On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 14:43:16 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:


snip


I do have a licence incidentally, although I suspect that if someone
wasn't to keen on having one, things would be fairly easy these days.
As few sets have a line timebase now, then the only thing a detector
would have to go for is the tuners local oscillator, a miniscule
signal in an ocean of polluted airwaves.

Even that wouldn't be easy for them to 'find' these days, as I'm sure that
just about all tuners are direct conversion ZIF types now, which means that
any LO is at the same frequency as the base frequency of the multiplex being
received. No nice big constant frequency IF for them to search on.


Incidentally years back I was in the TV trade. A customer on a large
and not too reputable council estate described how she was visited by
the licencing authourity, she admitted them to the house, showed them
the TV and was as helpful as possible. her neighbour threatened to
"kick the head in" of anyone trying to enter his house.

Only one got fined. Any guesses which one?


However, if neither actually had a license, then that was unfair treatment,
and if I was the one who got done, knowing that my neighbour didn't, then I
would appeal my prosecution in the strongest possible terms. They had no
right of entry, and it shouldn't matter what 'threats' a house owner made to
them, as long as he didn't actually carry them out.

Arfa


AB


Not enough plods to fend him off I suppose, so there was no one to
assist with the entry.

All I know is, being nice & helpul cost the poor woman £50-00.

'Wouldn't have a leg to stand on in court I would guess. being helpul
and providing the evidence wouldn't require any level of fairness in
return.

AB

On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 14:22:30 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:



"Wesley" wrote in message
news:nrSdnet94L100zTMnZ2dnUVZ8oWdnZ2d@brightview. co.uk...
I witnessed a heated arguement the other day between a lady wishing to buy
an LCD TV and an Argos employee.

Apparently, Argos are required by law to take the name and address of
anybody purchasing a TV or any TV related peripherals and pass these on to
the licencing authorities. The lady in question was having none of this
and contested the issue even after the store manager was called. She
claimed that, on principle, it was wrong that she had to supply her
personal details and if she wanted to buy a lawnmower, these would not be
required.

In the end she stormed out without making a purchase and Argos lost the
sale of a £500 TV.

I can't help feeling she had a point :-)

That has for ever been the case, dating back to when I was an apprentice in
the trade many a long year ago. I wonder how many on-line sellers actually
forward the names and addresses ? Or how many people buying on line realise
that the sellers are required to do so ? A couple of weeks back, I saw a 'TV
Detector Van' for the first time in a long time, and I couldn't help
wondering if there is anything that they can actually 'detect' these days to
ascertain that there is a TV set running in a house. In days of yore, it was
easy for them to 'zero in' on the dirty line timebase emissions that
extended well up into RF, and even, I believe, to be able to look at
emissions from the tuner's LO, leaking backwards up the aerial cable, to
allow the detectors to determine what channel was being watched.

These days, there is no line timebase. Plasmas are probably pretty dirty as
there's some fairly high level sharp-edged signals flying around in them,
but the noisiest thing in an LCD is likely to be the SMPS, and in any case,
it could just as easily be a computer monitor that they were 'seeing'.

A while back, I'm sure that I saw something somewhere that basically said
that they just went to a street armed with a list of the houses that
*didn't* have a license, and started knocking on doors, based on the fact
that there was a good liklihood that they would have a TV. These days, you
are apparently obliged to show your license if asked. That wasn't always the
case though. Some years back, we had them knock on our door and ask to see
our license. My wife refused. When they asked her why, she told them that
she knew that she had a license and if they didn't, that was their problem,
not hers. They told her that she could be taken to court and prosecuted for
not having a license, as clearly, they thought she was just blagging it. She
calmly told them to go right ahead, because they were going to look pretty
stupid when she produced it in court. They went away, but she later got a
letter saying that they had traced the license, which was wrongly recorded
by the village post office where we bought it, by having the wrong post code
entered ... I also seem to think that I read somewhere that they published
lists of houses in streets that had no license recorded against them, which
seemed a bit of a step too far to me, as it is automatically assuming that
those houses are watching TV without a license.

It must be extremely difficult to enforce now, with the technology in
place - actually by the broadcasters themselves, including the BBC - to
watch their programmes on any item that has a screen, including phones,
iPods and tablets.

Arfa

I may be wrong here, but I seem to recollect that the Buisiness or
trade licence was something issued freely or at a token cost. The
collecting of data was part of the agreement.

Now if a dealer didn't connect a set up to an aerial and the mains,
they wouldn't need a licence. Internet dealers and "box shifters"
should be free of the need for a licence therefore.

There are lot's of anomolies in the system that I do not think have
been properly tested in the courts. You have had the ridiculous
situation where someone was fined for recording a program on a colour
enabled video when they only had a black & white TV & Licence.

A set used exclusively for foreign broadcasts does not need a licence.
And I wonder how many people have been prosecuted for watching TV on
broadband?


AB

In article , Archibald
wrote:
On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 14:22:30 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:



"Wesley" wrote in message
news:nrSdnet94L100zTMnZ2dnUVZ8oWdnZ2d@brightview. co.uk...
I witnessed a heated arguement the other day between a lady wishing to
buy an LCD TV and an Argos employee.

Apparently, Argos are required by law to take the name and address of
anybody purchasing a TV or any TV related peripherals and pass these
on to the licencing authorities. The lady in question was having
none of this and contested the issue even after the store manager was
called. She claimed that, on principle, it was wrong that she had to
supply her personal details and if she wanted to buy a lawnmower,
these would not be required.

In the end she stormed out without making a purchase and Argos lost
the sale of a £500 TV.

I can't help feeling she had a point :-)

That has for ever been the case, dating back to when I was an apprentice
in the trade many a long year ago. I wonder how many on-line sellers
actually forward the names and addresses ? Or how many people buying on
line realise that the sellers are required to do so ? A couple of weeks
back, I saw a 'TV Detector Van' for the first time in a long time, and
I couldn't help wondering if there is anything that they can actually
'detect' these days to ascertain that there is a TV set running in a
house. In days of yore, it was easy for them to 'zero in' on the dirty
line timebase emissions that extended well up into RF, and even, I
believe, to be able to look at emissions from the tuner's LO, leaking
backwards up the aerial cable, to allow the detectors to determine what
channel was being watched.

These days, there is no line timebase. Plasmas are probably pretty dirty
as there's some fairly high level sharp-edged signals flying around in
them, but the noisiest thing in an LCD is likely to be the SMPS, and in
any case, it could just as easily be a computer monitor that they were
'seeing'.

A while back, I'm sure that I saw something somewhere that basically
said that they just went to a street armed with a list of the houses
that *didn't* have a license, and started knocking on doors, based on
the fact that there was a good liklihood that they would have a TV.
These days, you are apparently obliged to show your license if asked.
That wasn't always the case though. Some years back, we had them knock
on our door and ask to see our license. My wife refused. When they
asked her why, she told them that she knew that she had a license and
if they didn't, that was their problem, not hers. They told her that
she could be taken to court and prosecuted for not having a license, as
clearly, they thought she was just blagging it. She calmly told them to
go right ahead, because they were going to look pretty stupid when she
produced it in court. They went away, but she later got a letter saying
that they had traced the license, which was wrongly recorded by the
village post office where we bought it, by having the wrong post code
entered ... I also seem to think that I read somewhere that they
published lists of houses in streets that had no license recorded
against them, which seemed a bit of a step too far to me, as it is
automatically assuming that those houses are watching TV without a
license.

It must be extremely difficult to enforce now, with the technology in
place - actually by the broadcasters themselves, including the BBC - to
watch their programmes on any item that has a screen, including phones,
iPods and tablets.

Arfa

I may be wrong here, but I seem to recollect that the Buisiness or trade
licence was something issued freely or at a token cost. The collecting of
data was part of the agreement.

Now if a dealer didn't connect a set up to an aerial and the mains, they
wouldn't need a licence. Internet dealers and "box shifters" should be
free of the need for a licence therefore.

There are lot's of anomolies in the system that I do not think have been
properly tested in the courts. You have had the ridiculous situation
where someone was fined for recording a program on a colour enabled video
when they only had a black & white TV & Licence.

A set used exclusively for foreign broadcasts does not need a licence.

Oh, yes, it does.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

On 01/06/2013 18:48, charles wrote:
A set used exclusively for foreign broadcasts does not need a licence.
Oh, yes, it does.

Even if it didn't - please define "foreign" in that context with
particular reference to satellite broadcasts?

--
Rod

Sounds like a large parcel, I wonder what the chances of getting it
undamaged at the other end would be ...

Oh, er :-), in case you didn't realise ...

On Sat, 01 Jun 2013 12:03:08 +0100, Harry Bloomfield
wrote:

You are supposed to fill in a tear off bit of the V5 with the new
keepers details, when you sell a vehicle and post it off to DVLA.
--
================================================== =======
Please always reply to ng as the email in this post's
header does not exist. Or use a contact address at:
http://www.macfh.co.uk/JavaJive/JavaJive.html
http://www.macfh.co.uk/Macfarlane/Macfarlane.html

In article ,
polygonum wrote:
On 01/06/2013 18:48, charles wrote:
A set used exclusively for foreign broadcasts does not need a licence.
Oh, yes, it does.

Even if it didn't - please define "foreign" in that context with
particular reference to satellite broadcasts?

I don't need to. A licence is needed to receive ANY tv broadcasts.

Interestingly, Ireland had a tv licence nearly 2 years befoe they started
their own tv service.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

In article ,
alan writes:
I also witnessed at the airport security someone turning up with a M&S
small carrier bag with what looked like a 3 pack of mini trifles and a 3
pack of mini cheesecakes. The security personnel spent a few minutes
checking the ingredients and then confiscated the trifles.

I read that as rifles, first time.

I had my rucksack completely emptied out on one occasion, and they
were obviously looking for something very specific, which they
couldn't find. I then got questioned about this thing they couldn't
find, which they wouldn't tell me what it was, and I had no idea either.
Eventually, they showed me the X-ray screen, and there was something
which looked like a magazine of bullets.

It was actually USB hub with a long row of USB thumb drives plugged
in to it, which had gone right down to the bottom of the rucksack
with their frantic rummaging through it. I used it to present some
live demos of ZFS on a storage array, but not wanting to carry a
storage array around, I used a USB hub with loads of thumb drives
instead.

I stopped taking it through airports after that, although it had
previously gone through several without anyone batting an eyelid.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

Archibald wrote:

There are lot's of anomolies in the system that I do not think have
been properly tested in the courts. You have had the ridiculous
situation where someone was fined for recording a program on a colour
enabled video when they only had a black & white TV & Licence.

It has always been thus. It used to be (when I last looked a few years
ago) quite specifically stated that a colour licence was needed by B&W
TV owners with a VCR - the VCR being a "colour receiver."

Scott

In article ,
"Arfa Daily" writes:
I also seem to think that I read somewhere that they published
lists of houses in streets that had no license recorded against them, which
seemed a bit of a step too far to me, as it is automatically assuming that
those houses are watching TV without a license.

It was part of an advertising campaign which ran on local bus shelter
adverts in some areas of suspected high license avoidance.

"4 houses in Albert Street don't have TV licenses"

I remember thinking that if my street ever came up, I was going to add
my house number to the advert, with a caption something like
"so go and break in to a different one if you're looking for a TV"...

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

Arfa Daily wrote:

A while back, I'm sure that I saw something somewhere that basically
said that they just went to a street armed with a list of the houses
that *didn't* have a license, and started knocking on doors, based on
the fact that there was a good liklihood that they would have a TV.

They did used to have handheld detectors that were good for blocks of
flats, apparently, but its been a mostly paper exercise for a long, long
time.

Bought a new house in 1997 and, IIRC, even before we'd moved in there
was a red demand from TVLicensing.

I've known two people without TVs and, over 10 years ago now, it was a
never ending battle with them in charge to persuade them that you don't
have a set. And even if you did manage to persuade them you didn't have
one, they'd be back the next year just as insistent. The problem is, of
course, that traditionally it's almost unthinkable that people might
have better things to do with their time that watch TV, although that
may well be changing with mass adoption of t'interweb.

Scott

In article ,
Archibald writes:
And I wonder how many people have been prosecuted for watching TV on
broadband?

Lots of students in halls of residence.
They're always easy targets because they instantly admit what they
were doing to the license inspectors, under the misapprehension that
it wasn't illegal.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

In article ,
Archibald wrote:
On Sat, 01 Jun 2013 05:57:58 +0100, John Rumm

There are some shops that over implement the requirement... perhaps not
the the extent of requiring details for the purchase of an HDMI lead,
but I was certainly asked to provide details once when purchasing a DVD
player in Tesco. A DVD player with no capability to receive TV!

Basically staff serving customers seem to develop an air of authourity
inversely proportional to their intelligence. If a DVD and setop box
both produce pictures on a domestic TV isn't it obvious to anyone with
half a brain cell, that logic dictates that if the set top box needs
a licence, then so must the DVD player.

Tbf, it's probably not the poor sod who is sitting on the till that's cocked
up at tesco.

A few (5?) years back I was in the queue at Tesco behind someone buying a DVD
player. As John says, the wanted the guys address for TV licence bods - the
till wouldn't complete the transaction until it was entered. The guy on the
till knew this was rubbish and a mistake on the system, but couldn't override
the till.

Eventually the manager was called who also claimed not to be able to override
it and the customer ended up showing the manager what appeared to be a
business card and whispered (well, spoke quietly so I couldn't hear anyway :-))
something to him. Big change of attitude, till guy told to enter store
postcode and big apology to the customer.

I've always wondered what was on the business card. Till guy was also in
the dark. I'd love to know what was said - maybe he was a highup bod from
Tesco? Anyway sounds from Johns experience they still do it so nothing was
fixed :-(

Darren

On 01/06/2013 19:23, charles wrote:
In article ,
polygonum wrote:
On 01/06/2013 18:48, charles wrote:
A set used exclusively for foreign broadcasts does not need a licence.
Oh, yes, it does.

Even if it didn't - please define "foreign" in that context with
particular reference to satellite broadcasts?

I don't need to. A licence is needed to receive ANY tv broadcasts.

Interestingly, Ireland had a tv licence nearly 2 years befoe they started
their own tv service.

I was referring to what charles wrote. I agree a licence is needed but
thought it worth considering the question of what would be held to be a
foreign broadcast. In days gone by, someone in Kent picking up a French
transmission could easily be argued to be foreign. I don't think many
easy cases remain.

--
Rod

In article ,
says...

Subject: Argos TV - Licence - Big Brother
From: Brian Gaff
Newsgroups: uk.d-i-y

Those are different issues. the tv one dates back to at least the 1970s and
has been put in place to make sure they can feel the collar of non licence
payers.


Even earlier.

TV Licence introduced on 1st June 1946.


--
Sam

In article , says...

Argos are required by law to take the name and address of
anybody purchasing a TV or any TV related peripherals

TV peripherals? You sure they said that? HDMI lead? DVD player? Never
been asked for personal details for either of those. That sounds like
******** to me. I don't believe a store manager would say that. Mind
you, its been a while, maybe things have changed and Im out of date.


Retailers are required to take details from anyone buying equipment
capable of receiving broadcast TV - generally anything which contains a
TV tuner - so that could be a PVR, some DVD players, one of those USB TV
tuner dongles etc... Oh! and a TV.

Like most people, I live in an area where there are now only digital TV
transmissions.
I wonder if the TVLA would try to 'do' me if I own an analogue tuner?
i.e. a tuner which _could_ receive broadcast TV, if only someone could
be bothered to transmit an analogue signal.




--
Sam

In article ,
says...

snip


I do have a licence incidentally, although I suspect that if someone
wasn't to keen on having one, things would be fairly easy these days.
As few sets have a line timebase now, then the only thing a detector
would have to go for is the tuners local oscillator, a miniscule
signal in an ocean of polluted airwaves.

Even that wouldn't be easy for them to 'find' these days, as I'm sure that
just about all tuners are direct conversion ZIF types now, which means that
any LO is at the same frequency as the base frequency of the multiplex being
received. No nice big constant frequency IF for them to search on.


Incidentally years back I was in the TV trade. A customer on a large
and not too reputable council estate described how she was visited by
the licencing authourity, she admitted them to the house, showed them
the TV and was as helpful as possible. her neighbour threatened to
"kick the head in" of anyone trying to enter his house.

Only one got fined. Any guesses which one?


However, if neither actually had a license, then that was unfair treatment,
and if I was the one who got done, knowing that my neighbour didn't, then I
would appeal my prosecution in the strongest possible terms. They had no
right of entry, and it shouldn't matter what 'threats' a house owner made to
them, as long as he didn't actually carry them out.

I think a defence of "Well, everyone's at it so why should I get done?"
is unlikely to get very far in court.

There was clear evidence against the woman, so obviously she was fined.
As the man refused to let them in (he didn't have to issue threats, just
refuse them entry) then there's no evidence against him & no
prosecution.


--
Sam

In article ,
says...

In article ,
Archibald writes:
And I wonder how many people have been prosecuted for watching TV on
broadband?

Lots of students in halls of residence.
They're always easy targets because they instantly admit what they
were doing to the license inspectors, under the misapprehension that
it wasn't illegal.

It's only illegal if they're watching something which is being broadcast
(near) simultaneously.

--
Sam

On 01/06/2013 20:47, D.M.Chapman wrote:
In article ,
Archibald wrote:
On Sat, 01 Jun 2013 05:57:58 +0100, John Rumm

There are some shops that over implement the requirement... perhaps not
the the extent of requiring details for the purchase of an HDMI lead,
but I was certainly asked to provide details once when purchasing a DVD
player in Tesco. A DVD player with no capability to receive TV!

Basically staff serving customers seem to develop an air of authourity
inversely proportional to their intelligence. If a DVD and setop box
both produce pictures on a domestic TV isn't it obvious to anyone with
half a brain cell, that logic dictates that if the set top box needs
a licence, then so must the DVD player.

Tbf, it's probably not the poor sod who is sitting on the till that's cocked
up at tesco.

A few (5?) years back I was in the queue at Tesco behind someone buying a DVD
player. As John says, the wanted the guys address for TV licence bods - the
till wouldn't complete the transaction until it was entered. The guy on the
till knew this was rubbish and a mistake on the system, but couldn't override
the till.

Eventually the manager was called who also claimed not to be able to override
it and the customer ended up showing the manager what appeared to be a
business card and whispered (well, spoke quietly so I couldn't hear anyway :-))
something to him. Big change of attitude, till guy told to enter store
postcode and big apology to the customer.

I've always wondered what was on the business card. Till guy was also in
the dark. I'd love to know what was said - maybe he was a highup bod from
Tesco? Anyway sounds from Johns experience they still do it so nothing was
fixed :-(

In my case it was quite a few years ago...


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 01/06/2013 20:38, Scott M wrote:

I've known two people without TVs and, over 10 years ago now, it was a
never ending battle with them in charge to persuade them that you don't
have a set. And even if you did manage to persuade them you didn't have
one, they'd be back the next year just as insistent. The problem is, of
course, that traditionally it's almost unthinkable that people might
have better things to do with their time that watch TV, although that
may well be changing with mass adoption of t'interweb.

I found that when we had an empty property for some time, we allowed the
license to lapse. We got the standard snottygram letters. So the first
couple of times I either sent them a letter, or phoned them to explain
that it was intentionally unlicensed due to being unoccupied.

There seemed to be no way to actually shut off the stream of letter for
more than three months at a time though, and they were written in a way
that was both intimidating and also presumed guilt. At which point I
though sod em, and just binned all further communications unopened!


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

"Wesley" wrote:
I witnessed a heated arguement the other day between a lady wishing to buy
an LCD TV and an Argos employee.

Apparently, Argos are required by law to take the name and address of
anybody purchasing a TV or any TV related peripherals and pass these on to
the licencing authorities. The lady in question was having none of this and
contested the issue even after the store manager was called. She claimed
that, on principle, it was wrong that she had to supply her personal details
and if she wanted to buy a lawnmower, these would not be required.

In the end she stormed out without making a purchase and Argos lost the sale
of a £500 TV.

I can't help feeling she had a point :-)

Argos are wrong. They are only required to notify TV licensing if the
purchase is of a television receiver. I've had this argument with Asda
before. I ended up talking to an officious and stupid manager who insisted
that he "knew all about the law" and that I needed a TV License to buy a
DVD player.

It took a letter to their head office to get an apology and a promise that
the manager would be "retrained".

--
€¢DarWin|
_/ _/

On Sat, 01 Jun 2013 18:48:08 +0100, charles
wrote:

In article , Archibald
wrote:
On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 14:22:30 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:



"Wesley" wrote in message
news:nrSdnet94L100zTMnZ2dnUVZ8oWdnZ2d@brightview. co.uk...
I witnessed a heated arguement the other day between a lady wishing to
buy an LCD TV and an Argos employee.

Apparently, Argos are required by law to take the name and address of
anybody purchasing a TV or any TV related peripherals and pass these
on to the licencing authorities. The lady in question was having
none of this and contested the issue even after the store manager was
called. She claimed that, on principle, it was wrong that she had to
supply her personal details and if she wanted to buy a lawnmower,
these would not be required.

In the end she stormed out without making a purchase and Argos lost
the sale of a £500 TV.

I can't help feeling she had a point :-)

That has for ever been the case, dating back to when I was an apprentice
in the trade many a long year ago. I wonder how many on-line sellers
actually forward the names and addresses ? Or how many people buying on
line realise that the sellers are required to do so ? A couple of weeks
back, I saw a 'TV Detector Van' for the first time in a long time, and
I couldn't help wondering if there is anything that they can actually
'detect' these days to ascertain that there is a TV set running in a
house. In days of yore, it was easy for them to 'zero in' on the dirty
line timebase emissions that extended well up into RF, and even, I
believe, to be able to look at emissions from the tuner's LO, leaking
backwards up the aerial cable, to allow the detectors to determine what
channel was being watched.

These days, there is no line timebase. Plasmas are probably pretty dirty
as there's some fairly high level sharp-edged signals flying around in
them, but the noisiest thing in an LCD is likely to be the SMPS, and in
any case, it could just as easily be a computer monitor that they were
'seeing'.

A while back, I'm sure that I saw something somewhere that basically
said that they just went to a street armed with a list of the houses
that *didn't* have a license, and started knocking on doors, based on
the fact that there was a good liklihood that they would have a TV.
These days, you are apparently obliged to show your license if asked.
That wasn't always the case though. Some years back, we had them knock
on our door and ask to see our license. My wife refused. When they
asked her why, she told them that she knew that she had a license and
if they didn't, that was their problem, not hers. They told her that
she could be taken to court and prosecuted for not having a license, as
clearly, they thought she was just blagging it. She calmly told them to
go right ahead, because they were going to look pretty stupid when she
produced it in court. They went away, but she later got a letter saying
that they had traced the license, which was wrongly recorded by the
village post office where we bought it, by having the wrong post code
entered ... I also seem to think that I read somewhere that they
published lists of houses in streets that had no license recorded
against them, which seemed a bit of a step too far to me, as it is
automatically assuming that those houses are watching TV without a
license.

It must be extremely difficult to enforce now, with the technology in
place - actually by the broadcasters themselves, including the BBC - to
watch their programmes on any item that has a screen, including phones,
iPods and tablets.

Arfa

I may be wrong here, but I seem to recollect that the Buisiness or trade
licence was something issued freely or at a token cost. The collecting of
data was part of the agreement.

Now if a dealer didn't connect a set up to an aerial and the mains, they
wouldn't need a licence. Internet dealers and "box shifters" should be
free of the need for a licence therefore.

There are lot's of anomolies in the system that I do not think have been
properly tested in the courts. You have had the ridiculous situation
where someone was fined for recording a program on a colour enabled video
when they only had a black & white TV & Licence.

A set used exclusively for foreign broadcasts does not need a licence.

Oh, yes, it does.

It didn't fifteen years back, so I'm not sure what's changed. I spent
many happy periods of letter writing to various christian names that
the licencing authourity liked to personalise letters with. We had
many discussions on the precise definition of the word colour and what
could be considered to be "wireless telegraphy"

I did have it in writing that a domestic licence was not needed for
the exclusive reception of foriegn broadcasts. This surprised me, but
I think I can see why they do not make it common knowledge.

The amusement wore a bit thin in the end and I bought a colour set, so
my annoyance regarding the endless letters insinuating I was watching
colour on a monochrome licence dissipated.

Anyone seeking plenty of amusement for the cost of a few stamps will
find the time well spent baiting TV licenceing or whatever they call
themselves now.

If you can add a few dozen circuit diagrams, queries on tv and aerial
faults, complaints about picture geometry and demand a reduced licence
fee enclosing photographic evidence of the picture quality supported
with copies of the local paper and TV times [for the listings], then
it can become a very worthwhile experience.

Everything you send them gets returned, and the more you send the
bigger the number of complaints you can make about delays in
responding.


Before anyone starts sounding off that this is a waste of licence
payers cash, just think of all the money these tosspots waste hounding
people that do not have a TV. They are sent threats on a regular basis
until they succumb to allowing a bunch of thugs into their home in
search of a none existent TV.

AB

On Sat, 01 Jun 2013 19:23:14 +0100, charles
wrote:

In article ,
polygonum wrote:
On 01/06/2013 18:48, charles wrote:
A set used exclusively for foreign broadcasts does not need a licence.
Oh, yes, it does.

Even if it didn't - please define "foreign" in that context with
particular reference to satellite broadcasts?

I don't need to. A licence is needed to receive ANY tv broadcasts.

Amateur TV broadcasts only need an amateur licence to both send and
receive, therefore if a domestic licence isn't needed by an amateur
why should a member of the public need one?

Anyone is legally entitled to monitor amateur transmissions in the UK
without a licence incidentally.

Now if a UK amateur transmission can be legally received without a
licence, why not French, Russian or Southern Irish?





Interestingly, Ireland had a tv licence nearly 2 years befoe they started
their own tv service.

Things may have been different in the early days. Interference
problems would have been rife [VHF and a video polarity that made the
spots "whiter than white"] I presume their version of the post office
was kept fairly busy.

It may have been the case in the UK too, but when I had my fun with
the licenceing people the post office had left the interference scene
and I seem to recollect there was a charge of £25-00 for an
interference complaint. This along with UHF, AGC and flywheel sync
probably only left them needing to raise money for the services of the
BBC.

Anyway I still would have found it hard to believe if I had not had it
in writing.

Satellites carrying BBC transmissions need a licence BTW.

AB

On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 21:10:22 +0100, Sam Plusnet wrote:

In article , says...

Argos are required by law to take the name and address of
anybody purchasing a TV or any TV related peripherals

TV peripherals? You sure they said that? HDMI lead? DVD player? Never
been asked for personal details for either of those. That sounds like
******** to me. I don't believe a store manager would say that. Mind
you, its been a while, maybe things have changed and Im out of date.


Retailers are required to take details from anyone buying equipment
capable of receiving broadcast TV - generally anything which contains a
TV tuner - so that could be a PVR, some DVD players, one of those USB TV
tuner dongles etc... Oh! and a TV.

Like most people, I live in an area where there are now only digital TV
transmissions.
I wonder if the TVLA would try to 'do' me if I own an analogue tuner?
i.e. a tuner which _could_ receive broadcast TV, if only someone could
be bothered to transmit an analogue signal.

You do own an analogue tuner and indeed use it on a regular basis no
doubt.

I am not sure what a digital tuner would look like but I would expect
someone would have to invent a digital aerial before they had a bash
at a digital tuner.

Alas the laws of physics and common sense seem to go out the window
when it comes to the sales literature.

Why don't we have colour digital aerials? I the good old days you
could sit there happy in the knowledge that you had successfully
upgraded your eighteen element bog standard UHF for an eighteen
element colour, thus ensuring years of happines until it came time to
buy the oxygen free silver plated speaker leads.

On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 22:22:55 +0000 (UTC), Steve Firth
wrote:

"Wesley" wrote:
I witnessed a heated arguement the other day between a lady wishing to buy
an LCD TV and an Argos employee.

Apparently, Argos are required by law to take the name and address of
anybody purchasing a TV or any TV related peripherals and pass these on to
the licencing authorities. The lady in question was having none of this and
contested the issue even after the store manager was called. She claimed
that, on principle, it was wrong that she had to supply her personal details
and if she wanted to buy a lawnmower, these would not be required.

In the end she stormed out without making a purchase and Argos lost the sale
of a £500 TV.

I can't help feeling she had a point :-)

Argos are wrong. They are only required to notify TV licensing if the
purchase is of a television receiver. I've had this argument with Asda
before. I ended up talking to an officious and stupid manager who insisted
that he "knew all about the law" and that I needed a TV License to buy a
DVD player.

It took a letter to their head office to get an apology and a promise that
the manager would be "retrained".

I Read That as:- "restrained".

--
Frank Erskine

In message , Archibald
writes
On Sat, 01 Jun 2013 19:23:14 +0100, charles
wrote:

In article ,
polygonum wrote:
On 01/06/2013 18:48, charles wrote:
A set used exclusively for foreign broadcasts does not need a licence.
Oh, yes, it does.

Even if it didn't - please define "foreign" in that context with
particular reference to satellite broadcasts?

I don't need to. A licence is needed to receive ANY tv broadcasts.

Amateur TV broadcasts only need an amateur licence to both send and
receive, therefore if a domestic licence isn't needed by an amateur
why should a member of the public need one?

Normally, radio amateurs don't broadcast*. The normal UK amateur radio
licence doesn't cover the reception of broadcast commercial TV signals.
*Exceptions include the transmission of news broadcasts, which require
special authorisation.

There are those who will argue that an amateur, by the terms of his
licence, should be capable of checking for interference problems, and so
should have a working broadcast TV installation. I therefore guess, for
this purpose, he doesn't need a broadcast TV licence - provided he
doesn't actually watch the TV for the purpose of enjoyment,
entertainment or education!

Anyone is legally entitled to monitor amateur transmissions in the UK
without a licence incidentally.

This is probably not so. At one time, the old TV/radio licence used to
specify that you could receive broadcast TV/radio transmissions, AND
amateur radio transmissions. It may still be there, buried in the
various rules and regulations. If it isn't, then arguably there is no
licence which authorises you to receive amateur radio/TV transmissions
(other than the amateur radio licence). This used to be the case with CB
transmissions, which (arguably) could only be received if you actually
had a CB licence.

Now if a UK amateur transmission can be legally received without a
licence, why not French, Russian or Southern Irish?

As I've said above, if there is no regulation specifically allowing you
to receive amateur TV signals, then legally, you can't. The WTA is one
of those cases where if you aren't authorised to, you can't.


Interestingly, Ireland had a tv licence nearly 2 years befoe they started
their own tv service.

Things may have been different in the early days. Interference
problems would have been rife [VHF and a video polarity that made the
spots "whiter than white"] I presume their version of the post office
was kept fairly busy.

It may have been the case in the UK too, but when I had my fun with
the licenceing people the post office had left the interference scene
and I seem to recollect there was a charge of £25-00 for an
interference complaint. This along with UHF, AGC and flywheel sync
probably only left them needing to raise money for the services of the
BBC.

Anyway I still would have found it hard to believe if I had not had it
in writing.

Satellites carrying BBC transmissions need a licence BTW.

You need a TV licence for ALL broadcast TV - full stop.
--
Ian

In article ,
John Rumm wrote:
There seemed to be no way to actually shut off the stream of letter for
more than three months at a time though, and they were written in a way
that was both intimidating and also presumed guilt. At which point I
though sod em, and just binned all further communications unopened!

Sounds a bit like Virgin. I get about one letter a week trying to get me
to subscribe to their service.

--
*That's it! I‘m calling grandma!

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
John Rumm wrote:
There seemed to be no way to actually shut off the stream of letter
for more than three months at a time though, and they were written
in a way that was both intimidating and also presumed guilt. At
which point I though sod em, and just binned all further
communications unopened!

Sounds a bit like Virgin. I get about one letter a week trying to get
me to subscribe to their service.

So do I - and I already use them.

--
Adam

John Rumm wrote:
On 01/06/2013 20:38, Scott M wrote:

I've known two people without TVs and, over 10 years ago now, it was
a never ending battle with them in charge to persuade them that you
don't have a set. And even if you did manage to persuade them you
didn't have one, they'd be back the next year just as insistent. The
problem is, of course, that traditionally it's almost unthinkable
that people might have better things to do with their time that
watch TV, although that may well be changing with mass adoption of
t'interweb.

I found that when we had an empty property for some time, we allowed
the license to lapse. We got the standard snottygram letters. So the
first couple of times I either sent them a letter, or phoned them to
explain that it was intentionally unlicensed due to being unoccupied.

There seemed to be no way to actually shut off the stream of letter
for more than three months at a time though, and they were written in
a way that was both intimidating and also presumed guilt. At which
point I though sod em, and just binned all further communications
unopened!

The correct procedure is to shove the letters into a postbox with "Return to
sender- unwanted junk mail" written across them. It's coming up to 5 years
now since they last contacted me.

--
Adam

"Archibald" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 01 Jun 2013 05:57:58 +0100, John Rumm
wrote:

On 01/06/2013 03:49, AC wrote:

Argos are required by law to take the name and address of
anybody purchasing a TV or any TV related peripherals

TV peripherals? You sure they said that? HDMI lead? DVD player? Never
been asked for personal details for either of those. That sounds like
******** to me. I don't believe a store manager would say that. Mind
you, its been a while, maybe things have changed and Im out of date.

There are some shops that over implement the requirement... perhaps not
the the extent of requiring details for the purchase of an HDMI lead,
but I was certainly asked to provide details once when purchasing a DVD
player in Tesco. A DVD player with no capability to receive TV!

Probably not Tesco policy, unless there is some covert way to rip
customers off attatched!

Basically staff serving customers seem to develop an air of authourity
inversely proportional to their intelligence.

You really think so

when I had to do this is was a right PITA, to be avoided if possible

I certainly didn't invent reasons to do it to prove to the world the I had
some "power" over the customer

On 02/06/2013 2:20 AM, Archibald wrote:
On Sat, 01 Jun 2013 18:48:08 +0100, charles
wrote:

In , Archibald
wrote:
On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 14:22:30 +0100, "Arfa
wrote:



wrote in message
o.uk...
I witnessed a heated arguement the other day between a lady wishing to
buy an LCD TV and an Argos employee.

Apparently, Argos are required by law to take the name and address of
anybody purchasing a TV or any TV related peripherals and pass these
on to the licencing authorities. The lady in question was having
none of this and contested the issue even after the store manager was
called. She claimed that, on principle, it was wrong that she had to
supply her personal details and if she wanted to buy a lawnmower,
these would not be required.

In the end she stormed out without making a purchase and Argos lost
the sale of a £500 TV.

I can't help feeling she had a point :-)

That has for ever been the case, dating back to when I was an apprentice
in the trade many a long year ago. I wonder how many on-line sellers
actually forward the names and addresses ? Or how many people buying on
line realise that the sellers are required to do so ? A couple of weeks
back, I saw a 'TV Detector Van' for the first time in a long time, and
I couldn't help wondering if there is anything that they can actually
'detect' these days to ascertain that there is a TV set running in a
house. In days of yore, it was easy for them to 'zero in' on the dirty
line timebase emissions that extended well up into RF, and even, I
believe, to be able to look at emissions from the tuner's LO, leaking
backwards up the aerial cable, to allow the detectors to determine what
channel was being watched.

These days, there is no line timebase. Plasmas are probably pretty dirty
as there's some fairly high level sharp-edged signals flying around in
them, but the noisiest thing in an LCD is likely to be the SMPS, and in
any case, it could just as easily be a computer monitor that they were
'seeing'.

A while back, I'm sure that I saw something somewhere that basically
said that they just went to a street armed with a list of the houses
that *didn't* have a license, and started knocking on doors, based on
the fact that there was a good liklihood that they would have a TV.
These days, you are apparently obliged to show your license if asked.
That wasn't always the case though. Some years back, we had them knock
on our door and ask to see our license. My wife refused. When they
asked her why, she told them that she knew that she had a license and
if they didn't, that was their problem, not hers. They told her that
she could be taken to court and prosecuted for not having a license, as
clearly, they thought she was just blagging it. She calmly told them to
go right ahead, because they were going to look pretty stupid when she
produced it in court. They went away, but she later got a letter saying
that they had traced the license, which was wrongly recorded by the
village post office where we bought it, by having the wrong post code
entered ... I also seem to think that I read somewhere that they
published lists of houses in streets that had no license recorded
against them, which seemed a bit of a step too far to me, as it is
automatically assuming that those houses are watching TV without a
license.

It must be extremely difficult to enforce now, with the technology in
place - actually by the broadcasters themselves, including the BBC - to
watch their programmes on any item that has a screen, including phones,
iPods and tablets.

Arfa

I may be wrong here, but I seem to recollect that the Buisiness or trade
licence was something issued freely or at a token cost. The collecting of
data was part of the agreement.

Now if a dealer didn't connect a set up to an aerial and the mains, they
wouldn't need a licence. Internet dealers and "box shifters" should be
free of the need for a licence therefore.

There are lot's of anomolies in the system that I do not think have been
properly tested in the courts. You have had the ridiculous situation
where someone was fined for recording a program on a colour enabled video
when they only had a black& white TV& Licence.

A set used exclusively for foreign broadcasts does not need a licence.

Oh, yes, it does.

It didn't fifteen years back, so I'm not sure what's changed. I spent
many happy periods of letter writing to various christian names that
the licencing authourity liked to personalise letters with. We had
many discussions on the precise definition of the word colour and what
could be considered to be "wireless telegraphy"

I did have it in writing that a domestic licence was not needed for
the exclusive reception of foriegn broadcasts. This surprised me, but
I think I can see why they do not make it common knowledge.

The amusement wore a bit thin in the end and I bought a colour set, so
my annoyance regarding the endless letters insinuating I was watching
colour on a monochrome licence dissipated.

Anyone seeking plenty of amusement for the cost of a few stamps will
find the time well spent baiting TV licenceing or whatever they call
themselves now.

If you can add a few dozen circuit diagrams, queries on tv and aerial
faults, complaints about picture geometry and demand a reduced licence
fee enclosing photographic evidence of the picture quality supported
with copies of the local paper and TV times [for the listings], then
it can become a very worthwhile experience.

Everything you send them gets returned, and the more you send the
bigger the number of complaints you can make about delays in
responding.


Before anyone starts sounding off that this is a waste of licence
payers cash, just think of all the money these tosspots waste hounding
people that do not have a TV. They are sent threats on a regular basis
until they succumb to allowing a bunch of thugs into their home in
search of a none existent TV.

AB

+10


I am more bemused by the overall response in this thread. I would have
expected more like yours. People paying a license for watching, what I
consider as, mostly crap, is disgusting.

There is far more 'entertainment' on the Net. There is much more good
and, free advice. The BBC (actually a curtain) produces nothing that
helps human kind. They simply keep people amused enough so as not to see
what is actually going on.

The most likely victim of the licensing law is the poor single mum
with kids. That, of all the transmissions that are freely(in a
fashion)given, cannot be watched because the BBC says IT is the ruler of
the airwaves.

The BBC has wormed it's way into nearly every form of media receivers
such that you have to pay for 'free information' regardless of it's source.

At one time the law included only the actually frequencies broadcast
by the BBC and some people detuned their sets of those frequencies in
order to avoid payment. It was not long before these laws were changed
and, they continue to do so. It will not be long before you HAVE to
register the PC.

The BBC is nothing but a blanket over our heads. If those behind the
BBC think it deserves the payment then let them show their confidence
and set the broadcasts on a scrambled line. Let people choose to pay.

They dare not! They want your money, regardless.

Stop watching TV, it is, on the whole, useless. The news you get is
hugely filtered such that you only get the doom and gloom. When kept in
stress, your fight and flight system is being energised and your mind
locked into fear and defence.

People are kept so busy, stressed or, ideally entertained, that we do
not realise that we have the power to change. So stressed are we that we
look to those that utter the right words of, 'we can help you, vote for
us'!

Does anyone remember the huge turn of events that was so revolutionary
that it was splashed all over every surface of news media in the UK and
America? That of the arrest and imprisonment of the prime minister and
major bankers of Iceland? No, of course you didn't!! It wasn't
considered news worthy. After all, if people thought they had the power
to make change things could get bad, ..for some.

Register with similar sites like the one in my sig. One click voting.
Many politicians and companies are being persuaded to change their
agendas because of the pressure put upon them through petitions.

Recently, Npower(tax dodgers) have been petitioned by 170,000 voters
of '38 Degrees' to pay the taxes. This took all of three days. Dependent
upon the results of an arranged meeting with Npower, when notified we
are all ready to swap providers.




--
One click voting to change the world.
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/
Join Now! Be a part of people power.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/
Biting the hand that feeds IT

On 02/06/2013 12:05 PM, ARW wrote:
John Rumm wrote:
On 01/06/2013 20:38, Scott M wrote:

I've known two people without TVs and, over 10 years ago now, it was
a never ending battle with them in charge to persuade them that you
don't have a set. And even if you did manage to persuade them you
didn't have one, they'd be back the next year just as insistent. The
problem is, of course, that traditionally it's almost unthinkable
that people might have better things to do with their time that
watch TV, although that may well be changing with mass adoption of
t'interweb.

I found that when we had an empty property for some time, we allowed
the license to lapse. We got the standard snottygram letters. So the
first couple of times I either sent them a letter, or phoned them to
explain that it was intentionally unlicensed due to being unoccupied.

There seemed to be no way to actually shut off the stream of letter
for more than three months at a time though, and they were written in
a way that was both intimidating and also presumed guilt. At which
point I though sod em, and just binned all further communications
unopened!

The correct procedure is to shove the letters into a postbox with "Return to
sender- unwanted junk mail" written across them. It's coming up to 5 years
now since they last contacted me.


+1

--
One click voting to change the world.
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/
Join Now! Be a part of people power.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/
Biting the hand that feeds IT

Archibald formulated the question :
Amateur TV broadcasts only need an amateur licence to both send and
receive, therefore if a domestic licence isn't needed by an amateur
why should a member of the public need one?

They do not broadcast, they are not allowed to - they simply transmit
for reception by other amateurs.

--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk

On Sun, 2 Jun 2013 10:11:04 +0100, Ian Jackson
wrote:

In message , Archibald
writes
On Sat, 01 Jun 2013 19:23:14 +0100, charles
wrote:

In article ,
polygonum wrote:
On 01/06/2013 18:48, charles wrote:
A set used exclusively for foreign broadcasts does not need a licence.
Oh, yes, it does.

Even if it didn't - please define "foreign" in that context with
particular reference to satellite broadcasts?

I don't need to. A licence is needed to receive ANY tv broadcasts.

Amateur TV broadcasts only need an amateur licence to both send and
receive, therefore if a domestic licence isn't needed by an amateur
why should a member of the public need one?

Normally, radio amateurs don't broadcast*. The normal UK amateur radio
licence doesn't cover the reception of broadcast commercial TV signals.
*Exceptions include the transmission of news broadcasts, which require
special authorisation.

There are those who will argue that an amateur, by the terms of his
licence, should be capable of checking for interference problems, and so
should have a working broadcast TV installation. I therefore guess, for
this purpose, he doesn't need a broadcast TV licence - provided he
doesn't actually watch the TV for the purpose of enjoyment,
entertainment or education!

Anyone is legally entitled to monitor amateur transmissions in the UK
without a licence incidentally.

This is probably not so. At one time, the old TV/radio licence used to
specify that you could receive broadcast TV/radio transmissions, AND
amateur radio transmissions. It may still be there, buried in the
various rules and regulations. If it isn't, then arguably there is no
licence which authorises you to receive amateur radio/TV transmissions
(other than the amateur radio licence). This used to be the case with CB
transmissions, which (arguably) could only be received if you actually
had a CB licence.

Now if a UK amateur transmission can be legally received without a
licence, why not French, Russian or Southern Irish?

As I've said above, if there is no regulation specifically allowing you
to receive amateur TV signals, then legally, you can't. The WTA is one
of those cases where if you aren't authorised to, you can't.


Interestingly, Ireland had a tv licence nearly 2 years befoe they started
their own tv service.

Things may have been different in the early days. Interference
problems would have been rife [VHF and a video polarity that made the
spots "whiter than white"] I presume their version of the post office
was kept fairly busy.

It may have been the case in the UK too, but when I had my fun with
the licenceing people the post office had left the interference scene
and I seem to recollect there was a charge of £25-00 for an
interference complaint. This along with UHF, AGC and flywheel sync
probably only left them needing to raise money for the services of the
BBC.

Anyway I still would have found it hard to believe if I had not had it
in writing.

Satellites carrying BBC transmissions need a licence BTW.

You need a TV licence for ALL broadcast TV - full stop.

I beg to differ!

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/42/section/181


Broadcast in the legal sense, pays scant regards to the ethereal
disturbance so loved by Mr Lodge.

Oddly enough it seems to suggest that someone watching commercial TV
in Northern Ireland isn't watching a "broadcast"

AB

On 01/06/2013 23:22, Steve Firth wrote:
"Wesley" wrote:
I witnessed a heated arguement the other day between a lady wishing to buy
an LCD TV and an Argos employee.

Apparently, Argos are required by law to take the name and address of
anybody purchasing a TV or any TV related peripherals and pass these on to
the licencing authorities. The lady in question was having none of this and
contested the issue even after the store manager was called. She claimed
that, on principle, it was wrong that she had to supply her personal details
and if she wanted to buy a lawnmower, these would not be required.

In the end she stormed out without making a purchase and Argos lost the sale
of a £500 TV.

I can't help feeling she had a point :-)

Argos are wrong.

But the lady in question was trying to buy a TV...

It was Tesco that were insisting on address details for a DVD player.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

John Rumm wrote:

On 01/06/2013 23:22, Steve Firth wrote:
"Wesley" wrote:
I witnessed a heated arguement the other day between a lady wishing to buy
an LCD TV and an Argos employee.

Apparently, Argos are required by law to take the name and address of
anybody purchasing a TV or any TV related peripherals and pass these on
to the licencing authorities. The lady in question was having none of
this and contested the issue even after the store manager was called.
She claimed that, on principle, it was wrong that she had to supply her
personal details and if she wanted to buy a lawnmower, these would not
be required.

In the end she stormed out without making a purchase and Argos lost the
sale of a £500 TV.

I can't help feeling she had a point :-)

Argos are wrong.

But the lady in question was trying to buy a TV...

I was commenting on "Argos are required by law to take the name and
address of anybody purchasing a TV or any TV related peripherals". This
is not true, hence Argos were wrong.

It was Tesco that were insisting on address details for a DVD player.

They were also wrong. Being wrong is not a monopoly industry. No paper
cards, no houses, no lead trinkets.

--
Burn Hollywood burn, burn down to the ground

Steve Firth wrote:
John Rumm wrote:

On 01/06/2013 23:22, Steve Firth wrote:
"Wesley" wrote:
I witnessed a heated arguement the other day between a lady
wishing to buy an LCD TV and an Argos employee.

Apparently, Argos are required by law to take the name and address
of anybody purchasing a TV or any TV related peripherals and pass
these on to the licencing authorities. The lady in question was
having none of this and contested the issue even after the store
manager was called.
She claimed that, on principle, it was wrong that she had to
supply her personal details and if she wanted to buy a lawnmower,
these would not
be required.

In the end she stormed out without making a purchase and Argos
lost the sale of a £500 TV.

I can't help feeling she had a point :-)

Argos are wrong.

But the lady in question was trying to buy a TV...

I was commenting on "Argos are required by law to take the name and
address of anybody purchasing a TV or any TV related peripherals".
This is not true, hence Argos were wrong.

It was Tesco that were insisting on address details for a DVD player.

They were also wrong.

Being wrong is not a monopoly industry.

Tell that to dennis.

--
Adam

In article ,
says...

You do own an analogue tuner and indeed use it on a regular basis no
doubt.

I am not sure what a digital tuner would look like but I would expect
someone would have to invent a digital aerial before they had a bash
at a digital tuner.

Alas the laws of physics and common sense seem to go out the window
when it comes to the sales literature.



You object to the terms "analogue" and "digital" when used to
distinguish between the previous and current methods of transmitting
(terrestrial) TV signal?

Do you have your very own set of labels to make this distinction?

The rest of the country doesn't seem to follow your ideas on this.

--
Sam

On 01/06/2013 08:25, polygonum wrote:
On 01/06/2013 02:57, Clive George wrote:
On 01/06/2013 02:31, Wesley wrote:
I witnessed a heated arguement the other day between a lady wishing to
buy
an LCD TV and an Argos employee.

Apparently, Argos are required by law to take the name and address of
anybody purchasing a TV or any TV related peripherals and pass these
on to
the licencing authorities. The lady in question was having none of
this and
contested the issue even after the store manager was called. She
claimed
that, on principle, it was wrong that she had to supply her personal
details
and if she wanted to buy a lawnmower, these would not be required.

In the end she stormed out without making a purchase and Argos lost
the sale
of a £500 TV.

I can't help feeling she had a point :-)

Maybe, but Argos were right - they have to do that, like every other TV
seller in this country. She should take it up with her MP if she feels
this is wrong.

I believe the traditional answer for somebody in her situation is to
give a false name/address. I do wonder if she's now gone online and
bought one to be delivered to her home...

The other technique is to use the address of someone who has a licence.
Most of us probably know someone with a licence...

Remember to look up the address of the Argos head office before you go
shopping!

Like when registering on a website that insists on having an email
address, for no sensible reason, I normally use postmaster@ and their
domain!


--
Cheers,

John.

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alan writes:

On 01/06/2013 05:41, Brian Gaff wrote:
It has however been the law for many many years.


WH Smiths at Edinburgh Airport want to scan your boarding pass before
they will sell you a packet of overpriced sweets. Result, the queue at
the tills took 10x longer as people opened bags etc. to find their
passes. I questioned why - and was informed that the staff had been
told to do it.

I also witnessed at the airport security someone turning up with a M&S
small carrier bag with what looked like a 3 pack of mini trifles and a 3
pack of mini cheesecakes. The security personnel spent a few minutes
checking the ingredients and then confiscated the trifles.

They didn't like cheesecake, but they did like trifle.

--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

"Brian Gaff" writes:

Yes, there have been arguments over video devices that have no screens of
course. I, for example do get a discount through blindness

Which just goes to show what a disgusting bunch they are. Surely for
God's sake they could make it free, not merely discounted.

but if I had no
screens at all capable of allowing a third party to see the picture, there
are still disagreements over whether the thing is payable or not.

--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost