On 4 Mar 2006 at 4:03, Donald Chester wrote: > > >From: "Brian Carling" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > >(This actually refers to the British licensing of radio and TV > >receivers. Both require a license and they actually go around > >in vans to "ctach" and punish persons listening without a license!) > > I have been told that those vans were purely "psychological warfare" and had > no real means to detect receiving equipment. It was a scare tactic to > frighten the public into thinking they had better purchase a licence. > > I suppose they could monitor TV sweep oscillator or local oscillators in > superhets, but with hundreds of sets operating in a city environment it > would have been difficult to pinpoint an "unlicensed" one.
They did monitor for the local oscillators. I saw them on more than one occasion patrolling with their highly directional antenna. It was a rotatable dipole with lots of loading inductance along the element. It was conical shaped tapering to a narrow outer end, and was about 4-6 feet in length. It looked quite impressinve painted in G.P.O. green livery the same color as the vehicle - a Morris MInor 1000 van! Same kind of vehicle as a VW bug only British - smaller and lower to the ground. > When I lived in France they had a similar law. But I went to a fleamarket > and picked up an old 1930's vintage "tombstone" longwave/MW/SW broadcast > receiver and used it, and nobody ever said anything. I remember it was > quite a novelty amongst tenants in the apartment building, because most of > them had never before seen one of those old radios actually work (this was > in the early 70's). That's right Don - tu parles bien le francais! I have heard you going at it on the air! Did you know we spent time in Brittany this past summer? It was a blast! Soixante-treize de AF4K, Brian
