Jason, What will be funny is when all the neighbourhood hoodlums start stealing all the antenna modules off the poles, or an enterprising teen electronics whiz kid starts jamming the signal. I can see antenna modules piling up at scrap yards, sitting beside the aluminum pop cans, as I speak.
My major worry is about the time base they use, and whether we will end up getting the dirty end of the stick, so to speak. They figure Joe Blow down on the corner don't know enough about this stuff to question it, but just a few of us do. Also, as John mentioned, we have ignorant politicians who will go along with it. Also, like you, I haven't seen much printed about them, just what I've found. I figure, if we're footing the bill, I want it as precise as possible, and not in just the amount I use, but over the amount of time I used it. I'll leave a parting shot at AEP on this. When I closed up the building I had the shop in, I went down to our AEP office at the time, and paid off my bill, the day after I had them to put a boot on the meter, and a new seal on it. It was read that day. Well, the next month, I get another bill, and I take it to AEP, and ask what's up, and show them a time stamped photo of the meter, with the seal and boot still on it. They had the audacity to tell me, that it still must have been something using the power, and the meter had been read, but it had never been tampered with. Now, you tell me what happened? I never paid that bill either. My guess, it all revolved around the meter reader. Best, Will *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 6/27/2011 at 6:17 PM Jason Rabel wrote: >I know the older style meters currently in use usually slow down over time (a minuscule amount, but still I guess it adds up). > >I do not know if the talk about demand meters and timing were about current meters or the new "smart meters"... > >I've seen some new meters (I'm assuming the smart ones) that show the time of day on them. They recently put up a bunch of >directional antennas on power poles and little boxes beneath them. My understanding is that they are creating a kind of private >wi-fi network... Talk about ultimate funny if L2's network jammed theirs... lol. But seriously, I would guess these meters would get >time from the private network. How the display time interacts with the internal timing I do not know. > >The power company has published exactly zero documents on these meters that I've been able to find. Just the usual propaganda that >these are good for you and will save you (and them) money! > >I worry too that these new meters are just a stepping stone to bill during on and off peak hours... > >If things get too far out of hand, we have ~65,000 sqft of rooftop that would be an excellent candidate for solar panels. > >The power company has been on full alert too it seems lately. We have a few offices that are empty, but we keep the power on for >maintenance reasons. Well a few months after the tenants moved out, a guy from the power company came to check the meter and such. >They noticed the usage dropped to near zero and they wanted to make sure the meter wasn't broken or they weren't stealing >electricity. Apparently the power company didn't get the memo about the recession and countless small businesses closing up shop. > > >On a somewhat similar note... I *finally* put my time servers on a UPS today. Now every time the power flashes they won't get reset! >Last week I found a guy on craigslist selling a couple APC Smart-UPS 750XL's. When I got there he also had FIVE battery packs to go >along with the two UPSes. I got them for a steal (I assumed the batteries would all be bad) and upon bringing them back to the shop >the batteries seemed in rather good condition after doing some testing and checking the date codes. Each UPS has 2 x 18Ah batteries, >and each battery pack has 4 x 18Ah. > > >> Without really setting down and looking at the circuitry on the new meters, >> its hard to say what might happen, as I was speculating earlier. The last >> PDF I read, was about the circuits they added to stop folks from bypassing >> them, or stealing the electricity. I think that it was Analog Devices who >> were making the IC's for these, but I may be wrong. There was 2-3 app notes >> I read, as I was interested in seeing how they did it. >> >> You are also right, in that they will do away with the meter readers. If I >> recall, I read that they use a radio link to send the info back to the >> office, or something similar. > > >_______________________________________________ >time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] >To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts >and follow the instructions there. > >__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 5851 (20110206) __________ > >The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. > >http://www.eset.com _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
