Licensing for UK Television

[julianburke]

I have always been curious about the British and their Licensing of TV's. I have known that they have vans that go around looking for and detecting unlicensed TV's. I have always thought that these "detectors" look for a horiz oscillator running. They also have hand held detectors and some of the engineers work in secret so that other engineers don't even know what each other is doing! They even say they can tell one TV from another that may be back to back with a wall in between such as in a duplex apartment! Also the price is different between a B&W and a color unit. What difference does that make? You are still watching TV. We don't get a break for that on our cable systems.

How do they detect say a computer running that is watching "live" TV? That seems to be the key that if you are watching TV as it is being broadcast, then you must have a license and pay the tax. How would they detect an LCD or plasma screen from up to 60 yards away? They even want you to have a license if you watch TV from your cell phone and how would they detect that? I suppose the phone company would turn you in on that one. How would they detect a laptop computer watching anything?

Even more surprising is the fact they say around 1000 people are caught every day watching illegal TV!! How many TV police do they have? Over 1000 caught every day??? That means that in about 3-5 months the entire country of England is caught?!

Reminds me of when we had the Boston Tea Party in 1773. (interesting read-England said we and the Brits could only buy British tea to keep out competition from Holland) Perhaps the UK should have their own "London TV Party" and dump their TV's all in their harbor!! We could give them all the analog TV's they need for this event!!

This is why we are getting DTV forced down our throats, so our gov't can sell the analog bands for billions-yes, Billions with a "B".

Let's not tell our gov't about this untapped revenue on TV's! I think we'd all get life with no parole.

Click below for the UK"s website regarding this issue.

http://tvlicensing.metafaq.com/templ...SCAIN1EH6FS04U

http://tvlicensing.metafaq.com/templ...SCAIN1EH6FS04U