Pole Radios - Lakewood Twp

[fineshot1]

Anyone have any experience with these or know exactly what these are for?
There are not many of them all over the town, just in a small area of town on
two or three roads and they are spaced at about every 5th or 6th pole on each
one of those roads. Lakewood does have a 4.940 Ghz License so I am guessing
its for that but not sure of the purpose.

[Highpockets]

Originally Posted by fineshot1

Anyone have any experience with these or know exactly what these are for?
There are not many of them all over the town, just in a small area of town on
two or three roads and they are spaced at about every 5th or 6th pole on each
one of those roads. Lakewood does have a 4.940 Ghz License so I am guessing
its for that but not sure of the purpose.

I wonder if they could be gun shot detector's?

[npd155]

wireless internet transmitters. each one covers about 3 city blocks. Sometimes used for cell phones where a community does not want a tower in the area and needs signal boost in area. its uses the electricity from the lamp post.

[fineshot1]

Originally Posted by npd155

wireless internet transmitters. each one covers about 3 city blocks. Sometimes used for cell phones where a community does not want a tower in the area and needs signal boost in area. its uses the electricity from the lamp post.

I am sure this has nothing to do with Cellular Phones, I worked in the Cellular Networking industry
for many years and there is a Verizon Wireless cell site less than a 1/4 mile away from this area
so for VZW the signal strength is as good as it gets.

[fineshot1]

Originally Posted by Highpockets

I wonder if they could be gun shot detector's?

Not sure what you are talking about. This is in a very affluent area of town.

[n5ims]

Most likely radios used for your city's MDCs (Mobile Data Computer) communications. It generally work similar to cell towers in that a mobile unit communicates with the one device and when that signal drops it moves on to the next one.

[mmckenna]

Mesh data network, likely for public safety.
The cord you see leading to the street light pulls power for the unit off the street light circuit. It connects where the photo sensor is.
They do a store and forward system to bounce data packets around until they find a gateway.
I don't know who the exact vendor is by looking at the picture.
We used to have a similar system at work, run by Ricochet, but that was a long time ago. Many of the surrounding cities have newer systems.

[fineshot1]

Originally Posted by mmckenna

We used to have a similar system at work, run by Ricochet, but that was a long time ago. Many of the surrounding cities have newer systems.

Yes - I used to work for them (Metricomm) and the network was "called" Ricochet and that is why
I am curious to find out.

[acmcjr]

In our area, the electric company (PPL) uses them to read electric meters remotely.

[mmckenna]

Originally Posted by fineshot1

Yes - I used to work for them (Metricomm) and the network was "called" Ricochet and that is why
I am curious to find out.

Ah, that's right. It's been a long time. I actually discovered one of the units still plugged in and working last year. The whole system had been shut down about 10 years ago, but this one was forgotten about.

I know Motorola makes a mesh network system, I think it runs on 4.9 GHz, but I could be wrong. You might be able to do some image searches on Google to see if you can find a manufacturer who produces a unit that looks similar.

[fineshot1]

Originally Posted by acmcjr

In our area, the electric company (PPL) uses them to read electric meters remotely.

In this area JCP&L does not do this(it costs a lot of money to set up such an infrastucture) and they
read meters via the old fashioned way, manually.

[fineshot1]

Originally Posted by mmckenna

I know Motorola makes a mesh network system, I think it runs on 4.9 GHz, but I could be wrong. You might be able to do some image searches on Google to see if you can find a manufacturer who produces a unit that looks similar.

I have already covered that and what I found via google does not match any motomesh utility pole radio i can find. It could be from another infrastructure supplier i suppose for a motomesh competitors equipment.

[rsb8940]

They are Remote Street Light Monitoring installed by JCPL typically installed in a section of hazardous roadway. Depending on how far apart the Light poles are located, you will see them hanging from a module like the one posted or you can also see them installed on top of the light fixture with a small antenna similar to the one attached below (depending on the manufacturer). They are controlled by a larger module which will have a larger antenna (approx 18") typically mounted higher on a near by utility pole, above the phone/cable TV wires but below the level of a transformer.

Here is some info about the benefits/capabilities:

Remote Control and Monitoring of street lights can save energy, enhance public safety, reduce light pollution, reduce maintenance costs, provide valuable M&V information, and fixture health reporting to municipalities, states and other users. They can be used with LED, Induction, Plasma, eHID lighting, and standard HID.

A centralized command system can send astronomic time based instructions to individual or groups of street lighting to reduce energy consumption, when and where possible, during night time hours.

Demand responsive and adaptive, lighting can be dropped to lower levels through user selected, multi-level dimming scenarios, or based on input from traffic monitors or other systems and sensors. Revenue grade power metering through the use of Smart Meter chips is standard.

Additional public safety uses can include the ability for police or other emergency vehicles to interface through their onboard computers and raise light levels from nearby streetlights even higher than normal to aid in visibility for investigation, medical administration and incident clean up.
Gateway and software allow users to communicate with over a million system devices if a customer's network was that large. Standard units provide a 5 mile range to devices when mounted on poles twenty feet or higher.

Access to detailed fixture operating functions provides feedback regarding the health and performance of light fixtures for predictive maintenance and M&V. No longer will crews have to drive around at night looking for streetlight outages. Work orders are automatically generated.

[fineshot1]

Originally Posted by rsb8940

They are Remote Street Light Monitoring installed by JCPL typically installed in a section of hazardous roadway. Depending on how far apart the Light poles are located, you will see them hanging from a module like the one posted or you can also see them installed on top of the light fixture with a small antenna similar to the one attached below (depending on the manufacturer). They are controlled by a larger module which will have a larger antenna (approx 18") typically mounted higher on a near by utility pole, above the phone/cable TV wires but below the level of a transformer.

Here is some info about the benefits/capabilities:

Remote Control and Monitoring of street lights can save energy, enhance public safety, reduce light pollution, reduce maintenance costs, provide valuable M&V information, and fixture health reporting to municipalities, states and other users. They can be used with LED, Induction, Plasma, eHID lighting, and standard HID.

A centralized command system can send astronomic time based instructions to individual or groups of street lighting to reduce energy consumption, when and where possible, during night time hours.

Demand responsive and adaptive, lighting can be dropped to lower levels through user selected, multi-level dimming scenarios, or based on input from traffic monitors or other systems and sensors. Revenue grade power metering through the use of Smart Meter chips is standard.

Additional public safety uses can include the ability for police or other emergency vehicles to interface through their onboard computers and raise light levels from nearby streetlights even higher than normal to aid in visibility for investigation, medical administration and incident clean up.
Gateway and software allow users to communicate with over a million system devices if a customer's network was that large. Standard units provide a 5 mile range to devices when mounted on poles twenty feet or higher.

Access to detailed fixture operating functions provides feedback regarding the health and performance of light fixtures for predictive maintenance and M&V. No longer will crews have to drive around at night looking for streetlight outages. Work orders are automatically generated.

I have friends that work for JCP&L and per them they have no such equipment in place and have no plans
to do so.

[KC2GVX]

These are the other devices that are on poles. I am not sure what the device is that the original poster asked about. These devices as shown in my picture are used by JCP&L in their service area. These devices draw power from the street lights. They are used for the energy saving program offered to customers. During high demand periods, these items will remotely cycle off people's power for a short amount of time. After 15 minutes, it will move onto another set of customers whom opt in on another grid. I am 100% certain of this, my father is an executive with the company. Steve (Highpockets) can vouch for my creditability on this issue.

[n7lxi]

Looks like an older Cisco mesh access point.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Sorry for any spelling errors.

[kb2vxa]

Yeah, and a lamp with a defective photocell wasting electricity. (;->)

[e911god]

Looks like a mesh node to me as well.

Edit...just found this: The Lakewood, N.J., police department is using the technology for virtual backup (streaming real-time video from police cruisers to dispatchers)...

Contractors’ Code Letter | NECA-NEIS

Another article...

http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/columns/a...obile-Mesh.htm

I don't know if the OP's pic is part of the systems described above, but it's a good start. If I had to guess, I personally think it's a mesh node from a company called Firetide.

[fineshot1]

Originally Posted by e911god

Looks like a mesh node to me as well.

Edit...just found this: The Lakewood, N.J., police department is using the technology for virtual backup (streaming real-time video from police cruisers to dispatchers)...

Contractors’ Code Letter | NECA-NEIS

Another article...

New Jersey Police Try Mobile Mesh

I don't know if the OP's pic is part of the systems described above, but it's a good start. If I had to guess, I personally think it's a mesh node from a company called Firetide.

Thank you for finding that, i knew i remembered reading that in the past but did not remember
the details. This article goes back to 2007 and is still not conclusive as to the device i posted
on the utility light fixture but that article is a strong possibility.

[fineshot1]

Today I found some more in Toms River although none of the two I found are the same type that I originally posted. I think this is the equipment for what rsb8940 is talking about. Also found many of the same for the one KC2GVX posted in Toms River.