"Like a bad penny, this "urban legend" just keeps coming back." -- Eric Lemmon.
Yes, I agree. However, the post that I made (and started all of this again) didn't make claim as to whether the "capacitor trick" worked or didn't work. I feel that it has no impact, unless you are being billed for reactive demand, and most of us are not. I was simply trying to seek out an individual whom I believe posted about this here, some time ago. He insisted that his electric bill at, I believe, three repeater sites as well as his house, dropped considerably when he added a fixed value capacitor across the line. Again, I had serious doubts at the time, but he was adamant about it. Anyway, my recent post was to follow up on this guy. What triggered it was the fact that I just ran into a ham who had purchased one of the commercially available "energy savers" and was questioning it's performance (he didn't think it worked). I asked him if the utility meter was electronic or whether it was one of the old spinning disk units, to which he said "electronic." I had posed the question about altering the PF to an electrical engineer that I know. He gave me all the engineering basis like I'd expected, but then added an interesting comment. He was uncertain if a spinning disk meter would remain accurate if the PF was forced way out of specification - he left that hint of doubt. He then said that he was certain that the newer, electronic meters would record accurately regardless of the PF. Now, the guy that was adamant about "beating the system" had indicated that in every one of his "experiments" the meter was the older spinning disk unit. I suspect that the utility company eventually came out and replaced the meters. The guy said that it made a big enough difference that the utility had contacted him about the drop in usage. So, maybe the guy was jerking me (us) around, or maybe the utility installed new meters and the "savings" went "poof," or maybe the guy is sitting in jail, not able to respond. And maybe it was on a different Yahoo group and I'm experiencing brain fade. I certainly didn't intend to create all the hubbub. But I felt the need to jump back in and explain further. Chuck WB2EDV
