Did Anyone

[Teapots1]

Have a TV with a coin slot meter on the back, that's how one paid the rental. Someone called to empty it every month, anything above the rental was refunded back to you.

[Canary42]

/// ... big TV rental companies were Redifusion, Radio Rentals, Visionhire, Telefusion, DER, Granada(big around Manchester) and Rumbelows ///

I worked for Thorn TV Rentals in the 70s, and they were the holding Company for DER, Radio Rentals and Rumbelows. Granada were our major competitors in the High Street where I lived.

[Buenchico]

Did anyone here receive their TV signals through cables, rather than via an aerial?

I know that the council estate where I lived was connected up for the service as, being a bit of an experimenter in my teenage years, I found that the audio signals in the cables could be picked up by wrapping a bit of wire around the one that passed over the top of our garden gate. However my parents never subscribed to the service, as my father regarded it as too expensive and a waste of money anyway (as it never brought all of the extra channels with it that had been promised when the system was first launched).

[Peter Pedant]

well Chris.....

In 1915, mines and countermines, - the Germans developed a Lorentz machine which ran long long wires in the countermine following the communication telegraph or telephone lines of the British tunnels.
and overheard the conversations ( coz see you will know, the british wires emitted em waves which the german wires detected) - thro the chalk walls

God knows when the British worked that one out, 1950 probably. and ......(*)

and overheard.... good luck for tomorrow. So the Germans knew the offensive was ON for the next day 07 30

One of the many many unsuccessful british offensive which bloodily failed up til late 1917

so they knew the anticipated british offensive would start

(*) discovered presumably when the tommies broke thro into a counter mine

[Peter Pedant]

Moritz - almost right

https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/17794-what-does-a-moritz-listening-set-look-like/

[Canary42]

TTVR (see earlier post) had a local cable system in Swindon IIRC.

[Sam1960]

Yup, remember the slot meter on the back of our TV when I was a kid in the 60's
We also had a slot on the gas meter which took a shilling.

[david small]

50p slot at the back of TV, Radio Rentals I think. Gas meter the same. Every three months bonus time as overpayments accrued.

[anneasquith]

We didn’t. But I know someone who got some metal discs made and used them.
When the tv man came to empty the television. He swore it was not him or his family who did that !!!

[Patsy33]

I think I do vaguely remember :-)