White Detector Van

whiffy | 15:55 Sat 16th Aug 2008 | How it Works

27 Answers

Coming home from Croydon I passed the scene of last night's murder, still cordoned off with loads of police about. Maybe not connected, but a few yards away was a large unmarked white van with a large dish aerial on the roof which appeared to be scanning a block of flats. The side door was open and inside were 4 people, not in uniform, and loads and loads of electronic equipment. Being curious I asked if they were TV detectors, and got the reply, No, don't worry mate. I didn't have the cheek to ask any more.

Does anybody know what this van was?

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Buenchico

Leave off our beloved Whiffy!

Assuming that you'd like a serious answer, Whiffy, here it is:

The van probably belonged to a communications company which was contracted by one of the main broadcasters. (such as the BBC, ITV or Sky). Those vans use satellite uplinks. Just like the satellite dish on the side of your house, the uplink dish has to be carefully aligned. The van's onboard computer knows where it is because of the same type of satnav that you've got in the car. So it knows the possible directions it can use to line up the dish. However, it doesn't know about obstructions (such as blocks of flats) which might block a signal path . So when the operator presses the 'search' button, the dish will automatically try each of the possible alignments to see which offers the best path for the uplink signal. Sometimes this only takes a moment or two but, if there are lots of obstructions in the area, the computer will repeatedly try different positions for the dish.

Chris

whiffy

Question Author

Thank you Chris, sincerely thank you, a decent answer. It looked a bit Secret Service inside, but being pragmatic I guess it was probably an outside broadcast unit. Many thanks except to noguts who can go and boil his head and the sooner the better.

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whiffy

Question Author

And your contribution noknowledge?

What does the "christ" bit add? Apart from showing you up as a complete ar$ehole. Mind you, you are way cool!! I am so impressed.

What do you think of Luke's gospel?

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SeaJayPea

My word, all those insults in an hour and three minutes! The chances are it was a TV Outside Broadcast unit and they will have been moving the dish to find the satellite they send to before banging off a clip

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