On Sat, Jul 28, 2018 at 12:52 AM, Alan Grant <alangran...@gmail.com> wrote:
Obtaining a TV licence in the UK or Ireland does not require demonstrating > the ability to operate a television! > To understand this, you need to understand the history of the thing. Before there were televisions there were radios. In the early days of radios, the circuitry was very primitive. The way they could be sensitive enough to receive weak signals was a form of positive feedback known as "regeneration." The user controlled the amount of regeneration by turning a control knob. The more regeneration, the more sensitive the radio and the weaker the signal it could pick up. Increase the regeneration too much and the positive feedback caused the RF amplifier to oscillate - turning it from a receiver to a transmitter. A careless person could disrupt reception for several houses in a street. So in the early days of radio a radio licence really was a licence. You learned how to work your radio correctly (it was not a very difficult lesson) or your licence was taken away and you were not permitted to have another one. The licence fee also funded the operation of the BBC. The radio licence served two purposes: to prevent idiots ruining radio reception for those around them and to fund the radio broadcasts. Technology advanced. Even before the advent of TV, the introduction of superhet (supersonic heterodyne) circuitry replaced regenerative circuitry. It cost more than regenerative circuitry but gave increased sensitivity and also prevented idiots causing problems for others. The only purpose the licence then served was to fund the BBC. But rather than call it a radio tax they continued to call it a licence so people were more likely to pay it. TV came along and it too had a licence (really a tax) to fund the BBC. Special offer: buy a TV licence and it covers radios too! Eventually they decided it was too hard to keep track of radios, so the radio licence (= tax) was dropped but the TV licence (= tax) remains. The TV licence isn't really a licence, it's a tax. But its name derives from the time when you really did need a licence to operate a radio, a licence which could be taken away if you were an idiot. Long story short: in most cases a permit is different from a licence, but there are historical anomalies in the nomenclature. -- Paul
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