don't bother with a tv license
instead just have a video recording of a chicken going around in a microwave ready to stick on should the tv license man come round.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Fri 11 Nov 2011, 12:33, 9 replies)

Actually dont..
I moved into a place and my TV license was actually registered to the wrong address. I just ignored all the threatening letters, about how they were going to come and chain me up in a dungeon for illegally watching Eastenders.
Eventually I did call them, and realised the error. But for over 6 months I could have got away with it..

So next time i moved, i did. I left it over 6 months before bothering to get one. A few letters here and there, but no one came.

If your TV isnt viewable from outside the house, then its easy to get away with it. I've known people who have gone years without one.
(Boom- Clicks on NSFW links at work., Fri 11 Nov 2011, 12:39, closed)

I personally believe
that the detection vans are a complete myth.

nevertheless I've still always had a license just in case (not that I ever watch anything on the BBC of course)
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Fri 11 Nov 2011, 12:49, closed)

this is also my belief.
what technology could they POSSIBLY have had in the 70s that would tell them whether you'd been to the post office or not?
( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Fri 11 Nov 2011, 12:53, closed)

They're not
they can quite easily tell you've got a TV going. They are however very VERY rare.

Your problem is that they don't need a lot of them. They don't need to bother checking houses with TV licences, so that's about 95% of the population dealt with.

If you don't have a licence, they'll assume you have a TV anyway, which is generally true. They'll write to you, many people will react to the warning and get a licence.

After that they'll maybe send a van round. They don't cruise the streets, they're targetting specific addreses that have no licence, and have been warned.
(username failed moderation, Fri 11 Nov 2011, 13:00, closed)

are you sure you're not getting this confused
with scooby-doo and the mystery machine?
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Fri 11 Nov 2011, 13:23, closed)

Could be
and I'd have got away with it if . . .

Hmm. Daphne.

Back in a minute.
(username failed moderation, Fri 11 Nov 2011, 14:42, closed)

It used to be easy with CRT TVs with their enormous HV flyback transformers
now that LCDs are becoming so commonplace they don't require the same 30,000 volts spikes at a characteristic frequency which is easy to pick up with a directional antenna. Some people used to build an improv Faraday cage to try and get around it and/or to stop the CIA from reading what was on their PC monitors... tinfoil hat time.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Fri 11 Nov 2011, 13:14, closed)

I don't have a TV
Having recently moved, I got the standard 'death destruction hell and pestilence' letters from the licencing people, which I ignored. A couple of weeks ago I was mowing the front lawn when a man came up and told me he was from the TV licencing people.
"Haven't got one" I told him.
"Do you mind if I have a look?" he replied.
"No mate, knock yourself out - the door's open".
"Well that won't be neccesary sir, anyone who'll let one of us wander round unsupervised obviously doesn't have a set" he said - and then he got back in his car and buggered off!
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Fri 11 Nov 2011, 14:33, closed)

You miust be in the tiniest
of minorities.

I'd have told him to piss off.
(username failed moderation, Fri 11 Nov 2011, 14:42, closed)