[Boatanchors]

[n_griggs at bellsouth.net]

Here in North West Georgia, Greystone Power is switching to the 'remote' meters.  I have done some research on the units they are installing.  The RF unit is made by a company in the Atlanta area that makes these modules for most any type of remote monitoring.  The meters are made by Landis+Gyr, a company that makes digital readout watthour meters.  According to the FCC ID number on the one at my house, these units use spread spectrum between 910.5 and 927.5 MHz under part 15C with an output of .383 watts.  These units also have an internal receiver and unique id so each unit is individually addressable.  They can also be used to pinpoint power outages since there is at least a 2.5 Farad capacitor visible from the side for powering the unit for a limited amount of time.  

Neal KC4YCM
-------------- Original message from "Richard W. Solomon" <w1ksz at earthlink.net>: -------------- 


> There's nothing new under the sun ... 
> 
> Many moons ago (1970's) I worked for a company in Cambridge, MA, 
> who developed a product line of meter readers that transmitted the 
> data back over the power lines. 
> It was a flop back then, let's see how this reincarnation works 
> out. 
> 
> 73, Dick, W1KSZ 
> 
> -----Original Message----- 
> >From: Glen Zook 
> >Sent: May 9, 2008 12:46 PM 
> >To: RKofler at aol.com, boatanchors at mailman.qth.net 
> >Subject: Re: [Boatanchors] "Smart" Electric Meters 
> > 
> >It depends on what frequency they are using. When I 
> >was with TXU (electric company for almost half the 
> >State of Texas) they were using their 896 MHz trunking 
> >system to read the meters. This caused no problems. 
> > 
> >By the way, these remote meters actually save the 
> >utility company money in the long run since they can 
> >do away with meter readers and so forth. It sounds 
> >like your utility company is using it as an excuse to 
> >raise your rates. 
> > 
> >Glen, K9STH 
> > 
> > 
> >--- RKofler at aol.com wrote: 
> > 
> >I read yesterday in a newspaper article that my local 
> >electric utility company, Portland General Electric 
> >Co., is raising the rates to pay for installing so 
> >called "smart electric meters". The article did not go 
> >into any technical detail, but it said these meters 
> >would be able to be read remotely and eventually they 
> >would have a situation where they could remotely 
> >regulate some aspects of customers power usage during 
> >peak hours. My concern is that these meters will be a 
> >source of RF interference similar to BPL. Anybody 
> >have experience with these "smart meters"? 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >Glen, K9STH 
> > 
> >Website: http://k9sth.com 
> > 
> > 
> > 
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