trajectory data apparently got recorded over.
idk why i was recommended this channel but thanks for all the work you do to educate people on how bad the license is. My 73 year old dad had bother being harrased with threatening letters about court. Guy reads a newspaper and watches content not funded in the UK like RUclips & Netflix. I remember getting these letters at my studio i set up at a new address. 4 years i was waiting for these "inspectors" to come chapping but they never did, I feel it prays on older people a lot more. Old man was paying for it right up to his retirement out of fear, (dude worked 18h shifts, think he watched much bbc?) all while being taxed so hard about a quarter of his earnings as a crane operator went to the gov. Man's living as a widow on 1K a month now. It's sad. Gotta look out for him now. Keep doing you and hope you hit 10K soon.
It is actually extortion with menaces ! If we go along with it, then we have to concede to the reality that we have to Pay the BBC £165.00. a year to watch ITV ??? Not to mention Sky, who are already ripping billions of people off worldwide !
As far as I can remember (having been in the Royal Signals) you can detect a transmitter but not a receiver. A TV is not a transmitter, it is a receiver
Radio receivers have a radio frequency generator inside called the local oscillator. This generates a low level radio signal that is used to select the signal frequency being received. The local oscillator signal could be detected externally and its frequency would indicate the channel it was tuned to.
Was told recently by a friend who worked on radar for the RAF… they had asked the bbc for details of their detection techniques as it supposedly was better than what the RAF were using. Their request was denied as the bbc classed it as a state secret ???
does your telly have an internet connection, or any other device in the vicinity? they just log connections to the server. its not like back in the day with radio waves, every single thing you do leaves an fully traceable footprint.
@@timg1246 BBC Iplayer and every other app that has some form of Live TV like ITV X etc etc Going to make a few assumptions given they pay to broadcast as well and have "strict" guidelines to adhere too so I will assume that somewhere in that operations agreement will say something to the effect of "you must pass on relevant information about people watching your live service and from which IP address for TV Licensing purposes" bla bla bla And with one quick search on ITV X terms of use there is the following: "we’ll track the content you’ve watched so that we can pay companies who have licensed us the rights to show you those programmes and so we can report aggregate usage for internal or external reporting purposes (for example, to broadcast or financial regulators or other bodies)" OR "share information with our service providers and suppliers to enable us to provide our services" OR "share information (technical and IDs) with our partners to provide our services on other platforms (such set-top boxes, connected TVs, streaming services)" So I guess they can do that legally with passing on the information. At least the onus is still on them to prove you was watching live TV and not a catch up service on all these apps built into smart TV's (Except BBC Iplayer obviously) I guess they can have that information as it is pretty useless to TV License anyway as they can not prove you are watching Live TV when you do not any way.
One of my friends drove one. Used to pop in and see me if he was passing. Always got the neighbours curtains twitching. They worked by detecting the local oscillator in the receiver, which was possible with old analogue TVs. The local oscillator in a superhet receiver changes with the frequency you are receiving. If you can pick up that signal you can add the intermediate frequency and work out what channel they are watching. So yes, they worked BUT they weren't used often. They only visited people who didn't have licences. The van was a deterrent really, but the technology was all there too.
Hi you may come back somehow. I was told some of the local oscillator signal was radiated back up and out of the antenna. I did get invited into one of the detector vans and they only had a spectrum analyzer. The analyzer calibrated screen displayed radio frequencies that the airwaves are saturated with but peaked on individual channel frequencies. We were nowhere near any housing so their analyzer would have still only shown that the spectrum was still saturated by the same signals and not one individual signal. I could be wrong???
The IF of an analogue TV is 38 MHz, and is 5 MHz wide. The newer transistorised TV didn't use much power in the local oscillator, and that was sealed inside one of the two tuners - the VHF and the UHF, and the tuner was a totally enclosed metal box. When TV become transistorised, and then colour TV, the only signal freely irradiated were the even harmonics (sawtooth has no odd harmonics) irradiated from horizontal deflection yoke, but the range was minimal, fifteen meters or less. With LCD smart TVs, there is no radiated signal except the 2.4 GHz of the Wi-Fi; that signal is encrypted though, so they can't do packet inspection as determine if it is a TV signal, a podcast, a web browser, etc...
The problem is that the mere fact an oscilloscope can detect 'a signal' would bear no weight if used in court for prosecution purposes, or in proving that Mr Jones was watching Dr Who at 7pm in the study, on his Bush TV22. It'd sound like the worst game of Cluedo ever, and probably be laughed out of court. The technology was not reliable or good enough, hence there's not been a single prosecution made using a TV detector van since their arrival in 1952.
Oh yeah? If they can "detect" me, then they will know i dont watch live tv then. So why were they banging on my door last week? What a load of cobblers.
of course they "detected" you, the database shows no license at your address so you are automatically guilty of watching "Live TV" regardless of not actually watching it. I have watched older TV Licensing adverts and the abundantly clear message in all of them is that if you own a TV and do not have a TV License then you are committing a criminal offence. The difference these days is they mention the TV License website for terms of service and buried deep in that is the actual facts of the requirement of the License If you need one or not. This is how Newspapers have got away with a similar thing for decades as they can pretty much obscure the truth in the headline and/or most of the article but as long as the actual truth is in that article they are not actually lying. Most people will either read just the headline and make assumptions based of that or read the first few paragraphs before moving on and generally the actual facts are usually in the last couple of paragraphs. Although these days some reporters do just straight up lie and miss-inform and seemingly never have any consequences for it so I guess that is a thing too 🤷
@@Nodster Oh believe me i know. Ive had the same repeat letters for 9 years. And the odd visit, where they get told to bugger off. Probably on my 25th "investigation". Its all a load of crap at the end of the day.
I remember when my Dad got a coloured t v in the mid 1970s and he complained all the time of the price of the licence, and he used to say i will watch what i want as i pay the licence 😂
I used to service TV sets, valve sets and transistor sets with CRTs and I would say it is possible to detect these sets, they are very high voltage devices, they radiate quite strong RF radiation from the CRT electrodes and associated drive circuitry, this radiated RF frequency contains all the picture information so if you had equipment sensitive enough at a close enough range you could potentially pick this up and know what was being displayed and you could probably get a rough idea of the source location as you can with any RF transmission source however that would be quite a feat. I read somewhere many years ago that they did have some such real vans but a very small number, most were as you said just empty vans, the thing is it works either way as once people believe it they let them in or admit it rather than go to court, it's 99% bluffing. However since the demise of CRT sets my view is that there is absolutely no way they can detect anything as there are no scan coils, no high voltages and no detectable RF radiation, especially as digital TVs no longer have any coils or transformers like the intermediate frequency ones in old receivers, it's all purely semiconductors now. As for the last video, I think it's fake, firstly they show you the same picture, a single spike on a scope before they get to mention going to find a TV later, secondly this is not any kind of waveform you would see if you did pick up a radiated signal from the set, this is just a single frame of a pulse. It's worth noting also that to power this kind of equipment in the days of valve sets or CRT scopes would require a lot of power and I'm not sure it could be viable in a van, most of those shots don't actually show you anything in the van so could be in a studio.
I think the vans tried to detect the local oscillator signal using a frequency analyser. Thus the display shows an rf signal as a peak, as in the video. The exact frequency of this peak would indicate the channel being watched. Not sure that this would work on modern tv's .
@@romanroad483 That's a very low power signal even in valve sets, I doubt you could detect it more than a few inches away from the set. It would be impossible on a digital set without poking a probe onto the PCB.
@@altvamp Agreed, it's very low power but if detectable it would give the channel the tv is tuned to, and on a frequency analyser would give a waveform similar to the video. Detecting the scan coils would give no picture or channel information, apart from 405 or 625 lines. The scan coils are just energised by a sawtooth waveform whatever channel is being watched.
@@romanroad483 Yes correct, my mistake, it's only on the CRT electrodes, The video drive is around 50 - 150 volts depending on the CRT type and size. I've edited my previous comment so hopefully it's accurate now, thanks for pointing that out, I think I wrote it to quickly not thinking first!
Agree. The missing part of your explanation is that those antennae on the van roof were directional and rotateable, so the location of the TV could be pinpointred using triangulation. It's not a matter of needing to 'believe' in whether these vans were real or not. Those old vans were real, I have seen them with my own eyes when I was younger, and they did work. No clue what the modern equivalent is now in these times of flat screens though.
It certainly IS and WAS possible. I used to use it. I don't think the BBC had it in vans though. I believe it was called "tempest". All military equipment had to be tempest proof as monitor's gave of a radio wave type image that can be intercepted and viewed. You had to be very close to get it through the air though but that may have improved in the 30 years since I played with it.
I've seen a supposed detector van. It's just a empty transit with TV Licensing stickers on the side. They position them in busy car parks in an attempt to intimidate the public into paying.
I remember seeing this at the time, and the British Army came out and debunked it, saying why would the BBC have superior technology to what the British Army had at the time
I was always under the impression that you need to triangulate a signal to determine which direction is coming, which also means you need three vans and not one, but you also need to be sending not receiving
The thing is, when we had just three channels, this was so easy for anybody to actually do - people had all sorts of shortwave radios that TV receivers interfered with. If your neighbour had a TV set - none were screened properly, and the local oscillator produced a very low power output which - importantly - changed frequency as your TV set changed channel. The analyser I now have, if taken back to the 67s and 70s would make telling what channel was being watched so easy. Back then the analysers were hardly different from what they had in the war. They did however show loads of spikes in the display - like the dirt cheap SDR radio dongles you can now get for computers. Swing the antenna and you could see the direction. So armed with a newspaper with the TV details in it, and knowledge that showed the order of the TV channels, going up in frequency - you knew what they were tuned to. The Columbo bit comes from the paper! It fell apart when we invented Betamax and VHS and of course, TV games - which all needed your TV to be tuned to them, not the antenna. This meant instead of 3 spikes on the display, with channel 4, a TV game and a video, there were far more spikes - and once housing contained multiple TVs and gadgets, the accuracy bottomed out. The TV detector vans simply got overwhealmed with signals and all you could say for certain was that there were TV sets somewhere. Even worse, the manufacturers were getting better at filtering out these escaping signals. In the end, the skilled engineer was replaced with an empty seat, and a list of houses that didn't have a licence. The actual kit inside was very similar to the equipment used to hunt for spies, with illegal transmitters, and later on pirate radio. The science is solid, but of course doesn't work now because digital TV is so different. RUclips and real BBC1 can't be isolated any more - but back then, it could, and quite easily. Nowadays, every house is full of the little black power supplies for all our electronics, and these make so much interference, the old system would be useless. So at the time, the evidence of date, time and frequency was solid evidence for prosecution. Now - we're way past that technology.
@@gerrywoody4301 nearly. Local oscillator output is very low output, but remember that the general band noise was very low, and certainly 8” is a vast understatement. It’s a line of sight path, with little absorption. MicroWatts can go surprisingly far. The Peter Wright spycatcher book detailed the technology of the period and the science is solid. When I first started work with a tv and radio company, the service department full of TV sets was easily detected on the radios we had in for service. I can certainly remember TV detector vans, the ones around this part of the country were I think, Commers. They were never local, but most people in the 60s and 70s remember them.
@@pauljohnson4590 thank you for the education i did teach pure electronics and antenna propogation at uni level for over 30 yrs can you now give me the gist on the tooth fairy. Ps line of sight works altitude as well as azimuth so the van would need to be at roof level in perfect alignment with your yagi i still dont know what your looking for from a recieving aerial thet may or may not be getting some back emf from a leaky tube 8 inch is an overestimate for even tens of microwatts in the uhf i.f. range plus its not modulated with any information let alone Columbo in the living room. I do remember in the 70s going in one of the vans and seeing a pile of gear that the techs at the studio must have discarded as obsolete set up with a nice sine wave to impress the the people Paul your first comment gave a very good description of how using superhetrodyne emissions we traced transmitters If we could have traced recievers we could locate ships at sea without putting all those satelites up there or waiting for them to send something. All broadcast signals are recieved by all metal objects conected to ground so no 1960 technology was not up to the task and even today it would probably not be cost effective if big tech did develop a usable system
i remember back in the 80's when you bought or hired a tv from a reputable store you had to show you had a tv licence before they would deliver your tv, buying second hand was the only way around it, also you needed the tv licence as watching tv was pretty much the only thing you could do with a tv back then, yes you could watch vhs but that was a family night thing and not many people had computers, there was no internet in the 80s
I heard years back the vans were first brought in before TV existing. They were to stop early radios from putting out interference on the radio frequencies. The army did ask the beeb for the technology once but the beeb had to tell them they could not give it as it did not exist.
It's theoretically possible for the older style CRT monitors or TV screens. These had high voltage circuits that scanned across the screen to make a picture. This produced a noise signal at that frequency so you'd often here a high pitched buzz when switching on an old fashioned TV. This radio noise is in what is known as the Very Low Frequency band so the wavelength is quite large (km) so you need large antenna coupled to an amplifier to pick up the signal. So in theory a detector van could get a directional signal giving a bearing to a TV and if you had multiple bearings you could triangulate on a TV. But in the old days with a CRT in every TV in every home there'd be so many signals you could never find a random unlicensed TV. About the only way it would work is using the equipment to provide evidence of TV watching at an unlicensed home. With modern technologies there is no way that using RF direction finding to identify TV watching. Unless there is a back door in Freeview receivers they could exploit.
Definitely possible with todays TVs...TVs still emit RF and that can be detected. You can even do it using an SDR dongle...but obviously it won't be as good as using professional kit.
Old TVs didn't have any RF screening. They were in wooden boxes with hardboard backs. They would spew out loads of RF noise from their line oscialltors, local oscillators, IF and video amplifiers. I remember trying to listen to "top band" on a de-tuned radio with a wire stuck on it. As soon as people started waking up and switching on their TVs it was game over due to all the RF noise. VCRs were even worse. These days TVs will be designed not to radiate any RF interference and the little interference they do radiate won't really be distinquishable from all the PCs, chargers and other equipment that will drown it out.
I think the old detector vans worked by detecting the electron beam harmonics caused by a cathode ray tube, which is what all TVs had in the old days. Most TVs these days use LCD panels with much less radio frequency output, and even if they could detect them I don't think they could tell the difference between watching DVDs, playing computer games, watching downloaded media, working on a PC or watching live TV broadcasts.
At most, what I heard often around 20 years ago is they can pick up a frequency but not what it is or where its coming from so point it at a house they can't tell which room, even distance away it is just theres a signal from that general area, the frequency they picked up wasn't in depth like knowing which channel you were allegedy watching or which room.
I'm not an electrical wizard, but I do understand the concepts of things. A TV is a receiver, not a transmitter if it doesn't transmit, what what is there to detect? The old crt tvs were even shielded internally because of the crt. I'd love to know how they can't detect tv nowadays that doest even require broadcast signal. Tv licence my arse, don't need a licence to buy one should call it a bbc subscription.
If the detector vans were real they would know that I haven't received broadcast TV for over 20 years and could stop sending me those *** annoying letters. We all know this is about rejection. The mere suggestion that people are living happy, fulfilled lives without them sends the Beeb into total denial and for their own sense of self worth they have to convince themselves we' obviously MUST be lying.
The post office was responsible for collecting the TV licence fee, and they were the former BT with considerable research facilities available. There was a section who ran these vans. They were not like traffic wardens posted on every corner. But they did exist and occassionally one would see them passing. I remember as a kid seeing them once or twice. The old CRT television had a horizontal & vertical deflection coil on the CRT. They were large coils fed with specific frequencies. In addition the CRT used 1000's of volts to energise it, and this was generated from mains voltage via LOPT transformer I believe running at about 15kHz. All this electrical noise could be detected over moderate distance. At least from a living room to the road. I believe the detector van aerials were tuned to the TV line frequencies, typically 15kHz. The aerials could rotate on the roof of the van to align with the noise source, and effectively point to the TV/house. I remember in the 90's when CRT's were used for computer monitors. There were concerns it was possible to spy on what was being displayed on the computer screen by receiving the stray signals. This was claimed to be done using a reciever sensitive enough to detect the line frequencies and the stray fields from the electrons hitting the screen. Again short distance line of sight, with a very directional aerial. This could be fed into an oscilloscope, with some electronics to simulate the beam intensity & deflection to crudely display the received signal. From this a crude picture could be displayed on the reciving screen duplicating the computer monitor image, just enought to make out what was being watched. So with such a sensitive setup if one recognised the received image it would be possible to work out the channel. Remember in those days there were only two to four channels possible. Today with digital TV's the EMI is very reduced and controlled by legislation. The frequencies are very much higher and much smaller. So I doubt it is possible to do the equivelent detection, and mostly they would use the fact they had no TV registered for a particular address and assumption everyone had a TV. Assuming they could now detect a digital screen, they would not know if its a TV, computer or watching legal streamed content until they were invited in, saw through the window or were told. So I would say detection today is less easy, though possibly not impossible. As the digital screen could emit some low level frequencies specific to the display, though much more difficult to detect. So they certainly were real, but not so sure, posibly not possible today because the technology has advanced greatly. I should say it was never as good as advertised like most things on TV adverts, it was after all intended to frighten the viewer. Mostly women, one parent families. In the early 2000's they were mostly in the prison population for TV licensing.
I'm guessing a lot of the comments are coming from the younger generations who never had to suffer listening to AM radio in the evenings with the I.F. howls & flyback buzzes once the nearby TV's were turned on 😀
I think the vans tried to detect the local oscillator signal, in the receiver, using a frequency analyser. Thus the display shows this rf signal as a peak, as in the video. The exact frequency of this peak would indicate the channel being watched. Not sure that this would work on modern tv's .
I don't know whether TV detector vans actually existed or not but I do know they are technically feasible, particularly in the CRT days. The method has been used by the intelligence services for decades and is known as TEMPEST (Telecommunications Electronics Material Protected from Emanating Spurious Transmissions). It is also possible to correlate the flickers on a curtain or the wobbles on a window with broadcast TV to deduce if a TV is on in a given room. However I'm not sure whether any of that would do the BBC any good as to prosecute they have to have evidence that a particular person was actually watching the live TV. It might be for example that the person was out that time and someone else was watching the TV. Nothing a detector van could detect would provide evidence that a particular individual was watching the TV. The only way the BBC can prosecute is by a confession.
But the technology to do that didn't exist back then. It does now, but there are too many more channels to correlate with, and because it is digital, you have delays due to the fact you have to buffer the frames and decode them which will vary depending on your hardware, and a different amount of transmission latency depending on where you get the feed from (Freeview, Freesat, Sky, Cable, various internet apps and websites). Remember that an iPhone 6 (not exactly the fastest computer out there) is equivalent in processing power to 200 Cray Supercomputers and that is not something you could have put in the back of a van.
If a private business ran itself through intimidation and deception like the BBC, the directors would go to jail. Subscription model is the way, they are cowards. Great channel, best wishes.
It makes sense that the detector van has never been used as a prosecution tool. If it ever worked, it would only be used to perhaps apply for a warrant or obtain a doorstep confession. No one would ever get fined on the basis of such secretive technology. I am referring to how it used to work with CRT, i have not even contemplated if or how it could work detecting non-crt equipment.
Yes the BBC have said this, that the vans have only been used to get a warrant when questioned about the vans never being used as evidence for conviction. But what I would like to know, out of all the fines that are issued each year, how many are actually from evidence found during a warrant search compared to someone confessing?
@@DarrellThompson47 They only issue a handful of warrants each year, about 150, but there are more than 100,000 prosecutions each year. It sounds like most people just admit to the offence on the doorstep. So prosecutions from evidence obtained with a warrant is only going to be a tiny amount (around 0.1% of total prosecutions) but I have no idea how they can prove you watch live TV, unless they just poke around until you admit it. It’s not something I plan on testing, I am playing with a straight bat.
@gmo4250 thanks. So if they did use detector vans for all of those warrant convictions, the money they would make from it just isn't worth the expensive of having the vans and the staff to run them. That's tells us the likely hood of such things existing is very small.
@@DarrellThompson47 It's likely that they would get doorstep confessions from the detector vans as well. Not saying definitely, but it seems likely. Also, they had the scary deterrent factor. To be honest, I have never seen one on the road, so they can't have many of them.
@gmo4250 if that were the case people would of seen the vans ( modern ones not the from 50 years ago ), or maybe people think if the goons turn up in a vehicle with "detection unit" written on the side, that this is a vehicle with detection equipment inside? If people give in that easily, then why would they even need a genuine detector van, just cars with signs on?
I used to know an old guy who drove a tv detector van many years ago, and they would park it in a housing estate and get in the back and rotate the antenna on the roof, then play cards as there was nothing else in the van, just every now and again gave the antenna a turn, people would rush down to the post office and buy a licence, after an hour or so they would move on to another estate :)
In the early days it should have been possible to detect the EMF radiation from the line output transformer (LOPT) which is driven at a frequency of 15625Hz (15.625Khz) - you could often hear them oscillating at a sub harmonic 7.8Khz (a high pitched squeal) and these would radiate into nearby AM radios at a higher harmonic. In theory a correctly designed antenna (probably a giant ferrite rod / coil / tuned circuit) should be able to detect it but only at closer ranges. But now that CRT TV's are gone this is not possible
That wasn't strictly true,back in the day.There was an Intermediate Frequency detectable in the CRT and this was apparently different depending on the channel being watched.
@@nickerrison-davey9099 That IF would more than likely be impossible to detect due the the radiation of the scanning frequency on the CRT. The CRT horizontal scanning frequency was a relatively constant 15KHz. It is unlikely that any IF would be radiated via the CRT.
I remember something about 25 years ago that exposed them… they were genuinely catching people out but they basically had a handheld TV (with just audio) and put a microphone through the letterbox and skipped were listening for the audio to sync up to their handheld.
Years ago I was chatting to a little old bloke who it turned out had spent many years as a TV repairman. After talking about the stories of being swamped with bored housewives, I asked him if he knew how the TV detector vans worked, and he said that the original (A sideboard full of valves type) TV's were so "electrically dirty" that it would have been possible to detect them with directional aerials purely from the RF interference they spewed out. Apparently, they had some kind of oscillator circuit in them for tuning in the channel, and it was most likely this that the vans looked for as it would be within a certain frequency range, plus, the vacuum tube/tubes used to generate that weren't used in anything else at that time. He went on to say that when TV's were all transistorised, this problem was pretty much gone. We also had regulations come in during (IIRC) the 70's that seriously limited how much unwanted RF interference an electrical device was allowed to produce (He seemed quite annoyed by this, because rather than taking out a panel and having the TV's guts right in front of you, he suddenly had to dismantle half the TV just to remove the mass of tin plate RF shielding so he could get to what needed testing/fixing). He finished by pointing out that he wasn't saying that the detector vans WERE fake, it's just that he's not seen anything inside a TV that COULD give out enough RF for them to pick up in many years. Mind you, all his information was from well before "Smart TV's" became a thing, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of those will be setup to nark out the user via the internet if they ever plug an aerial into them or accidentally open the already preinstalled (And unremovable) copy of iPlayer.
All t.v.'s at that time had a timebase signal which was very strong causing noise on the 160m and 80m amateur bands. If we picked it up, why not a detector van? G4GHB
Theoretically yes. The old CRT tellies gave off a massive field which could affect, for example, AM radio reception all over the house. And, if the oscillator in the TV gave off a strong field, it would be possible to detect from outside what channel you were watching by detecting that signal and doing some simple maths, based on the intermediate frequency, which was standardised for all receivers.
Could you imagine if they could detect not only a powered screen, but also what digital channel you are watching. Anything that has a screen, would show up, PC’s laptop, iPads, phones, smart home devices, even watches. Simple answer is, unless they actually catch you watching a bbc broadcasted program, they can’t prove you broke the law.
They wouldn't be able to tell which room, no, but with old analog sets they will known what channel you are watching, yes. What they do is essentially the same thing they use to get people using radar detectors. They listen for the leakage of the local oscillator in the TV set. It is a very weak signal, but it is there. It will leak out and be transmitted by the antenna. To pinpoint where it is coming from is sort of easy, but it also sort of isn't. Easiest way is to get near where it is strongest, grab a portable detector with a directional antenna like a logper or yagi, get out and sweep left to right. Go in the direction the signal is strongest. Even then it might be hard to tell between two houses. Even harder for apartments.
I remember a tv license person arresting me on my doorstep 😂😂😂😂 as I was laughing in his face , I was walking off after I gave him a different name. Constantly being told I’m under arrest 😢😢😢😂😂😂
They sent one of these tv detector vans to sit outside my house after i officially removed their implied right of access about 10 years ago in order to permanently stop threatening letters and goons from harassing me. Their objective was no doubt to scare me and my neighbours but it didnt work, i chased the van off my estate by asking the driver questions about the van, was pretty fun tbh, wished i had recorded my interaction for the internet.
They used to be able to detect the local oscillator coming from the tuner. It was always 38.9 MHz above whatever channel frequency the TV was tuned to. That way they could tell which channel you were watching.
try this experiment, get 2 FM radios, tune one of them to somewhere in the middle of the range on a radio station slowly tune the other through the range while being in close proximity to the first one At some point the radio station will disappear (if it doesn't try a different station) think of the first radio as being the detector van They are picking up the signal as it goes through the TV in the intermediate frequency stages As far as digital is concerned, there was a guy with a trolley full of equipment that could read what the screen was displaying, basically a receiver, a bit of electronic decoding and a laptop. he did it as a security demonstration.
It is certainly possible to not only detect the use of a TV or PC or Laptop but to see exactly what is being displayed on it. In the world of military and industrial espionage it is common. There's a whole secretive branch of engineering known as Tempest, dedicated to preventing it. It's done by detecting the emissions from the circuits driving the display itself, so it sees what you see and hear. But I don't for one minute think that the BBC or anyone else is using this expensive technology to find people who are watching TV without a license.
The hand held detector was used in blocks of flats. As you say they were only interested in unlicensed properties. They showed it at the RSGB Annual Radio Rally at the Wigmore Hall venue in 1965 or 1966. I wasn't sure if the BBC was actually the ones being taken in by the purveyor of the kit. There were less signals about back then.
I've commentated on this before on your channel, I'm an ex army signaller and all that is total bollocks. If you could detect someone receiving any signal then my job in the army would be redundant as they would of bombed me countless times and I would of been dead years ago. Also, my brother worked for TV licensing and he told me all about those vans. THEY NEVER WORKED AS ADVERTISED, the stuff inside was all fake with buttons flashing lights and a screen doing that thing with the bar. The vans were only used to transport the goons to the location they were targeting and only that, they just used computer printouts of licensences that were expired in the last 12 months, those that were cancelled in the last 12 months, those that had been prosecuted in the last 12 months, and at that time when your details were given to them when you bought a new telly from the shops the shop had to tell tv licensing.
In the OLD analog and CRT days it used to be possible, its called Van Eck phreaking. The issue was that CRT tubes also radiated EM signals that can be detected. Fine tune an antenna, slap it on a gimble, and lower the gain you can pin point where in a building those EM signals were coming from, Increase the gain and add the synchronization pulses of the old analog TV transmissions and you can recover that is actually being watched. The NSA were also using similar methods to recover images displayed on analog CRT computer monitors. LCD panels are also vulnerable electromagnetic eavesdropping however modern rules on how much EM a device can radiate (to prevent them from effecting other devices) called for more shielding in devices which makes its very hard to preform today. Now, would the BBC go though all this hassle to do it? Who knows esp when its cheaper to scare people than it was to outfit vans and train the staff to do it, but was it possible? Yup!
Detector vans certainly did exist in the past, I worked for the Home Office department that developed them, I have seen prototypes of the equipment and the logs of the fleet of vans. The Commers used at one time as detector vans had very short working lives, and suffered a lot of problems with both the equipment, the antenna bearings as well as structural rust eating the vehicles up. Contrary to some of the incorrect assertions in the comments TVs of the time did radiate radio frequency signals. I believe later TV detector vans may have been decoys, getting most of the results for a fraction of the cost. Ironically as radio interference standards tightened the TVs themselves radiated less and did become more difficult to detect. Incidentally blocks of flats were a different problem, there were handheld devices that literally used a very directional microphone to detect the whistle of the line output stages of the CRT TVs, again I have seen and handled prototypes but do not know if they were ever used in the field. Nevertheless, I am not convinced about the latest claims, without decrypting the stream it is easy enough to "detect" a busy Wifi that is likely to be carrying a video stream but I suspect near impossible to identify what the stream is.
What I take from this is that the TV License was bumbled through from start to finish to catch someone out, listening to the explanation of how they got a list of addresses to check out and some of them actually having a TV License down to knocking at wrong doors, this all sounds like total rubbish and somewhat of a get out clause in that they can claim "oh it was never really accurate" How come none of these door to door salesmen have ever been caught checking a property with these "modern devices" that can detect someone watching digital TV? Logically you would check the property first and catch them in the act I would of thought and yet they rely purely on social engineering to get people to admit to it instead.
If the detector vans are real, why aren't they using them instead of sending the goons, they should catch more people.
It's compete bollocks.
TV massdebate❤ 🎉😂
Bunch of wankers 😮
TV detector vans are as real a unicorns 🦄🦄🦄
All a detector van could do, assuming they exist, is detect that a TV is on and what it is displaying, but if cannot tell who is actually watching the TV. The law says it is an offence for a person to watch live TV/iPlayer without a licence. So to prosecute they have to prove the the particular person they are prosecuting watched liveTV/iplayer. Just because a TV is on in your house does not mean you are watching it. For example you might have gone out and your lodger decided to turn it on without your permission. In practice therefore the only real way the BBC can successfully prosecute is with a confession.
Stuff em they can't even get my name right
Maybe we should get a pervert detector van and roll up outside Broadcasting House. The needle would go off the scale 😂
Well said.. Follow it up with a trip to the house of lords and watch it spontaneously combust 🔥
Don’t forget to stop outside the house of parliament as well
Might want to make them nounce vans
Some perverted actions are fine just not socially acceptable but they aren’t harming anyone
Being a pedo is far worse
Plus you can easily rest them on Andrew
Perhaps it will detect the grossly overpaid and corrupt ceo's involved in £800,000 loans to a bent prime minister.
Don't need a pervert detector, the BBC quite openly promotes them.
They don't zoom up and down the streets. What they do is get a list of houses that don't have TV licenses and stand outside to see if they can see a blue light indicating a TV is being watched. They tried bugging my parents about a TV license and threatened them several times and sent threatening letters. We didn't have a TV nor even any blue lights.
It is possible to detect what's shown on a cathode ray tube screen from the street but that technology was only developed about 30 years ago, just before LED TVs took over.
I find it truly amazing that anybody even bothers with broadcast TV any more. I get my entertainment from watching RUclips videos. I'd much rather a shaky, blurry video by somebody who's showing something they do with all the passion they have for it than some fakery done by professionals.
To prosecute they need to prove that a particular person was watching live TV / iPlayer. Proving that a TV is on does not prove that that particular person was watching it, it might have been someone else or no one at all if the room was empty. Remember it is the individual who watches without a licence that commits the offence, not the householder.
' technology was only developed about 30 years ago ' the governments were aware of this this far far earlier than people realise thats why government buildings were protected against this but we the people were kept in the dark, it became general knowledge during the era of CRT computer screens which were the only game in town
They're not using the CRT viewing technology. They're looking for the local oscillator in the tuner, which is present even in digital TVs. They might not know the subchannel, but they can tell which carrier channel this way. However, it's not proof of a TV, just proof of that particular frequency in an electronic device.
yes rent a reporter propaganda by bigharma and matt handcock
@@512Colorado the demonstration I saw in the 90’s showed them (not the BBC) using the radiation from the CRT to reproduce the image on a dumb terminal. The line output transformer puts out around 20,000 volts, which creates plenty of radiation. I can’t imagine any circuit in a low powered modern TV producing anything like that amount of radiation.
I've lived in England all my life. 52 years. In cities, towns and villages, north and south, and travelled around the UK a fair bit. I have *never* seen any of these vans in real life. I'd at least expect to have seen them a handful of times. They are obviously lying. If they are happy to lie about that, what else are they lying about? I'm sorry, I can't believe anything the BBC says anymore.
The other things they're lying about - these days at least - is that they produce anything worth watching, or that their management is worth a fraction of what they pay themselves.
Some cars i never see except when i start to drive a specific car than they appear to be everywhere...
I have. In the 1980s. They used to park these vans up, or at least a transit with a sign on it. They would combine this with a local ad campaign. The idea being to frighten people into buying a licence. There was no equipment in the vans. As stated, they knew who did not have a licence and would speculatively visit properties. This would all be followed by a PR campaign detailing all the people caught and the fines they received. A conviction and gaoling, for not paying the fines, would also be trumpeted as a win.
Now Crapita just visit non payers and try to frighten them into paying. People who wilfully annoy them also get a visit. I have not seen a van since the 1990s and that was in London.
I saw them in the early 1980s in Scotland. I'm sure they didn't actually detect TVs, but they did scare people into buying a licence.
I’m 64 and I saw them when I was a kid. They terrified the naive parents
Their Authoritarian, threatening tactics should be criminal. It is like being stalked if the vans are real and if not then they are just playground bullies. Disgusting!
Well, threatening letters arriving regularly and unsolicited visits. Seems like both to me.
Imagine you actually lived in an authoritarian country, you’d be begging to come back home 😂
@@dylanmurphy9389 Of course I would but whats got to do with anything.
@@dylanmurphy9389 No. I'd be a resident there. It would make no sense to beg to stay where I lived.
Besides, that's irrelevant. The unacceptable behavior of a company within a nation doesn't define the nation. Are you really suggesting that we should just let institutions act however they like in our society?
@@Pooknottin I didn’t say you’d beg to stay where you lived, I said you’d beg to come back home and we are lucky to live in Uk, stop acting like an oppressed victim. It’s not what WE do
Having worked as a TV field service engineer in the seventies, I can tell you it was certainly not possible to detect a TV, even more ludicrous is them saying which channel was being watched. It was not possible to detect a TV then, and never has been.
True, but that did not stop them pretending and using fake detector vans.
LOPTx, and scan coil radiation 10.125Khz (405-vhf) and 15.625Khz (625-uhf), CRT/SMT, 4.43 MHz (colour..never convinced that was possible!). Newer TVs...no chance.
Ultimate detector: postcode address finder cross referencing BBC licence holders 🤔😂🤣😂
They emit no signal.
well, hate to burst your little bubble there, but it was possible to detect a TV and it is possible today.
@@georgefuters7411 newer tvs, it is possible....even you can do it using an SDR dongle....but it won't be as good as suing professional kit.
Jimmy Saville was really real though. Defund the BBC
Yes the BBC certainly had plenty of kiddy detectors.
Defund the PPC
@@andycleary6209 that's because there are a lot of sex offenders in the world ,and saville had senior Yorkshire police officers round for weakly tea parties,the BBC never actually had any evidence against him both Yorkshire police and the news of the world did and chose.not to do anything,so who is more guilty
Won't happen, more to the point, Jimmy Who? The BBC's literally erased ALL footage of him.
@@richallenxbox1976 People have long memories!
I think it's just ridiculous that we have to pay a TV licence at all....who the hell do the BBC think they are...
They think they are God's gift to far left politics. On that, at least, they may be right.
Yes, definitely and the Americans can’t understand it either. Ridiculous law when you think about it. We all went along with it for far too long tbh.
They think they are above the law.. And since the executives that paid Jimmy Saviles salary are still walking free, I feel inclined to agree!
It keeps the BBC ad-free. I'd much prefer that to having adverts interrupting every few minutes.
@@jake6112 what if you never watch BBC and yet if you want to watch live ‘as it’s being broadcast’ ITV you’re still expected to buy a TV Licence. Absolutely insane rubbish rule
Basically their “detector vans” are a goon peeking through your window. 😂
Maybe they have powerful binoculars.
Leave the Lounge empty, and live in the back of the house or flat. What will they see then. Better still, fit wooden shutters inside, and they 'won't c nuffink'.
@@peter7624 Naah, they wouldn't be able to carry them. They all look as if they are on their way to the glue factory.
No one should pay, I've not for decades now. Just ignore their warnings. We've got to stand together and end this legal theft. Laws can change but only via public outrage and direct action.
Done
Someone near us (Chichester) has just been fined £300+ by single justice procedure for not paying their tv licence. It seems they are starting to take people to court now.
@@6panel300 According to the BBC nearly 1,000 people a week are convicted of TV licence evasion. Must be a lot of gullible people out there!
@@6panel300 They've been taking people to court for years. Why do you think that 50% of Female convictions in our courts are from TVL?
Er no, we have to pay *something*. Why do so many people expect the BBC to make TV and radio programmes, and run a website, all with no income?
They wouldn’t be able to find a parking space for the van nowadays 😂
Whether or not these vans are real or do what they say they do, there's a good reason why evidence from "detector vans" has NEVER been used to prosecute anyone in a court of law. In order to use any electronic equipment to prosecute someone, the defence is entitled to examine the equipment to ensure it is working properly. The equipment is "top secret", the BBC said. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 If they can't reveal how it works it can't be used as evidence. 👍
The evidence is... no licence! Detector van or not.
To be honest, if they could indeed do this, it would be a massive infringement on personal data tracking and actually knowing what you are physically watching is ludicrous
GDPR...
your tv provider and internet provider both know exactly what you watch and the times you watch it. your network provider for your phone also know your exact location and all the contents of your calls and texts. its 2023 mate privacy is a joke, and you act supprised? im sure your parents wouldn't want you watching this.
@@robodestro TV provider?,...John Lewis??
Using a rooftop antenna make any difference? Lmao 🤣😂🤣😂
Radio receivers, to include TVs, generate a frequency slightly offset from the frequency that they are receiving to "tune in" the desired signal. Some of this frequency can (will) leak back out of the antenna and can be picked up by sensitive equipment. If Colombo is on channel 9 at 8pm, and the van drives by and picks up the TV's frequency as the offset for channel 9 and it's 8:10pm, they do indeed know you're watching Colombo. A simple preamplifier between the TV and antenna can block this leakage from coming out through the antenna, BTW...
My late mother was terrified of them. For years I told her to stop paying but she was utterly convinced they'd come with the vans and the courts and slap her with a criminal record! Nothing more than a racket.
And me I won’t give them a penny
100% they should be held to account for operating such a big scam for so long.
As long as you don’t watch live TV or any BBC trash you’re fine ❤
Fine. If you do not mind an arm of the state spying on you in your own without even applying for a search warrant.
Most of the Live TV is trash these days as well and to be fair most of the new stuff on Netflix too lol
Probably why I watch a lot of the old stuff again I have not seen in years recently.
And if you do watch it, you're also fine...
@@MikeEveswe have just been informed that they know we watched a few programs on I player it's literally a couple of programmes now they are on our case
Take no notice they're bullshitting you.
In the late eighties, a friend of mine who was a former Police officer went to work on the TV detector vans. He was mind blown when he found out it was all fake and empty boxes with dials that did nothing. Their job was to knock on the doors of addresses that did not have a license, simple as that.
Certainly TV detector vans with REAL equipment were used at one time. I doubt any genuine ones would have still be in service by the late 1980s....
@@g0fvt Back when there was a single channel, and most homes were single floor houses, and televisions were really rudimentary, they worked, but nowadays when the average building is 4 story and most people use LCD, it's nigh impossible
@@AdrianOkay I am not disputing any of that, although there were devices developed to locate television receivers in the likes of tower blocks. Effectively directional microphones "listening" for the 15625Hz line oscillator. The detector vans of course worked by detecting local oscillator radiation and there were commonly just 3 channels active at the time.
My brother is a windscreen fitter he fitted a screen in one of these vans many years ago now and all that is in the back is a chair for the driver to go round and sit in when they pull up in your street.
Exactly. I've never even seen a van. But it wouldn't surprise me if at one time they had a fleet of propaganda vans, which they paid people to drive around in, park up, sit there, and basically just put fear into people. I imagine they sent them out into areas with low payment rates before they employed Crapita goons as bully boys.
When you think about it, it's classic BBC. Very Orwellian. They are what they accuse us of being.
About ten years ago, a Ford Transit "TV detector van" was parked-up in the town where I was living at the time. They'd parked it outside the shops. Probably in an attempt to intimidate the locals into buying a licence. There was no-one on board. So me & my friend at the time decided to take a peek inside. We opened the rear doors, only to be confronted with an empty van. All it contained was a hand crank in the van ceiling to turn the "radar antenna" on the roof.
crowhawk talking s h I t
Back in early 80's, me and a school mate was hanging around on our bikes just chatting away, when one of them pulled up just at the side of us. A bloke in the drivers seat then rolled down the window, called us over and asked us if there where any public toilets nearby. We told him there was one just around the corner about 50 yards away, on a neighbouring street, right next to the park. He wound up the window and a few seconds later, the side door of the van opened up and an out stepped another bloke. He asked which way they where, which we then pointed it out to him. He said "Thanks lads" and hurriedly set off in a half jog in that direction, (obviously in desperate need). However when he did, he had inadvertently left the side door of the van half opened (he was in so much of a hurry). Once he had vanished around the corner, we both inquisitively but casually peered inside the van and likewise surprisingly saw a very similar thing. Which was mostly a empty van with just a few boxes and some brick n' brack on the floor, along with a fitted swivel seat (bolted to the floor) and a small table, which had a thermos flask and newspaper on it. No "TARDIS" looking electronic equipment, No blinking lights, No super computer.... No nothing!!
I guess the guy inside the back of the van had nothing else to do all day, but too sit down, read the newspaper & chat with the driver while drinking tea. Hence, is probably why he desperately needed the toilet, so much.
The vans where all just a massive hoax. Well at least some of the vans where, like the one that we saw inside.
BTW, I didn't see any crank handle, just a large 5 foot round and 6-8 inch deep metal disk on the ceiling, straight below the radar dish. It probably was just motorised and made to randomly rotate at the flick of a switch, from inside the vans cabin.
I believe you. But I don't understand why they needed a man in the back if the "radar dish" was being controlled from the front seat? Unless part of the scam was to send out an "operative" to be seen asking local kids the way to the public toilets. "There's a bloke in the back, he must be doing something technical in there".
@jayawilder3835 The "radar dish" was in the roof in the middle of the Transit van. At the same point where you sometimes see ventilation fans on vans used to transport food or livestock. It needed someone in the back to turn the hand crank which was affixed to it.
@@crowhawk6626thanks😁
Pure Comedy those Vans 😂😂😂😂😅😅😅😅
Thanks to you John, I have absolutely no fear of the licence goons coming to my door.
Many years ago, I was taken to Court and received a fine (which I never paid) but the stress of that situation had me paying the bully tax.
Opted out 3 years ago and now they are on my case again with their threats through letters and sending the goons again.
I honestly don't give a toss and it feels so powerful that they don't have that hold over me.
You were taken to court and fined?
What you didn't plead not guilty?
@@Uncle-Albert I didn't attend Court or submit any paperwork to plead my case. I was so scared of their tactics back then, I literally bought a licence as soon as I could afford it and prayed Warrant Officers wouldn't come to my door for the fine and Court fees, they never did.
I honestly considered that a result.
Now, I know better but back then, I was a mess everytime my door would knock unexpectedly until I bought that licence.
@@queeniepatra7418
You were summoned not taken.
So you didn't attend?
If you were fined?
You would of got it in writing.
Find what you're saying very hard to believe?
@@Uncle-Albert I don't care what you believe. I know what I endured, your validation means absolutely nothing to me just like a tv licence threat.
@@queeniepatra7418
You keep telling porkies I don't really give a flying 💩
Sadly there are still some people that believe this is possible !
Sadly still people who watch TV, mostly old people
exactly, like some people believe t*u*p won the 2020 election, or that brexit was ever going to be good for the UK
It certainly is possible...whether the BBC have the technology to do it is a different matter
@@cplcabs Nope, you can detect a transmission being sent but the only way they will know you have been watching illegally is if you invite the inspectors into your home, switch on the telly and admit to being guilty - silly fools!
@@mda5003 look up tempest sdr before you comment again
Many moons ago, I used to service these vans, Commer PBs etc and can confirm that only one out of nine in our district had any form of gadgetry on board. A simple oscilloscope, instant photos' were taken of any trace but this obviously could not be linked to any one piece of receiving equipment. It was used by the door knockers to scare people into obtaining a licence. Another tactic was to park near schools during the afternoon so the word would spread that the vans were in the area, feedback from PO counters would normally show a huge spike in takings on those days.... there was no kit in those vans, they were just decoys. Most information came from TVL, Bristol for properties not showing a current licence so they in turn were targeted. There were also a fleet of unmarked, small vans that simply drove around in the evenings looking for the distinctive glow from a TV set. Random checks were made via TVL, any addresses that didn't show as being up to date were subsequently visited. Pure chance and scaremongering was the order of the day!
They may have had the ability to get a general direction back then from the output of the cathode ray screen. But no way could they pinpoint the location. Now with the modern TV I believe there is no "return signature" and no way or determining if a TV is switched on. The Biased Broadcasting Corporation is just scaremongering again. 😂
It is worse than mere scaremongering.
They are deliberately lying in their own financial interest.
So much for independent fmjournaluam.
I guess it is entirely possible to point a device at a house and see if any appliances are powered and in use and probably in some similar way that the likes of wifi signal strength can be determined etc but I know very little about any of this to say with absolute certainty.
Would it even be possible to determine what is a TV considering they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, makes and models and an entire spectrum of power consumption and how do you determine those from other sources of similar power consumption with any form of reliability.
I doubt they can determine it easily or that they even have devices or men in vans doing this anyway given none of the salesmen have been seen doing this heh
@@Nodster CRT sets were used for home computing too, so if you had a home computer in those days you had an alibi. Keep you curtains closed, and don't answer your door to strange people holding clipboards.
Get ready for some logic: If they were real, they wouldn't tell us.
Having lived through the last 2/3 years I have absolutely no doubt there are lots of people who don't just believe that, but they "Know" it's true. 🤣
Back then, technology was a lot better and more sophisticated than it is today. We were able to send people to the moon and talk to them on a landline. We can't do that now lol 😂
Spot on !
Hahahahaha
Could fly first class from Heathrow to New York in two hours too. We're devolving at an alarming rate.
Land on The Moon?????Watch a Film Called"" Capricorn One"""An Eye Opener.!!!!....
Not sure we even landed in the moon, they can’t even do it today with 21st century engineering, supercomputers and AI.
How convenient the tapes with the trajectory data apparently got recorded over.
idk why i was recommended this channel but thanks for all the work you do to educate people on how bad the license is. My 73 year old dad had bother being harrased with threatening letters about court. Guy reads a newspaper and watches content not funded in the UK like RUclips & Netflix. I remember getting these letters at my studio i set up at a new address. 4 years i was waiting for these "inspectors" to come chapping but they never did, I feel it prays on older people a lot more. Old man was paying for it right up to his retirement out of fear, (dude worked 18h shifts, think he watched much bbc?) all while being taxed so hard about a quarter of his earnings as a crane operator went to the gov. Man's living as a widow on 1K a month now. It's sad. Gotta look out for him now.
Keep doing you and hope you hit 10K soon.
It is actually extortion with menaces ! If we go along with it, then we have to concede to the reality that we have to Pay the BBC £165.00. a year to watch ITV ??? Not to mention Sky, who are already ripping billions of people off worldwide !
@Cogglesz. Good on you for taking care of the old man, he did it for you..
As far as I can remember (having been in the Royal Signals) you can detect a transmitter but not a receiver. A TV is not a transmitter, it is a receiver
Radio receivers have a radio frequency generator inside called the local oscillator. This generates a low level radio signal that is used to select the signal frequency being received. The local oscillator signal could be detected externally and its frequency would indicate the channel it was tuned to.
Fear is there only way of collecting their tv tax .
Excellent comment.
If they could actually tell if a tv is being watched they would stop sending me threatening letters as I have never owned a tv or licence.
All they could tell is that a TV is on, not who is watching it. They need to prove the who to prosecute.
@@ditch3827 They will need your name so... "don't tell 'em Pike!" 🤣
Maybe your neighbour has one right next to your adjoining wall! 😱
Was told recently by a friend who worked on radar for the RAF… they had asked the bbc for details of their detection techniques as it supposedly was better than what the RAF were using. Their request was denied as the bbc classed it as a state secret ???
The British Bluffing Corporation really don't want to have anyone calling their bluff. 😉
does your telly have an internet connection, or any other device in the vicinity? they just log connections to the server. its not like back in the day with radio waves, every single thing you do leaves an fully traceable footprint.
@@robodestro I don’t watch any live tv but I do use a vpn to hide my trace
@@robodestro I doubt they can do that legally, except for their own BBC Iplayer site.
@@timg1246 BBC Iplayer and every other app that has some form of Live TV like ITV X etc etc
Going to make a few assumptions given they pay to broadcast as well and have "strict" guidelines to adhere too so I will assume that somewhere in that operations agreement will say something to the effect of "you must pass on relevant information about people watching your live service and from which IP address for TV Licensing purposes" bla bla bla
And with one quick search on ITV X terms of use there is the following:
"we’ll track the content you’ve watched so that we can pay companies who have licensed us the rights to show you those programmes and so we can report aggregate usage for internal or external reporting purposes (for example, to broadcast or financial regulators or other bodies)"
OR
"share information with our service providers and suppliers to enable us to provide our services"
OR
"share information (technical and IDs) with our partners to provide our services on other platforms (such set-top boxes, connected TVs, streaming services)"
So I guess they can do that legally with passing on the information.
At least the onus is still on them to prove you was watching live TV and not a catch up service on all these apps built into smart TV's (Except BBC Iplayer obviously) I guess they can have that information as it is pretty useless to TV License anyway as they can not prove you are watching Live TV when you do not any way.
I don't pay the tv tax and i watch everything.😂😂😂😂
Exactly.
One of my friends drove one. Used to pop in and see me if he was passing. Always got the neighbours curtains twitching. They worked by detecting the local oscillator in the receiver, which was possible with old analogue TVs. The local oscillator in a superhet receiver changes with the frequency you are receiving. If you can pick up that signal you can add the intermediate frequency and work out what channel they are watching. So yes, they worked BUT they weren't used often. They only visited people who didn't have licences. The van was a deterrent really, but the technology was all there too.
Hi you may come back somehow. I was told some of the local oscillator signal was radiated back up and out of the antenna. I did get invited into one of the detector vans and they only had a spectrum analyzer. The analyzer calibrated screen displayed radio frequencies that the airwaves are saturated with but peaked on individual channel frequencies. We were nowhere near any housing so their analyzer would have still only shown that the spectrum was still saturated by the same signals and not one individual signal. I could be wrong???
The IF of an analogue TV is 38 MHz, and is 5 MHz wide.
The newer transistorised TV didn't use much power in the local oscillator, and that was sealed inside one of the two tuners - the VHF and the UHF, and the tuner was a totally enclosed metal box.
When TV become transistorised, and then colour TV, the only signal freely irradiated were the even harmonics (sawtooth has no odd harmonics) irradiated from horizontal deflection yoke, but the range was minimal, fifteen meters or less.
With LCD smart TVs, there is no radiated signal except the 2.4 GHz of the Wi-Fi; that signal is encrypted though, so they can't do packet inspection as determine if it is a TV signal, a podcast, a web browser, etc...
@@rayoflight62 Thanks Ray of Light 62. Bit of technical is above the heads of most. Thanks.
The problem is that the mere fact an oscilloscope can detect 'a signal' would bear no weight if used in court for prosecution purposes, or in proving that Mr Jones was watching Dr Who at 7pm in the study, on his Bush TV22. It'd sound like the worst game of Cluedo ever, and probably be laughed out of court. The technology was not reliable or good enough, hence there's not been a single prosecution made using a TV detector van since their arrival in 1952.
@@SteTrax Detector evidence was used to get a search warrant. It was good enough for that purpose and that was all they needed.
Oh yeah? If they can "detect" me, then they will know i dont watch live tv then. So why were they banging on my door last week? What a load of cobblers.
of course they "detected" you, the database shows no license at your address so you are automatically guilty of watching "Live TV" regardless of not actually watching it.
I have watched older TV Licensing adverts and the abundantly clear message in all of them is that if you own a TV and do not have a TV License then you are committing a criminal offence.
The difference these days is they mention the TV License website for terms of service and buried deep in that is the actual facts of the requirement of the License If you need one or not.
This is how Newspapers have got away with a similar thing for decades as they can pretty much obscure the truth in the headline and/or most of the article but as long as the actual truth is in that article they are not actually lying.
Most people will either read just the headline and make assumptions based of that or read the first few paragraphs before moving on and generally the actual facts are usually in the last couple of paragraphs.
Although these days some reporters do just straight up lie and miss-inform and seemingly never have any consequences for it so I guess that is a thing too 🤷
@@Nodster Oh believe me i know. Ive had the same repeat letters for 9 years. And the odd visit, where they get told to bugger off. Probably on my 25th "investigation". Its all a load of crap at the end of the day.
I remember when my Dad got a coloured t v in the mid 1970s and he complained all the time of the price of the licence, and he used to say i will watch what i want as i pay the licence 😂
The vans for sure were real, but the purpose of them was just for decoration.
I used to service TV sets, valve sets and transistor sets with CRTs and I would say it is possible to detect these sets, they are very high voltage devices, they radiate quite strong RF radiation from the CRT electrodes and associated drive circuitry, this radiated RF frequency contains all the picture information so if you had equipment sensitive enough at a close enough range you could potentially pick this up and know what was being displayed and you could probably get a rough idea of the source location as you can with any RF transmission source however that would be quite a feat. I read somewhere many years ago that they did have some such real vans but a very small number, most were as you said just empty vans, the thing is it works either way as once people believe it they let them in or admit it rather than go to court, it's 99% bluffing. However since the demise of CRT sets my view is that there is absolutely no way they can detect anything as there are no scan coils, no high voltages and no detectable RF radiation, especially as digital TVs no longer have any coils or transformers like the intermediate frequency ones in old receivers, it's all purely semiconductors now. As for the last video, I think it's fake, firstly they show you the same picture, a single spike on a scope before they get to mention going to find a TV later, secondly this is not any kind of waveform you would see if you did pick up a radiated signal from the set, this is just a single frame of a pulse. It's worth noting also that to power this kind of equipment in the days of valve sets or CRT scopes would require a lot of power and I'm not sure it could be viable in a van, most of those shots don't actually show you anything in the van so could be in a studio.
I think the vans tried to detect the local oscillator signal using a frequency analyser. Thus the display shows an rf signal as a peak, as in the video. The exact frequency of this peak would indicate the channel being watched.
Not sure that this would work on modern tv's .
@@romanroad483 That's a very low power signal even in valve sets, I doubt you could detect it more than a few inches away from the set. It would be impossible on a digital set without poking a probe onto the PCB.
@@altvamp Agreed, it's very low power but if detectable it would give the channel the tv is tuned to, and on a frequency analyser would give a waveform similar to the video. Detecting the scan coils would give no picture or channel information, apart from 405 or 625 lines. The scan coils are just energised by a sawtooth waveform whatever channel is being watched.
@@romanroad483 Yes correct, my mistake, it's only on the CRT electrodes, The video drive is around 50 - 150 volts depending on the CRT type and size. I've edited my previous comment so hopefully it's accurate now, thanks for pointing that out, I think I wrote it to quickly not thinking first!
Agree. The missing part of your explanation is that those antennae on the van roof were directional and rotateable, so the location of the TV could be pinpointred using triangulation. It's not a matter of needing to 'believe' in whether these vans were real or not. Those old vans were real, I have seen them with my own eyes when I was younger, and they did work. No clue what the modern equivalent is now in these times of flat screens though.
"So... the old trick eh? EAT, the telly before I getta chance to nick ya!"
"It's a toaster!"
Gotta love the Young Ones! 🤣
"It's a telly, you yobo!! Give me the telly!! Gimme the telly, I wanna nick ya!"
@@commandingjudgedredd1841 Bastard's the name, but you can call me right bleedin'. 😁👍
If it was real, they would still be about now, instead of the goons!
If the BBC spent the money that they did on those vans, on the sets of Doctor Who; more people would have likely got a licence anyway.
It certainly IS and WAS possible. I used to use it. I don't think the BBC had it in vans though. I believe it was called "tempest". All military equipment had to be tempest proof as monitor's gave of a radio wave type image that can be intercepted and viewed. You had to be very close to get it through the air though but that may have improved in the 30 years since I played with it.
I've seen a supposed detector van. It's just a empty transit with TV Licensing stickers on the side. They position them in busy car parks in an attempt to intimidate the public into paying.
I remember seeing a van when I was a kid living in Yorkshire over 50 years ago. Was BS then and it's BS now. All they can detect is BS lol.
If they did exist they wouldn’t be using goons would they? 🙄
I remember seeing this at the time, and the British Army came out and debunked it, saying why would the BBC have superior technology to what the British Army had at the time
I was always under the impression that you need to triangulate a signal to determine which direction is coming, which also means you need three vans and not one, but you also need to be sending not receiving
I don't believe you can do it now never mind back then
Not had or needed a licence since 2002, and proud of it
The thing is, when we had just three channels, this was so easy for anybody to actually do - people had all sorts of shortwave radios that TV receivers interfered with. If your neighbour had a TV set - none were screened properly, and the local oscillator produced a very low power output which - importantly - changed frequency as your TV set changed channel. The analyser I now have, if taken back to the 67s and 70s would make telling what channel was being watched so easy. Back then the analysers were hardly different from what they had in the war. They did however show loads of spikes in the display - like the dirt cheap SDR radio dongles you can now get for computers. Swing the antenna and you could see the direction. So armed with a newspaper with the TV details in it, and knowledge that showed the order of the TV channels, going up in frequency - you knew what they were tuned to. The Columbo bit comes from the paper! It fell apart when we invented Betamax and VHS and of course, TV games - which all needed your TV to be tuned to them, not the antenna. This meant instead of 3 spikes on the display, with channel 4, a TV game and a video, there were far more spikes - and once housing contained multiple TVs and gadgets, the accuracy bottomed out. The TV detector vans simply got overwhealmed with signals and all you could say for certain was that there were TV sets somewhere. Even worse, the manufacturers were getting better at filtering out these escaping signals. In the end, the skilled engineer was replaced with an empty seat, and a list of houses that didn't have a licence. The actual kit inside was very similar to the equipment used to hunt for spies, with illegal transmitters, and later on pirate radio. The science is solid, but of course doesn't work now because digital TV is so different. RUclips and real BBC1 can't be isolated any more - but back then, it could, and quite easily. Nowadays, every house is full of the little black power supplies for all our electronics, and these make so much interference, the old system would be useless. So at the time, the evidence of date, time and frequency was solid evidence for prosecution. Now - we're way past that technology.
A very good explanation,as no LCD TV or LED TV panel with a digital tuner is going to be easy, and streaming into a TV via internet.?
You are talking about oscilator valve stray emissions detectable up to half a wave leangth from the antenna i.e. aprox 8 inches
@@gerrywoody4301 nearly. Local oscillator output is very low output, but remember that the general band noise was very low, and certainly 8” is a vast understatement. It’s a line of sight path, with little absorption. MicroWatts can go surprisingly far. The Peter Wright spycatcher book detailed the technology of the period and the science is solid. When I first started work with a tv and radio company, the service department full of TV sets was easily detected on the radios we had in for service. I can certainly remember TV detector vans, the ones around this part of the country were I think, Commers. They were never local, but most people in the 60s and 70s remember them.
@@pauljohnson4590 thank you for the education i did teach pure electronics and antenna propogation at uni level for over 30 yrs can you now give me the gist on the tooth fairy. Ps line of sight works altitude as well as azimuth so the van would need to be at roof level in perfect alignment with your yagi i still dont know what your looking for from a recieving aerial thet may or may not be getting some back emf from a leaky tube 8 inch is an overestimate for even tens of microwatts in the uhf i.f. range plus its not modulated with any information let alone Columbo in the living room. I do remember in the 70s going in one of the vans and seeing a pile of gear that the techs at the studio must have discarded as obsolete set up with a nice sine wave to impress the the people Paul your first comment gave a very good description of how using superhetrodyne emissions we traced transmitters If we could have traced recievers we could locate ships at sea without putting all those satelites up there or waiting for them to send something. All broadcast signals are recieved by all metal objects conected to ground so no 1960 technology was not up to the task and even today it would probably not be cost effective if big tech did develop a usable system
There's a TV set on at number 5. It's in the front room, they're watching Columbo. 😂😂
The tv is in the front room. It’s tuned to channel 904. They’re watching babestation 😂
@@arthurtwoshedsjackson6266 HA HA HA. That's me all over. 🙂
i remember back in the 80's when you bought or hired a tv from a reputable store you had to show you had a tv licence before they would deliver your tv, buying second hand was the only way around it, also you needed the tv licence as watching tv was pretty much the only thing you could do with a tv back then, yes you could watch vhs but that was a family night thing and not many people had computers, there was no internet in the 80s
They still do that.
Pass your details on.
@@MrBollocks10 not to me
I heard years back the vans were first brought in before TV existing. They were to stop early radios from putting out interference on the radio frequencies. The army did ask the beeb for the technology once but the beeb had to tell them they could not give it as it did not exist.
That detector van could also tell what brand tea and biscuits you were consuming, such is modern tech........😮
In my 60+ years on this earth never have I ever seen a TV detector van
It's theoretically possible for the older style CRT monitors or TV screens. These had high voltage circuits that scanned across the screen to make a picture. This produced a noise signal at that frequency so you'd often here a high pitched buzz when switching on an old fashioned TV. This radio noise is in what is known as the Very Low Frequency band so the wavelength is quite large (km) so you need large antenna coupled to an amplifier to pick up the signal.
So in theory a detector van could get a directional signal giving a bearing to a TV and if you had multiple bearings you could triangulate on a TV. But in the old days with a CRT in every TV in every home there'd be so many signals you could never find a random unlicensed TV.
About the only way it would work is using the equipment to provide evidence of TV watching at an unlicensed home.
With modern technologies there is no way that using RF direction finding to identify TV watching. Unless there is a back door in Freeview receivers they could exploit.
That's what I imagined. Thank you for confirming what I suspected.
So why was it when the army asked about such stuff that the bbc had to hold their hands up and admit that they were lying .
They could tell by correlating the flicker and wobble on the window with live TV.
So is the CRT in a TV or in a computer monitor, and if it is in a TV, is the TV being used to play ATARI, watch a VHS tape, or to watch actual TV?
Definitely possible with todays TVs...TVs still emit RF and that can be detected. You can even do it using an SDR dongle...but obviously it won't be as good as using professional kit.
Old TVs didn't have any RF screening. They were in wooden boxes with hardboard backs. They would spew out loads of RF noise from their line oscialltors, local oscillators, IF and video amplifiers. I remember trying to listen to "top band" on a de-tuned radio with a wire stuck on it. As soon as people started waking up and switching on their TVs it was game over due to all the RF noise. VCRs were even worse.
These days TVs will be designed not to radiate any RF interference and the little interference they do radiate won't really be distinquishable from all the PCs, chargers and other equipment that will drown it out.
I think the old detector vans worked by detecting the electron beam harmonics caused by a cathode ray tube, which is what all TVs had in the old days. Most TVs these days use LCD panels with much less radio frequency output, and even if they could detect them I don't think they could tell the difference between watching DVDs, playing computer games, watching downloaded media, working on a PC or watching live TV broadcasts.
At most, what I heard often around 20 years ago is they can pick up a frequency but not what it is or where its coming from so point it at a house they can't tell which room, even distance away it is just theres a signal from that general area, the frequency they picked up wasn't in depth like knowing which channel you were allegedy watching or which room.
I'm not an electrical wizard, but I do understand the concepts of things. A TV is a receiver, not a transmitter if it doesn't transmit, what what is there to detect? The old crt tvs were even shielded internally because of the crt. I'd love to know how they can't detect tv nowadays that doest even require broadcast signal. Tv licence my arse, don't need a licence to buy one should call it a bbc subscription.
If the detector vans were real they would know that I haven't received broadcast TV for over 20 years and could stop sending me those *** annoying letters.
We all know this is about rejection. The mere suggestion that people are living happy, fulfilled lives without them sends the Beeb into total denial and for their own sense of self worth they have to convince themselves we' obviously MUST be lying.
Whoever designed these vans must have had a hand in creating the scientology e-meter.
The post office was responsible for collecting the TV licence fee, and they were the former BT with considerable research facilities available. There was a section who ran these vans. They were not like traffic wardens posted on every corner. But they did exist and occassionally one would see them passing. I remember as a kid seeing them once or twice. The old CRT television had a horizontal & vertical deflection coil on the CRT. They were large coils fed with specific frequencies. In addition the CRT used 1000's of volts to energise it, and this was generated from mains voltage via LOPT transformer I believe running at about 15kHz. All this electrical noise could be detected over moderate distance. At least from a living room to the road. I believe the detector van aerials were tuned to the TV line frequencies, typically 15kHz. The aerials could rotate on the roof of the van to align with the noise source, and effectively point to the TV/house.
I remember in the 90's when CRT's were used for computer monitors. There were concerns it was possible to spy on what was being displayed on the computer screen by receiving the stray signals. This was claimed to be done using a reciever sensitive enough to detect the line frequencies and the stray fields from the electrons hitting the screen. Again short distance line of sight, with a very directional aerial. This could be fed into an oscilloscope, with some electronics to simulate the beam intensity & deflection to crudely display the received signal. From this a crude picture could be displayed on the reciving screen duplicating the computer monitor image, just enought to make out what was being watched. So with such a sensitive setup if one recognised the received image it would be possible to work out the channel. Remember in those days there were only two to four channels possible.
Today with digital TV's the EMI is very reduced and controlled by legislation. The frequencies are very much higher and much smaller. So I doubt it is possible to do the equivelent detection, and mostly they would use the fact they had no TV registered for a particular address and assumption everyone had a TV. Assuming they could now detect a digital screen, they would not know if its a TV, computer or watching legal streamed content until they were invited in, saw through the window or were told. So I would say detection today is less easy, though possibly not impossible. As the digital screen could emit some low level frequencies specific to the display, though much more difficult to detect.
So they certainly were real, but not so sure, posibly not possible today because the technology has advanced greatly. I should say it was never as good as advertised like most things on TV adverts, it was after all intended to frighten the viewer. Mostly women, one parent families. In the early 2000's they were mostly in the prison population for TV licensing.
I'm guessing a lot of the comments are coming from the younger generations who never had to suffer listening to AM radio in the evenings with the I.F. howls & flyback buzzes once the nearby TV's were turned on 😀
I think the vans tried to detect the local oscillator signal, in the receiver, using a frequency analyser. Thus the display shows this rf signal as a peak, as in the video. The exact frequency of this peak would indicate the channel being watched.
Not sure that this would work on modern tv's .
TV Detector
"Oh look a yellow box where everyone can see it from several houses away... better flick the switch because I detected it" XD
I don't know whether TV detector vans actually existed or not but I do know they are technically feasible, particularly in the CRT days. The method has been used by the intelligence services for decades and is known as TEMPEST (Telecommunications Electronics Material Protected from Emanating Spurious Transmissions). It is also possible to correlate the flickers on a curtain or the wobbles on a window with broadcast TV to deduce if a TV is on in a given room.
However I'm not sure whether any of that would do the BBC any good as to prosecute they have to have evidence that a particular person was actually watching the live TV. It might be for example that the person was out that time and someone else was watching the TV. Nothing a detector van could detect would provide evidence that a particular individual was watching the TV. The only way the BBC can prosecute is by a confession.
Exactly... 👍
But the technology to do that didn't exist back then. It does now, but there are too many more channels to correlate with, and because it is digital, you have delays due to the fact you have to buffer the frames and decode them which will vary depending on your hardware, and a different amount of transmission latency depending on where you get the feed from (Freeview, Freesat, Sky, Cable, various internet apps and websites). Remember that an iPhone 6 (not exactly the fastest computer out there) is equivalent in processing power to 200 Cray Supercomputers and that is not something you could have put in the back of a van.
Tecnology did exist, debatable whether the bbc used it en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phreaking
We're not disputing the vans ain't real, of course they are... But they are just empty with no surveillance equipment whatsoever 😂
They've been saying they're real since 1970.
They're not real.
To quote Ricky Tomlinson as Jim Royle "Detector Vans, my arse!" 🤣
If a private business ran itself through intimidation and deception like the BBC, the directors would go to jail. Subscription model is the way, they are cowards. Great channel, best wishes.
De'ell they're not stooping back to that old chestnut, are they?!? 🤭😂🤣😂🤣😂
It makes sense that the detector van has never been used as a prosecution tool. If it ever worked, it would only be used to perhaps apply for a warrant or obtain a doorstep confession. No one would ever get fined on the basis of such secretive technology. I am referring to how it used to work with CRT, i have not even contemplated if or how it could work detecting non-crt equipment.
Yes the BBC have said this, that the vans have only been used to get a warrant when questioned about the vans never being used as evidence for conviction. But what I would like to know, out of all the fines that are issued each year, how many are actually from evidence found during a warrant search compared to someone confessing?
@@DarrellThompson47
They only issue a handful of warrants each year, about 150, but there are more than 100,000 prosecutions each year. It sounds like most people just admit to the offence on the doorstep. So prosecutions from evidence obtained with a warrant is only going to be a tiny amount (around 0.1% of total prosecutions) but I have no idea how they can prove you watch live TV, unless they just poke around until you admit it. It’s not something I plan on testing, I am playing with a straight bat.
@gmo4250 thanks. So if they did use detector vans for all of those warrant convictions, the money they would make from it just isn't worth the expensive of having the vans and the staff to run them. That's tells us the likely hood of such things existing is very small.
@@DarrellThompson47
It's likely that they would get doorstep confessions from the detector vans as well. Not saying definitely, but it seems likely. Also, they had the scary deterrent factor. To be honest, I have never seen one on the road, so they can't have many of them.
@gmo4250 if that were the case people would of seen the vans ( modern ones not the from 50 years ago ), or maybe people think if the goons turn up in a vehicle with "detection unit" written on the side, that this is a vehicle with detection equipment inside? If people give in that easily, then why would they even need a genuine detector van, just cars with signs on?
I used to know an old guy who drove a tv detector van many years ago, and they would park it in a housing estate and get in the back and rotate the antenna on the roof, then play cards as there was nothing else in the van, just every now and again gave the antenna a turn, people would rush down to the post office and buy a licence, after an hour or so they would move on to another estate :)
Living in FEAR is the operation.
In the early days it should have been possible to detect the EMF radiation from the line output transformer (LOPT) which is driven at a frequency of 15625Hz (15.625Khz) - you could often hear them oscillating at a sub harmonic 7.8Khz (a high pitched squeal) and these would radiate into nearby AM radios at a higher harmonic. In theory a correctly designed antenna (probably a giant ferrite rod / coil / tuned circuit) should be able to detect it but only at closer ranges. But now that CRT TV's are gone this is not possible
TVs still emit RF and that can be detected. You can even do it using an SDR dongle...but obviously it won't be as good as using professional kit.
Its about time they thought about using other methods for income and stop paying some of their employees million+ a year.
Ha haaaaaa.
Its middle earths version of the A Team!!
Number 5 and they are watching Columbo.
Oh my aching sides.
😂😂
tv is a receiver not a transmitter
That wasn't strictly true,back in the day.There was an Intermediate Frequency detectable in the CRT and this was apparently different depending on the channel being watched.
The old one's would transmit radio waves of the coils. Could you tell what they were watching? No, that's a pure lie.
@@nickerrison-davey9099 That IF would more than likely be impossible to detect due the the radiation of the scanning frequency on the CRT. The CRT horizontal scanning frequency was a relatively constant 15KHz. It is unlikely that any IF would be radiated via the CRT.
@@SpeccyMan be that as it may,the Op said a Tv wasn't a transmitter,I was saying that,back in the days of CRT,they were.
Probably just a TV and an Xbox in the back for the bloke to chill for a few hours while people think they are being 'detected' 😁
Standard equipment was a sticky copy of "Razzle" magazine and a box of tissues.
I remember spending a week peeling the decals of a few vans when I used the work for Leasoe Self drive.
When I was younger and the TV Detector van was on the stret, He just turned off the telly. LOL.
I remember something about 25 years ago that exposed them… they were genuinely catching people out but they basically had a handheld TV (with just audio) and put a microphone through the letterbox and skipped were listening for the audio to sync up to their handheld.
Years ago I was chatting to a little old bloke who it turned out had spent many years as a TV repairman. After talking about the stories of being swamped with bored housewives, I asked him if he knew how the TV detector vans worked, and he said that the original (A sideboard full of valves type) TV's were so "electrically dirty" that it would have been possible to detect them with directional aerials purely from the RF interference they spewed out. Apparently, they had some kind of oscillator circuit in them for tuning in the channel, and it was most likely this that the vans looked for as it would be within a certain frequency range, plus, the vacuum tube/tubes used to generate that weren't used in anything else at that time.
He went on to say that when TV's were all transistorised, this problem was pretty much gone. We also had regulations come in during (IIRC) the 70's that seriously limited how much unwanted RF interference an electrical device was allowed to produce (He seemed quite annoyed by this, because rather than taking out a panel and having the TV's guts right in front of you, he suddenly had to dismantle half the TV just to remove the mass of tin plate RF shielding so he could get to what needed testing/fixing).
He finished by pointing out that he wasn't saying that the detector vans WERE fake, it's just that he's not seen anything inside a TV that COULD give out enough RF for them to pick up in many years.
Mind you, all his information was from well before "Smart TV's" became a thing, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of those will be setup to nark out the user via the internet if they ever plug an aerial into them or accidentally open the already preinstalled (And unremovable) copy of iPlayer.
All t.v.'s at that time had a timebase signal which was very strong causing noise on the 160m and 80m amateur bands. If we picked it up, why not a detector van?
G4GHB
Theoretically yes. The old CRT tellies gave off a massive field which could affect, for example, AM radio reception all over the house. And, if the oscillator in the TV gave off a strong field, it would be possible to detect from outside what channel you were watching by detecting that signal and doing some simple maths, based on the intermediate frequency, which was standardised for all receivers.
If you're not living at number 5 watching Columbo in the front room I reckon you'll be sound.
The van in the first advert was a Commer/Dodge spacevan
They haven't been able to detect a live TV since 1956, when the TV aerial changed the frequency of the transmission.
If you never watch BBC then they should pay you compensation for invading your space with their signals.
😂😂😂😂😂
Could you imagine if they could detect not only a powered screen, but also what digital channel you are watching. Anything that has a screen, would show up, PC’s laptop, iPads, phones, smart home devices, even watches. Simple answer is, unless they actually catch you watching a bbc broadcasted program, they can’t prove you broke the law.
They have just caught my hubby as he has watched I lplayeron his tablet
They wouldn't be able to tell which room, no, but with old analog sets they will known what channel you are watching, yes.
What they do is essentially the same thing they use to get people using radar detectors. They listen for the leakage of the local oscillator in the TV set. It is a very weak signal, but it is there. It will leak out and be transmitted by the antenna.
To pinpoint where it is coming from is sort of easy, but it also sort of isn't. Easiest way is to get near where it is strongest, grab a portable detector with a directional antenna like a logper or yagi, get out and sweep left to right. Go in the direction the signal is strongest.
Even then it might be hard to tell between two houses. Even harder for apartments.
I remember a tv license person arresting me on my doorstep 😂😂😂😂 as I was laughing in his face , I was walking off after I gave him a different name. Constantly being told I’m under arrest 😢😢😢😂😂😂
😂😂😂 I never had a license over 20 years. You can keep on knocking but you can’t come in 🤣🤣🤣
They sent one of these tv detector vans to sit outside my house after i officially removed their implied right of access about 10 years ago in order to permanently stop threatening letters and goons from harassing me. Their objective was no doubt to scare me and my neighbours but it didnt work, i chased the van off my estate by asking the driver questions about the van, was pretty fun tbh, wished i had recorded my interaction for the internet.
They used to be able to detect the local oscillator coming from the tuner. It was always 38.9 MHz above whatever channel frequency the TV was tuned to. That way they could tell which channel you were watching.
try this experiment, get 2 FM radios, tune one of them to somewhere in the middle of the range on a radio station
slowly tune the other through the range while being in close proximity to the first one
At some point the radio station will disappear (if it doesn't try a different station)
think of the first radio as being the detector van
They are picking up the signal as it goes through the TV in the intermediate frequency stages
As far as digital is concerned, there was a guy with a trolley full of equipment that could read what the screen was displaying, basically a receiver, a bit of electronic decoding and a laptop. he did it as a security demonstration.
Imagine using this as evidence in Court?😂
It is certainly possible to not only detect the use of a TV or PC or Laptop but to see exactly what is being displayed on it. In the world of military and industrial espionage it is common. There's a whole secretive branch of engineering known as Tempest, dedicated to preventing it. It's done by detecting the emissions from the circuits driving the display itself, so it sees what you see and hear. But I don't for one minute think that the BBC or anyone else is using this expensive technology to find people who are watching TV without a license.
The hand held detector was used in blocks of flats. As you say they were only interested in unlicensed properties. They showed it at the RSGB Annual Radio Rally at the Wigmore Hall venue in 1965 or 1966. I wasn't sure if the BBC was actually the ones being taken in by the purveyor of the kit. There were less signals about back then.
When I joined the GPO in 78 I saw these vans in our yard ... they were empty
I've commentated on this before on your channel, I'm an ex army signaller and all that is total bollocks. If you could detect someone receiving any signal then my job in the army would be redundant as they would of bombed me countless times and I would of been dead years ago. Also, my brother worked for TV licensing and he told me all about those vans.
THEY NEVER WORKED AS ADVERTISED, the stuff inside was all fake with buttons flashing lights and a screen doing that thing with the bar. The vans were only used to transport the goons to the location they were targeting and only that, they just used computer printouts of licensences that were expired in the last 12 months, those that were cancelled in the last 12 months, those that had been prosecuted in the last 12 months, and at that time when your details were given to them when you bought a new telly from the shops the shop had to tell tv licensing.
In the OLD analog and CRT days it used to be possible, its called Van Eck phreaking. The issue was that CRT tubes also radiated EM signals that can be detected. Fine tune an antenna, slap it on a gimble, and lower the gain you can pin point where in a building those EM signals were coming from, Increase the gain and add the synchronization pulses of the old analog TV transmissions and you can recover that is actually being watched. The NSA were also using similar methods to recover images displayed on analog CRT computer monitors.
LCD panels are also vulnerable electromagnetic eavesdropping however modern rules on how much EM a device can radiate (to prevent them from effecting other devices) called for more shielding in devices which makes its very hard to preform today.
Now, would the BBC go though all this hassle to do it? Who knows esp when its cheaper to scare people than it was to outfit vans and train the staff to do it, but was it possible? Yup!
Detector vans certainly did exist in the past, I worked for the Home Office department that developed them, I have seen prototypes of the equipment and the logs of the fleet of vans.
The Commers used at one time as detector vans had very short working lives, and suffered a lot of problems with both the equipment, the antenna bearings as well as structural rust eating the vehicles up. Contrary to some of the incorrect assertions in the comments TVs of the time did radiate radio frequency signals. I believe later TV detector vans may have been decoys, getting most of the results for a fraction of the cost. Ironically as radio interference standards tightened the TVs themselves radiated less and did become more difficult to detect.
Incidentally blocks of flats were a different problem, there were handheld devices that literally used a very directional microphone to detect the whistle of the line output stages of the CRT TVs, again I have seen and handled prototypes but do not know if they were ever used in the field. Nevertheless, I am not convinced about the latest claims, without decrypting the stream it is easy enough to "detect" a busy Wifi that is likely to be carrying a video stream but I suspect near impossible to identify what the stream is.
What I take from this is that the TV License was bumbled through from start to finish to catch someone out, listening to the explanation of how they got a list of addresses to check out and some of them actually having a TV License down to knocking at wrong doors, this all sounds like total rubbish and somewhat of a get out clause in that they can claim "oh it was never really accurate"
How come none of these door to door salesmen have ever been caught checking a property with these "modern devices" that can detect someone watching digital TV? Logically you would check the property first and catch them in the act I would of thought and yet they rely purely on social engineering to get people to admit to it instead.