Prevent TV reception, but retain radio reception

Lucid said:

Just be aware that the BBC have iPlayer under the same TV licence requirements as watching live TV.

John,
It's possible to use a diplex or triplex plate to split the TV and FM radio signals from two aerials if your TV has FM reception built in and (of course) you have an FM aerial rigged up.

The sidebands carrying the radio service as part of Freeview come as part of the TV signal. AFAIK, it's not possible to filter in the same kind of way without removing the radio stations as well.

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I didn't think commercial radio used side band? Never required a beat frequency oscillator to listen to them, and they don't sound like Donald duck. TV is short for television, tele comes from Latin for distance and vision means some think looked at, so if you have no display there is no vision, so a freeview or freesat set top box is not a television. It does not receive television signals it receives radio signals, those signals may contain coded information which can be turned into some thing that can be viewed but as long as the box does not have a screen there is really no problem.

But a Nest mini costs around the same as a set top box, and with a set top box you also need some amplifier and speakers, plus some method to select program wanted. You can link two Nest Mini's to get stereo, and it is so simple to select station, I simply say hay google play radio 4, no buttons, no dials, don't even need to touch it.

So unless you already have the boxes, not worth it.

winston1 said:

I can never understand why people get so uptight about the TV licence. It is one of the smaller bills. I pay more than the annual TV licence in council tax every month. It is certainly much cheaper than sky and so much better value as well.

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I can only speak for myself, of course, but I don't like paying for something that I don't use.
I never watch any BBC output, so I object to paying for it. That is on the basis that the TV Licence money goes to the BBC; all other TV companies must pay their own way by advertising. That seems quite unfair.
What makes it worse is the proven fact that the BBC is politically biased. As our state broadcasting organisation, it should be completely unbiased in all ways. My choice is not to help fund any political party or its agents.

JBR said:

I did begin to delete all the TV stations, but I gave up when I realised that 250 or so individually would take me until doomsday!

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My TV's as part of the retune, offer the option to delete all existing stored channels and start from scratch. If you use the delete and retune option, but with the antenna unplugged, that should clear the entire channel lists.

bernardgreen said:

https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/for-your-home
The law says you need to be covered by a TV Licence to:
watch or record programmes as they’re being shown on TV, on any channel
watch or stream programmes live on an online TV service (such as ITV Hub, All 4, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Now TV, Sky Go, etc.)
download or watch any BBC programmes on iPlayer.
This applies to any device you use, including a TV, desktop computer, laptop, mobile phone, tablet, games console, digital box or DVD/VHS recorder.

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Yes, I accept all of that.
To be honest, I haven't seen any live TV programmes on Amazon Prime, ITV Hub, Ch4 and Ch5 equivalents, or anywhere else using our Firestick and even if there were I don't think I'd be interested anyway as I'd only want to watch the complete programme/film, and I'd do that on Catch-up.
As I mentioned earlier, I have no wish to watch any BBC programmes on their online facility because, quite simply, they have nothing but rubbish from my perspective!

Harry Bloomfield said:

My TV's as part of the retune, offer the option to delete all existing stored channels and start from scratch. If you use the delete and retune option, but with the antenna unplugged, that should clear the entire channel lists.

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Yes, I remember reading that information before, probably on here.
As I'm going to unplug the aerial leads to all units (TV, both PVRs) tonight, I may as well do the retune you suggest as well. If in the future we decide it is worth applying for a TV licence again, it would be quite easy to restore everything with the aerial cables plugged in again.

Again, may I please thank everyone for their responses. I knew that this would be the best forum on which to ask!

JBR said:

I can only speak for myself, of course, but I don't like paying for something that I don't use.
I never watch any BBC output, so I object to paying for it. That is on the basis that the TV Licence money goes to the BBC; all other TV companies must pay their own way by advertising. That seems quite unfair.
What makes it worse is the proven fact that the BBC is politically biased. As our state broadcasting organisation, it should be completely unbiased in all ways. My choice is not to help fund any political party or its agents.

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Some people never use a public library or have kids that need educating but they still have to pay Council Tax.

You still pay for the TV companies that rely on advertising through higher prices on those advertised goods even if you don’t watch those channels. The amount has been estimated as similar to the licence fee.

I can’t comment on your assertion that the BBC is politically biased. Do you ever buy or read a newspaper? They are all definitely politically biased.

winston1 said:

Some people never use a public library or have kids that need educating but they still have to pay Council Tax.

You still pay for the TV companies that rely on advertising through higher prices on those advertised goods even if you don’t watch those channels. The amount has been estimated as similar to the licence fee.

I can’t comment on your assertion that the BBC is politically biased. Do you ever buy or read a newspaper? They are all definitely politically biased.

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You've never watched Question Time?

ericmark said:

I didn't think commercial radio used side band? Never required a beat frequency oscillator to listen to them, and they don't sound like Donald duck. TV is short for television, tele comes from Latin for distance and vision means some think looked at, so if you have no display there is no vision, so a freeview or freesat set top box is not a television. It does not receive television signals it receives radio signals, those signals may contain coded information which can be turned into some thing that can be viewed but as long as the box does not have a screen there is really no problem.

But a Nest mini costs around the same as a set top box, and with a set top box you also need some amplifier and speakers, plus some method to select program wanted. You can link two Nest Mini's to get stereo, and it is so simple to select station, I simply say hay google play radio 4, no buttons, no dials, don't even need to touch it.

So unless you already have the boxes, not worth it.

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With your ham radio experience, you have a deeper understanding of the terminology that the vast majority of people coming to this forum to look for assistance. I used "sidebands" in the context of @JBR's enquiry as a way to explain a concept in an easier-to-grasp way than referring to the multiplexing of signals. It was used to get across the idea that by filtering the digital TV signals, he'd also lose the DVB-T/T2 radio signals that were wanted.

Please remember that not everyone making enquiries is a TV/radio expert. If they were, then they wouldn't be coming here for advice, would they?

Also bear in mind that many are not that interested in the technicalities that TV signals are part of the radio spectrum, and perhaps even less interested in the morphology and syntax of words such as television. My guess is that in most cases they just want a solution to their problem, with enough information to understand why there's a problem and how to fix it.

Lucid said:

Please remember that not everyone making enquiries is a TV/radio expert. If they were, then they wouldn't be coming here for advice, would they?

Also bear in mind that many are not that interested in the technicalities that TV signals are part of the radio spectrum, and perhaps even less interested in the morphology and syntax of words such as television. My guess is that in most cases they just want a solution to their problem, with enough information to understand why there's a problem and how to fix it.

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Thanks.

In fairness, though, I did know the two emboldened bits above, though that's about it!

JBR said:

Thanks.

In fairness, though, I did know the two emboldened bits above, though that's about it!

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Sure, but did @ericmark going on about these things help you solve this specific problem? That's kind of the point.

Lucid said:

Sure, but did @ericmark going on about these things help you solve this specific problem? That's kind of the point.

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True, though I'm not complaining!
Every little helps.

Sorry my point is if you don't want a visual display then things like Nest Mini can give you radio without TV. As long as the TV is not connected to an aerial dish, cable, or internet you are OK, but it seems you will be connected to internet, which can provide live TV the same as cable TV which does need a licence, the problem is working out which web sites are peer to peer and which are broadcast.

I was surprised to find a web site with catch up in the name which only provided live TV, the licence has changed, at one point you needed a licence to have a TV on the premises, that is no longer the case, with a PC I know what I am watching, but not so sure with SkyQ if it's recorded, or live, and where recorder or when or how, it just works, I would expect similar with a Firestick? Are you 100% sure the device did not record it live on the premises?

I will when making dinner turn on the TV select what I want to watch latter, and then stop the program while I cook dinner, so when I come to eat I can fast forward through adverts so am watching recorded TV not live, but the SkyQ has recorded that live TV in my house, even with catch up, I don't have a clue how it works, I select some thing I want to watch, and the TV says when ready, as to if SkyQ picked up a broadcast signal or peer to peer I simply don't know, nor do I care, it works, that's all I am worried about.

But if you don't have TV licence then you are worried about how the program is down loaded, peer to peer and broadcast may seem the same, but one needs a licence the other does not.

ericmark said:

Sorry my point is if you don't want a visual display then things like Nest Mini can give you radio without TV. As long as the TV is not connected to an aerial dish, cable, or internet you are OK, but it seems you will be connected to internet, which can provide live TV the same as cable TV which does need a licence, the problem is working out which web sites are peer to peer and which are broadcast.

I was surprised to find a web site with catch up in the name which only provided live TV, the licence has changed, at one point you needed a licence to have a TV on the premises, that is no longer the case, with a PC I know what I am watching, but not so sure with SkyQ if it's recorded, or live, and where recorder or when or how, it just works, I would expect similar with a Firestick? Are you 100% sure the device did not record it live on the premises?

I will when making dinner turn on the TV select what I want to watch latter, and then stop the program while I cook dinner, so when I come to eat I can fast forward through adverts so am watching recorded TV not live, but the SkyQ has recorded that live TV in my house, even with catch up, I don't have a clue how it works, I select some thing I want to watch, and the TV says when ready, as to if SkyQ picked up a broadcast signal or peer to peer I simply don't know, nor do I care, it works, that's all I am worried about.

But if you don't have TV licence then you are worried about how the program is down loaded, peer to peer and broadcast may seem the same, but one needs a licence the other does not.

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BIB - what you did there was to timeshift. That is to say that using the equipment in your home, you recorded a broadcast, with the express purpose of watching it at a more convenient time. For that, you need a TV licence. In fact, simply having a Sky subscription, which is all about watch/recording/replaying broadcast TV means that a person would need a TV licence whether they use all the facilities or not.

Catch-up is different in that (in theory at least) the programming is coming from a library of stuff that has already been broadcast at some point in the past. So long as the live stream and recorded stream don't overlap, then my view is that it qualifies as catch-up rather than time shift. To be clear then, a program could be 1 hr long, broadcast at 8:00pm and finishing at 9:00pm, and so long as you started to watch the Catch-Up stream at 21:00:01 then it classes as Catch-Up so long as it's not a stream from BBC iPlayer.

Watching something retransmitted via P2P at the same time- or subtly timeshifted but still overlapping the real-time broadcast still counts as watching live TV IMO.

Watching a file stored and shared by P2P doesn't class as Live TV. However, there's a question over whether the file storer had/has the rights to hold that recording and further, whether they have the rights to make that recording available to others if they're not the program copyright holder or an approved agent.


The simple answer for @JBR where he wants radio is to go with devices that do not include a vision element such as internet radio, FM, and DAB. Anything else involves an element of risk where someone could suggest that Live TV was being received. TBH though, for the cost of the TV licence, I don't think I'd bother with all the additional hardware expense and hassle.

Lucid said:

Catch-up is different in that (in theory at least) the programming is coming from a library of stuff that has already been broadcast at some point in the past. So long as the live stream and recorded stream don't overlap, then my view is that it qualifies as catch-up rather than time shift. To be clear then, a program could be 1 hr long, broadcast at 8:00pm and finishing at 9:00pm, and so long as you started to watch the Catch-Up stream at 21:00:01 then it classes as Catch-Up so long as it's not a stream from BBC iPlayer.

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Yes, that works for me.
As I may have mentioned earlier, currently the only broadcast programme we used to watch regularly was Coronation Street. Sad, I know, but everything else was crap!

We now watch it every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8pm on ITV catch-up.
The one minor drawback is that you can't skip through the adverts, but I can live with that.

I know some catch up is more like the +1 option in that it is broadcast at set intervals and when you request it you are connected to next slot, so technically broadcast but seems like peer to peer. I think it is unlikely you would get done for watching some thing broadcast in that way, but it is a risk.

I know when I try to watch a lot of catch up programs they don't start as soon as I click start, but there is a delay, I would assume waiting for next broadcast, with a PC if using a web browser you are reasonable sure it is peer to peer, but with any plug in device be it a sky box, firestick or any other device you really don't know what it is doing.

I think however even if ITV catch-up is broadcast to get caught watching one program a week you would need to be very unlucky.