If you had enough motivation, you could learn to decode the picture by squinting, and understand the audio by enough exposure. That came very handy to many a teenager on late Saturday evenings.
My father was in electronics and schematics of pirate decoders were being passed around between friends/colleagues (this was before the web!) He got the schematics and built one.
Later in the 90's, when TV cards became cheap enough I got one for my computer then there were software to decode the signal.
Later in the 90's, when TV cards became cheap enough I got one for my computer then there were software to decode the signal.
https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/reports/1995-11.pdf
Good ol' civil disobedience. Love it.