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From: johns@happy.uk.sun.com (John Slater)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Licenses for Television in the UK
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Date: 7 Jun 90 11:14:31 GMT
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In article <8716@accuvax.nwu.edu>, mb@sparrms.ists.ca (Mike Bell)
writes:

>(Note that this distinguishes between a TV being used with a VCR and a
>TV watching live transmissions - a license used not to be required for
>the former, although I'm not sure if this is still the case).

As I understand the situation, an ordinary TV licence is required if a
tuner for receiving terrestrial transmissions is present is the
system.  You do *not* need a licence if you have a tuner-less TV (e.g.
a computer monitor with RGB or composite input) hooked up to a
tuner-less VCR (e.g. a camcorder or a playback-only model - most
recording models have their own tuners) or to a satellite receiver, or
of course to a computer. I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong about
this.

You used to need a special licence for satellite reception for a
once-only fee of ten pounds ("non-recurring charge" ??? :-), but I
think they got rid of that.


John Slater
Sun Microsystems UK, Gatwick Office