Burglary and our hobby

[Tim]

It's a long time since Ned Kelly was around. Australia is today, rather a more Police state
( or country ) than it once was. As far as "defending" your property, it's not easy at all. If somebody
breaks into your house and attacks you with a knife or a gun and you bash him with the fire place poker, YOU will be charged with grievous bodily harm, and any other charges they can dream up at the time. The thief will be charged with illegal entry.

Simply ensure the body is never found.

[Craig Sawyers]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

Some of the druggies will just take anything without knowing what it's for. They try to sell it for a few quid in dodgy pubs and homeless hostels. If they can't find a buyer they just dump it.

My daughter and hub in Australia have a van that they converted into a holiday home - all the amenities - and a solar panel on the roof.

So a few weeks ago we were all in an Air BNB North of Newcastle (NSW) with a deck. Oscar looked down on the top of the van - no solar panel. Just two wires poking out the roof.

This is about a hundred quid's worth of panel. They tore the brackets that tied it down, and tore the integral connections off the back, rendering it absolutely useless, and valueless. But I suppose that doesn't cross the mind of a likely druggie.

Craig

[Beobloke]

Originally Posted by hamid_1

Burglars don't generally take old electronic items like valve radios, unless perhaps you have some high-value ones.

Bear in mind, though, before we get all too panicky, that the stuff burglars steal generally needs to be popular and easily recognisable and thus easy to move on.

I well remember the tale of a friend of a friend, whose house was broken into about 10 years ago. The only things they took were from his lounge and were a flat screen television worth about £500 and a Blu-ray player worth £200.

On their way out they would have had to carry these items past his hi-fi system, which they apparently completely ignored. This was all Linn and Naim equipment, and worth about £30,000!

[Nickthedentist]

We have a better class of drug-using burglar here in Oxford.

They took all my dad's pills, mum's jewelry, plus an insanely heavy, 25 year-old pair of B&O speakers!

The speakers had been freebies when my parents bought the house, but their bog-standard insurance insisted on reimbursing them what an equivalent new pair would have cost at the time of the incident.

[David G4EBT]

Many domestic burglaries are of sheds rather than houses.

Why? because in the unlikely event of being caught, the sentencing policy is much more lenient than say a night-time burglary in a house which has occupants, especially if occupants are disturbed when the intruder is on the premises, if there is a confrontation, and the victim is frail, elderly, and alone, all of which are seriously aggravating features of the offence.

Secondly, sheds often contain items of fairly high value which are easily turned into cash. Particularly power tools, golf clubs, fishing tackle, garden tools, strimmers, lawn mowers. All easily disposed at Car 'Loot' Sales s they're known in these parts. For those who frequent such events, particularly in springtime, ask yourself the question 'How come that guy has got ten electric drills, five angle grinders, six spade, five forks, two lawnmowers, three strimmers, four fishing rods and a set of golf clubs'?

I had a neighbour whose side gate wasn't locked, nor his garden shed at the rear of the house.

His shed was emptied by thieves one Saturday morning, and several stone garden ornaments also disappeared - Bird Bath etc. He called the police - not interested. (Relatively low value, little change of catching the thieves - claim on your insurance). On the off-chance, he went to the large car loot sale four miles away early the following morning. Lo and behold, all his stuff was set out on a stall, plus other stuff. He took the car number, then told the guy: 'that's all my stuff so it's going into my car - I've got your number and I'll pass it on to the Police'. The guy remonstrated with him and said: "I've just bought all that from other stalls', to which my neighbour said: 'In that case you've been robbed as well as me' and reclaimed all his items.

He told the police who followed it up, and the guy repeated his assertion - 'I bought it off other stallholders - I'd no idea it was stolen'.

My neighbour suspected that the reason the thieves had chosen Saturday morning was that he normally leaves his car parked on his drive night and day, as do some other residents. He thinks the thieves may have cruised around this small cul-de-sac of 45 houses making observations, and having seen his car missing, correctly concluded that he'd gone shopping and would be away for a couple of hours.

In recent times, thefts from cars in supermarket car parks and other car parks have increased, because it's become far easier to spot unlocked cars as so many modern cars now have folding wing-mirrors when locked. Thieves just wander around the car park trying car doors that they suspect aren't locked. Quick look in the glove box, boot and back seat and off to the next one. At this time of year in retail park car parks, quite often people will get lots of shopping from one store, take it back to the car, then go off to do more shopping. They might therefore have high value presents, lots of food or drink etc already in the boot for the taking.

I think the last thing that burglars would want to get their hands on is vintage radios or amateur radio equipment, which isn't easy to turn into cash. Laptops, phones, tablets, yes.

[HamishBoxer]

In the days when I had Bruce my Boxer dog, I would leave the servicing van door open, nobody ever made his day!

[Welsh Anorak]

Back in the day when TVs and videos were valuable we did have some 'out of hours shopping'. Occasionally the item would come back for repair (stealing from a repair shop isn't the brightest thing) - oddly enough on being informed it had been stolen they didn't return to collect it...

I remember finding a trival fault for one member of a known criminal family. I explained what I'd done and wasn't charging. He looked me in the eye and said 'you could have charged me what you liked. I'll remember that.' That meant he told local low-life not to visit me as there would be consequences.

[Junk Box Nick]

Way back when I still lived with my parents and was an active radio amateur – mostly on 2m at this point – whilst my ‘shack’ was in the house my junk boxes and a work bench were in a shed.

One night the shed suffered a break in. From what they ignored and what they took – including a slightly obscure modification board for a 2m transceiver – it was someone very familar with amateur radio equipment.

[SiriusHardware]

we did have some 'out of hours shopping'.

Here on Tyneside we (or at least I) refer to it as 'Window Shopping'.

[G6Tanuki]

Always worth keeping a record of equipment serial numbers (a great use for the camera on your phone) in case you do get burgled. In times past one of my clients had their office burgled, losing many thousands of pounds worth of Silicon Graphics and Sun servers/workstations. They were recovered a few months later when the new 'owner' tried to put the kit on maintenance with Sun!!

You see, we had let Sun/SGI know the stuff had been stolen so we no longer needed it covered by our maintenance contract, and if it shows up in the hands of someone else to give us and Europol a call..

[Radio Wrangler]

A colleague was sent on a business trip to, I think it was Denmark. To get things off on the right foot the airline lost his luggage. He had to replace clothes etc at short notice. On the way back, the same airline lost his new stuff. World's favourite airline? not in his book.

He got home to find his kitchen door flapping in the wind. He'd been burgled.

TV, Video recorder, camera, best watch all the usual stuff.
His Quad tuner and amps, his Meridian CD player, but they only took the top boxex (mid &tweeter) off of his big Leak speakers.

The telly was found dropped along a back alley.

I heard the tale over lunch at HP. Now, I knew someone whose son was building a pair of replicas of my speakers and he was looking on the second hand market for some Quad amps. I thought I'd better warn Martin, so popped round that evening.

"Oooo, errrr"

"You havent!"

He hadn't, but a friend of his who worked Saturdays in the hifi department of the local TV etc dealer had been approached. The following day was Saturday, so we both went in the shop. The lad hadn't bought anything, but he was interested. This chap had tried to sell him some quad stuff. The proprietor had been listening, and said the same guy had approached him a couple of days earlier, wanting to know the value of a Meridian CD player "His uncle had left to him in his will" Yeah, right! The guy was easily described with a spider's web tattooed up his neck to his jaw.

Police notified.

I was told that a couple of coppers came round and took notes. They knew the guy and he was already in their cells on another matter. Searching his place, most of the hifi gear was found in an unlocked garden shed "Nothing to do with me, I leave it unlocked or the little skrotes break in." Aye right. but proving it?

Later on the police turned up at my colleague's place. "Recognise this?" It was a signet ring he'd been given for his 21st birthday. He was the organised sort who kept photos of everything.

It had been in the possessions bag of things taken off of the suspect when banged in the cells. He had been wearing it!

Gotcha!

My colleague would have been happy with new stuff courtesy of the insurance, but not catching the guy would have left someone on the loose thinking his place was a good spot to go 'shopping'. With a successful prosecution, guess who would get turned over first were there any other break in.

Imagine taking only the top boxes of leak 2075 speakers. Must have thought the bottom bit was just a stand.

David

[Junk Box Nick]

And he’s probably back out in a month or two (assuming he ever was sent in) and has a string of ‘previous’ anyway.

Sorry, I’m a weary old cynic.

[high_vacuum_house]

I wonder how many (of the then new!) television sets were stolen between 1936-1939 especially the HMV EMI mirror lid console with radiogram built in type considering their cost but also remarkably heavy weight and specialist aerial required to be rigged.

Christopher Capener

[George Cooper]

Long time ago when I worked in education as tech for the collage television studio we were starting to put videos in the library for students to watch educational videos. There was concern that these might be used by students to view there own videos for entertainment which also raised copyright issues and concerns.

So I modified the library machines by swapping the audio and control track track head connections and the machine worked fine, but if a standard VHS tape was put into the vcr there was only a loud buzzing on the sound and an unlocked picture.

Of course one on the modified VCR's was stolen so if anyone ever came across a Panasonic NV7000 with an odd fault that's the reason.

[slidertogrid]

In the early 90's a mate had a small TV shop in St Neots, he had a shelf running around the shop about 3 feet from the ceiling, on that shelf were a collection of old radios he had picked up over the years, they were often commented on by customers. There was nothing valuable - no circular Ekcos no Philco peoples sets. Just mainly ordinary 1950's sets.
One night the shop was burgled, and all of the radios were taken. I don't know if any other stock was taken. A week or so later he had a phone call offering to return the sets for a fee. He tried to arrange their return but explained they weren't valuable so wouldn't pay much. He never saw them again but did hear that they had been offered to a local antique/junk shop. It was a case of the perceived value being a lot higher than the real value!
He had a fair idea who was responsible as they had been in the shop earlier commenting on the radios, He thought that once they realised they weren't valuable they probably smashed them up or burned them for the copper wire...

[Junk Box Nick]

It’s the perceived value that is the problem. I have 1930s Pye Q in my hall. The number of people that comment on it and then in the next breath say that “it must be worth a lot of money”.*

I say probably £50 on a good day – if you can get a buyer – and prices are falling as folk with this interest are mostly of a certain age and are reducing their collections. Oh, and by the way, the only stations you can get on it are Radio 4 Long Wave and 5-Live on medium wave and they won’t be around much longer...

*People who have no interest in collecting or enjoyment of old stuff of all kinds generally seem to have a mindset that equates anything vintage with how much money into which it could be converted.

[Beobloke]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

Imagine taking only the top boxes of leak 2075 speakers. Must have thought the bottom bit was just a stand.
David

A couple of years ago, there was a chap at the NVCF selling just the top boxes of a pair of Leak 2075s. Judging by the angry response I received when I asked if he also had the bass cabinets, I’m guessing I wasn’t the first person to ask!

He never did say what happened to them, either…

[The General]

A good few years ago, my then supervisor told me this story... I'll call him Mike, as that's his name.
One day, Mike arrived back home after a trip out on his motorbike. He was walking up his path when he came face to face with a miscreant carrying Mike's stereo out of his house. Both of them froze ('E sees I, I sees 'e...) & then Mike did the first thing he thought of & nutted the guy. Now Mike was still wearing his helmet & so the bad guy went down like a sack of spuds. Mike called the police & when the officer arrived & was taking down Mike's statement, Mike told him that he'd nutted the burglar as that was the only way he could stop him. 'Well', says the copper, 'I think we'll just say you unavoidably collided sir'.
Mark

[joebog1]

"ello ello ello wots apnin here then ?.
DOES not happen in Australia anymore, IF it ever did. Today theres one in front of you and the other behind. Glock 9mm pointed at you and a terse "Hands up, then they take your wallet. "

All because I was walking alone along a dark street. And no, I am not a thief.

Joe

[Cruisin Marine]

There is bugga' all in my wallet, so they would totally waste their time.