My memory is faulty on this, but I seem to recall that in the
Minneapolis-St. Paul area the meters were converted to RF reading. It was
such a disaster that it was stopped. I believe that they have gone back to
manual reading on a periodic basis with a final reading whenever there is a
change in ownership.
In today's new world of special energy charges for various times of year it
may be that a monthly reading rather than an estimate followed by a
correction periodically is going to be required before the Power
Distribution companies can put such variable rates into place. I wish I felt
that energy deregulation was going to be a more positive thing than it was
in the ENRON event. I guess a few guys "got theirs" and they lived in Texas
so it was OK.
Anyway, without the political overtones, I conclude that if BPL is of
interest for meter reading it might have legs. That is not the "vision" that
has been presented to the FCC commissioners as far as I know.
Tod, K0TO
> -----Original Message-----
> From: towertalk-bounces@contesting.com
> [mailto:towertalk-bounces@contesting.com]On Behalf Of Bob Nielsen
> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 7:20 PM
> To: towertalk@contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] BPL.... very important point missed
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 07:08:23PM -0000, Jim Jarvis wrote:
> >
> > I appologize for piling on, here...but it hadn't occured to me
> > that BPL would enable power companies to automate their meter
> > reading. A digital back-channel, if you will.
>
> Does anyone have details on how the power companies handle their remote
> meter reading? Obviously the bandwidth requirements are not very high,
> particularly outside the time-of-use scenario. My power company (Puget
> Sound Energy) switched out the meter over a year ago to one which would
> give them the ability to remotely read it, but provided no information
> on the method used. I pick up a lot of <S9 birdies, but no hint of
> broadband noise similar to that of the BPL audio clips on the ARRL web
> site (I suspect the birdies are from computers and other digital
> devices in the neighborhood).
>
> Bob, N7XY
> Bainbridge Island, WA
> _______________________________________________
>
> See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers",
> "Wireless Weather Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free,
> 1-800-333-9041 with any questions and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>
_______________________________________________
See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless Weather
Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions
and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
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