I think I got a Utility frequency , while trying for one 900mHz away

[spacellamaman]

(Apologies to all, but I can't decide where to post this. It's the power/water company so I am declaring ignorance is bliss till further instructed. Plus I was attempting to pick up Military low band at the time.)

so the meter reader came by the other day and my house is at the end of a dirt road so
they have to come down and turn around and have a good bit of dwell time. couple of years
ago using visstumbler, a netstumbler knockoff, i had attempted to determine what they were
using to interrogate the meter (waterboarding? forget it). i never detected anything and
being in a wi fi free area and using directional antennas had to assume that it wasn't
wifi related.

the meter reader comes in the middle of the day and so its been years since i have seen one
and have since taken up the scanning habit. sitting right up against the middle of the
dirt road with a long wire tossed in a tree about 20 feet off the ground, i was recently startled by one coming by.

with little time to re configure anything i put the PRO-668 in Signal Stalker mode sweeping from 25-1300mHz. hardly optimum, but as the reader truck, with mag mount medium sized antenna, came back by i got a 0-5 bars, rapidly pulsating, lock on

956.41875 mHz

So I guess thats it then? kinda anti-climatic. Any comments? anyone with first hand information? Second hand? Conjecture?

 

[nd5y]

There are a lot of utilites that have SCADA in the 928-929, 932-935 and 941-960 MHz bands. It's possible some have meter reader that operate there or you could have picked up something else. What state and county is it?

 

[spacellamaman]

oh sorry bout that. Stanly Co NC. yeah i have come across stuff around 929 and 940 but this was new for me. i also forgot to mention that while it was a lock the pulsating was so rapid I never actually heard any audio which makes it distinct from paging and SCADA stuff i have heard. things happend too quick to get another scanner to confirm.

 

[mmckenna]

We use radio read meters at work for electric, gas and water.
Actually, two different systems, but both operate on 900MHz. They were having issues with coverage from the reader vehicle, and I spec'd out some new antennas for them. There's two large equipment boxes in the back seat of the truck, 12 volt DC powered and a pair of 900MHz antennas on the roof.
I tried really hard to get them to do permanent NMO mounts, but no luck, they wanted to be able to swap between trucks as needed.

It's a pretty simple system, the reader beacons out and the meter(s) answer back. It's very short duration.

As for short duration, many years ago when "smart meters" were getting rolled out in my area, there was a local bunch of whack jobs that were convinced this was the government/utility trying to "poison" all of us with mind control voodoo waves. There were some actual physical confrontations between home owners and utility workers at one point. Didn't matter how much science you used to try and convince these people, it just didn't matter. Using a spectrum analyzer I could see the very occasional 900MHz emissions from the meters. People were convinced that they were transmitting with several watts 24x7 and going to give us all brain cancer.

Locally, in the built up areas, the utility has radios on power poles. Usually two antennas (diversity receivers). 900MHz, beacons out a signal, meters answer back, data gets uploaded to the utility over a separate data link, looks to be 800MHz, but might just be cellular, haven't researched it.

 

[mmckenna]

Duplicate post.

 

[nd5y]

ULS License - Microwave Industrial/Business Pool License - WPNA807 - Duke Energy Business Services, LLC
ULS License - Microwave Industrial/Business Pool License - WPNI562 - Duke Energy Business Services, LLC

 

[bharvey2]

"there was a local bunch of whack jobs that were convinced this was the government/utility trying to "poison" all of us with mind control voodoo waves."


That made me chuckle. You're aware though, that it's not paranoia when you KNOW they're out to get you.

 

[mmckenna]

"there was a local bunch of whack jobs that were convinced this was the government/utility trying to "poison" all of us with mind control voodoo waves."


That made me chuckle. You're aware though, that it's not paranoia when you KNOW they're out to get you.

Yeah, some of it got pretty violent, I think a few people went to jail for attacking the installers. They seemed to forget that the utility owns the meter. You have your choice, use the meter or they'll gladly come and remove it. People were convinced it was "their" meter.
Had a few interesting conversations with people.

I kept one of their flyers I found, I've got it framed in my office.. It's got a whole list of ailments, both real and imaginary, that they say the smart meters cause.

Some of those people just worked themselves into so much of a lather, it was funny.

 

[bharvey2]

Given that those people went absolute, off the wall nuts, clearly the meters have some effect. Maybe PG&E should have included aluminum foil and hat making instructions in the monthly bill envelopes. Now, if they can only explain why girls had cooties when I was a nine year old........

 

[KC4RAF]

"cooties"!!!??? lol. Have not heard that word in a coon's age!
Yes, there were many down here in the swamp land that were convinced you'd get cancer, heart attack, and "cooties" from those smart meters. No amount of facts would change their small, lack of intelligence brains.
(thanks bharvey2 for bringing back a word from the yesteryear!!!)

 

[mmckenna]

Ah, yes, cooties. My son, at one point, was upset with my mom about something and accused her of having "cooties". She kind of liked that, since it'd ben 60+ years since she'd had a case of cooties. Said it made her feel young again.

Anyway, yeah, it was a funny little thing to watch happening. I'm almost sorry it faded away. Here at work we still occasionally blame strange occurrences on those meddling "smart meters". That and the eclipse.

 

[bharvey2]

I can only assume that they vaccinate against cooties these days and that's why one rarely hears about them.
Went the way of measles, polio and the plague.

 

[DJ11DLN]

Duke Energy switched to smart meters in my neck of the woods over the last couple of years. I didn't hear any of the tinfoil-hat type of things but a lot of people decided that they could use it as an excuse to get their bill adjusted. "My bill is twice what it normally is and it's all because of these stupid new meters!" Duke actually adjusted a few of them, which surprised me a bit.

I'm on an REMC and have had smart meters since about '97. I actually welcomed it, I have 2 that have gate access and the readers couldn't quite comprehend the necessity of closing the gates after passing through. Chasing stray livestock isn't my idea of fun.

Oh and my bills stayed about the same after they put them in too. These seem to transmit over the grid though, you don't ever see a service truck unless there's a problem.

 

[bharvey2]

When PG&E switched to SMART meters I recall hearing about increased bill complaints. I think there may have been some faulty programming involved that created a problem initially. Many California electrical customers are subject to tiered pricing which really jacks up the price.

 

[n1das]

956.41875 mHz = 0.95641875 Hz


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[bharvey2]

956.41875 mHz = 0.95641875 Hz


Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

???????

 

[SteveSimpkin]

1 MHz = 1 megahertz = 1,000,000 Hertz
1 mHz = 1 millihertz = .001 Hertz
Capitalization matters

 

[bharvey2]

1 MHz = 1 megahertz = 1,000,000 Hertz
1 mHz = 1 millihertz = .001 Hertz
Capitalization matters

Now I see where he was going with this. I didn't go to the original post to obtain the context. It just seemed out of the blue. I'm hip now.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

When PG&E switched to SMART meters I recall hearing about increased bill complaints. I think there may have been some faulty programming involved that created a problem initially. Many California electrical customers are subject to tiered pricing which really jacks up the price.

Here in Florida the subcontractors that switched the meters were incompetent. I spotted this beat up dodge caravan outside and this guy shuffling meters around. I didn't even notice that power interruption .

So I go outside and ask to see my old meter to write down the reading and HE CAN'T FIND IT! No kidding in 10 minutes he loses track of MY meter. Anyway he finds some ratty piece of paper that he wrote the numbers on before texting it in. So I take those numbers and my next bill was astronomical. He had transposed digits. They pay these subs in piece work and you don't get the best attention to detail. 18 months later, the fancy meter dies for no reason and the power company wanted to average the meter reading in their favor We had quite a discussion on that.

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[bharvey2]

Here in Florida the subcontractors that switched the meters were incompetent. I spotted this beat up dodge caravan outside and this guy shuffling meters around. I didn't even notice that power interruption .

So I go outside and ask to see my old meter to write down the reading and HE CAN'T FIND IT! No kidding in 10 minutes he loses track of MY meter. Anyway he finds some ratty piece of paper that he wrote the numbers on before texting it in. So I take those numbers and my next bill was astronomical. He had transposed digits. They pay these subs in piece work and you don't get the best attention to detail. 18 months later, the fancy meter dies for no reason and the power company wanted to average the meter reading in their favor We had quite a discussion on that.

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That doesn't surprise me. We had the same thing going on in California. I oversee several of my employers properties and I lost count of how may times meter switches were made. Sometimes the same meter was changed a number of times. Our company does business with the electric utility and I've seen container loads of bad smart meters. Obviously, they had problems with them.