Ah here.
Via OldDublinTown
If you had no TV licence you feared the arrival of the Post & Telegraph (P&T) Television Detector vans in the 70s…
Meanwhile…
Ah now.
Fergus O’Neill writes:
Fixed that for you…
Hoax? Not a hoax? Find out here: TV Detector Van technology (Wikipedia)
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Don’t remember seeing one of these before, but it’s curiously like I imagined they might have been;
“I never seen so many bleedin’ aerials. The man said their equipment could pinpoint a purr at four hundred yards, and Eric being such a happy cat was a piece of cake”
As kids we used to debate if this yoke was an elaborate hoax; or if it could detect tellys which were switched off.
I’m going with the scare tactic :)
Hoax
It was merely a scare tactic. I asked one of the engineers in ComReg years ago.
A Commer reg ?
yea, certainly looks like a Commer to me
surprised a “name that jammer” opportunity was lost there
And it being a TV detector van from that era one might call it a…
“BUSH Commer”
Fnar, fnar! :)
Some of us had the humble Pye.
Humble Pye.
Oh please yerselves.
Hah
heehee!
Wikipedia says they did work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van
However, back then, most people rented their TVs so the Post Office would simply get a list of names and addresses of people who were renting a set and check to see if there was a licence registered at that address.
The concepts give then work in lab conditions. It absolutely doesn’t work out in public – general EMF will drown out any tiny emissions you’re trying to get.
The inspectors had a list of who had a licence, and a list of everyone who bought or rented a TV because you legally had to give them at time of purchase back then; and cross-compared them. That and literally poking around to look in peoples windows to see a TV.