TV Detector Van Documentary R4

"charles" wrote in message
...
In article , Zimmy wrote:

you threatening letters asking for payment.

I doubt they could ever detect non CRT TVs anyway?

Local oscillators are needed on any set.

Hasn't there been some DTV boxes that have also been guity of spurious
emissions which have been picked up as nautical distress beacon frequencies?

Such as http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...icle730611.ece

Well, Having just listened to it... I must say it was very tongue in cheek
and rather entertaining!

I won't give it away for those who haven't listened yet - but it carefully
dodged sounding like propaganda

In article ,
Mikeapollo wrote:
Well, Having just listened to it... I must say it was very tongue in
cheek and rather entertaining!

I won't give it away for those who haven't listened yet - but it
carefully dodged sounding like propaganda

I didn't much like the way he talked over the explanation of how TVs
transmit the signal that the detector van picks up. It's not as if it was
long and involved. It is R4, after all, and listeners to that are expected
to have a boredom threshold rather higher than most. ;-)

Last weeks prog about Ducane Court being hallmarked as the Nazi
headquarters if they invaded was good too - especially as I can see it out
this window. ;-)

--
*I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it*

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

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Mikeapollo wrote:
Well, Having just listened to it... I must say it was very tongue in
cheek and rather entertaining!

I won't give it away for those who haven't listened yet - but it
carefully dodged sounding like propaganda

I didn't much like the way he talked over the explanation of how TVs
transmit the signal that the detector van picks up. It's not as if it was
long and involved. It is R4, after all, and listeners to that are expected
to have a boredom threshold rather higher than most. ;-)

True... however I don't think a full technical explanation would have fitted
into the lighthearted "style" of the programme (and probably would not have
been liked by the editors for revealing a bit too much anyway - as you say
the R4 folk are very good at listening in full and then picking holes in
points) - but, like yourself, I'd have been interested in hearing it.

Again, what made the piece interesting was the fact that it avoided the
usual *complete* propaganda techniques to instead leave the more
"uninformed" listener thinking - well, you never quite know whats parked
outside, do you...?

Also, I think (subliminally) there was a very clear message about the
differences between when things were run by the GPO and of course these days
when enforcement is outsourced... Particularly at the start and re-enforced
at the end... Of course, that could have just been in my head

A clever piece and Steve Punts delivery, as usual, kept it all rather fun.

BTW - funnily enough (and completely separate to this topic) the topic of
local oscillator pickup and interception has raised its head in a (closed)
computer security forum today too. The bit which raised my eyebrows is that
while there is a reasonably powerful "signal" there, it is very open to
interference and so interception/detection must be at reasonably close range
and may be made harder (or impossible) by the use of 2 or more devices
within close proximetry to each other. The other stuff in the forum covered
well known issues (CAS/RAS, Bus intercepts, CRT scanning coils, cable
crosstalk etc etc).

I've never had any difficulty in believing in detector vans, because
at an early age I noticed that TVs interfered with nearby radios.

As others have mentioned the programme was dumbed down, as is the
intensely irritating style these days* I found its continual mock PI
overdubs tiresome after a very short while; such gimmicks quickly
become an insult to the listener's intelligence. I too wanted to hear
more about how they actually worked. It also would have been
interesting, though I admit rather OT for the programme, to have heard
more about the attempts to find spies.

During the ban on Spycatcher, I reimbursed a colleague at work to
bring me back a copy from the USA. (I know that some of the book has
been 'rubbished' by some investigators, but for one thing, it was
politically motivated, and for another, it mainly seemed to centre
around whether Roger Hollis was a spy; I suspect the less
controversial contents of the book are pretty accurate) It's a while
since I read it, but IIRC much of his early work centred around
detecting espionage radio transmitters and receivers.

* I watched a sh*t programme about Manet last night where footage of
reenactments of the subjects of his paintings seemed to be on screen
longer than the paintings themselves, and when the paintings were
being shown the camera was never still enough to really see anything.
This was highlighted particularly by the presenter and a restorer
discussing the painter's treatment of a subject's shoes ending with
the presenter saying: "I don't know if you can see that" , and the
hand-held camera work was so ****-poor that we couldn't. I expect the
cameraman is quite embarrassed that the exchange was left in.

Let state this once unambiguously and clearly! For subjects such as
art, architecture, and so on:
1) Use a tripod!
2) Give us plenty of time to look at the complete work for ourselves
before showing detail
3) Slow pans over detail are ok, but avoid gimmicky presentation,
camera, and editing techniques. The subject of interest is the
painting or whatever, not arty programme making techniques.

On Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:31:06 +0100, "Mikeapollo"
wrote:

Well, Having just listened to it... I must say it was very tongue in cheek
and rather entertaining!

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In article ,
Mikeapollo scribeth thus

"charles" wrote in message
. ..
In article , Zimmy wrote:

you threatening letters asking for payment.

I doubt they could ever detect non CRT TVs anyway?

Local oscillators are needed on any set.

Hasn't there been some DTV boxes that have also been guity of spurious
emissions which have been picked up as nautical distress beacon frequencies?

Such as http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...icle730611.ece



I find that just a tad difficult to believe that its transmitting
something akin to a distress signal..
--
Tony Sayer

On Sun, 14 Jun 2009 11:57:16 +0100, tony sayer
wrote:

Hasn't there been some DTV boxes that have also been guity of spurious
emissions which have been picked up as nautical distress beacon frequencies?

Such as http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...icle730611.ece



I find that just a tad difficult to believe that its transmitting
something akin to a distress signal..
--

It's technically possible. Reasonably well documented. Google
"freeview box distress beacon".

On Sun, 14 Jun 2009 10:31:17 +0100, Java Jive wrote:

As others have mentioned the programme was dumbed down, as is the
intensely irritating style these days* I found its continual mock PI
overdubs tiresome after a very short while; such gimmicks quickly
become an insult to the listener's intelligence. I too wanted to hear
more about how they actually worked. It also would have been
interesting, though I admit rather OT for the programme, to have heard
more about the attempts to find spies.

It spent 20 minutes flogging the same horse. We didn't need to keep
hearing opinions that the technology wasn't possible, long after
having established that it WAS.

We could have heard interesting material on industrial eavesdropping,
whether it's still possible with digital flat-screen monitors, more on
the spy thing....

On Sun, 14 Jun 2009 10:31:17 +0100, Java Jive wrote:

During the ban on Spycatcher, I reimbursed a colleague at work to
bring me back a copy from the USA. (I know that some of the book has
been 'rubbished' by some investigators, but for one thing, it was
politically motivated, and for another, it mainly seemed to centre
around whether Roger Hollis was a spy

I thought it mainly seemed to centre around how he got a bad deal on
his pension (which seems also to be the motivation for writting it).

In article , Laurence Payne
scribeth thus
On Sun, 14 Jun 2009 11:57:16 +0100, tony sayer
wrote:

Hasn't there been some DTV boxes that have also been guity of spurious
emissions which have been picked up as nautical distress beacon frequencies?

Such as http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...icle730611.ece



I find that just a tad difficult to believe that its transmitting
something akin to a distress signal..
--

It's technically possible. Reasonably well documented. Google
"freeview box distress beacon".

Nothing that convincing in there. So a freeview box was putting out a
signal on its Ninth harmonic according to one report, so for a start
what power level would that be against all the other background noise
then. Are they inferring that it was also transmitting some information
akin to a distress message as well?..

According to one report the chances of a Freeview box doing this are the
same at winning the lottery at 14 million to one;!..
--
Tony Sayer