Skeptic Project

a speaker can act as a microphone, but not at the same time its acting as a speaker.

The sounds being converted via the aerial via coaxial then to the speaker will be making the speaker migrate back and forward, so the speaker will not be affected by speech in the room unless it has a higher SPL than the sound its outputting..

Also if the signal is going in reverse the tv would need a transmitter inbuilt into the tv for it to be able to transmit anything to an external recieving source, this could only be possible if the tv was not operating as explained above, but generally tvs use dynamic speakers with a fairly limited bandwidth and sensitivity so they are not like high quality microphones specially built for the task.

That is unless your friend is insinuating that all televisions have sensitive microphones and transmitters in built. If this is the case it would be extremely easy to locate the devices in the electronic circuitry of any television. And a simple snip of the microphones cables would would disable it from any possible operation.

Your friend sounds straight up paranoid if he believes this because I have not heard of any conspiracy theorist who has taken a television apart and proven this to be the case. Does your friend know anything about electronic circuitry or transducers/transmitters?

If he does ask him to take his television apart and show with video and photography exactly where this circuitry and microphone is positioned. Otherwise its a pointless debate.

My friend said that you can be listened to from your TV if the coaxial cable is plugged into the wall.

....

He is a little paranoid

hahahahahahahahahaha! I wonder if he thinks the little men in the TV can hear him.

"His father unscrewed the cable wire and a little while later the cable guy showed up saying there was something wrong with their cable."

This is easily explained away.

The cable he has is connected to a fibre optic cable Local Area Network, ordinarily these LAN's serve digital data that comes in from the external service providers through the 'cable' to each home. It originates from satellites but is redistributed through land lines to homes. The digital information is generally compressed digital information as opposed to analogue signals these days due to improved technology.

The reason the cable company can tell if there is something wrong without you contacting them is simply this: The LAN knows who is connected to the server, what channels they are watching and also because its a fibre optic based system it has the ability not only to distribute information packets but to recieve them from the viewer. This is usually information like what you are watching, what pay per view orders you are making, if you are using it to connect to the internet etc etc...

Essentially its no different to the home computers connecting to the internet but its mainly designed for television and radio channels instead of internet webpages, but recently they are combining into one package.

Hopefully this gives you an idea how the company knows when you arent connected, for the company its a simple matter of seeing that someone has stopped recieving and sending packets of data.