Is RTS Economy 7 meter going to stop working?

coffeehound

Presumably RomfordNavy's teleswitch will be an older technology model like



so would it keep time as well as a newer one?

MWT said:

The reality of all this though is that there will be an aggressive program of meter replacement once they do settle on a final date as even though the meters should keep running, they will effectively be in a failure mode and that will not be acceptable as a 'normal' mode of operation.

Yes the SM rollout has used the 'carrot' approach so far, but perhaps they'll replace the carrot with the stick soon

coffeehound

It's interesting to read that the same system is/was used by the environment agency, as last year a comms station with tall mast was installed in the countryside near my folks by the environment agency, so clearly that is them making other arrangements

jrawle

Gerry1 said:

jrawle said:

This is a great article that explains how the switches work, and how the data is encoded:

http://alancordwell.co.uk/Legacy/radio/teleswitch1.html

As posted five hours ago...

...with the title changed, the URL not visible, and little description of what the page contained.

jrawle said:

So there is a microprocessor that maintains a real time clock. However, there's no mention of a backup battery. In that case, once the signal is switched off, the timeswitches would be completely off following a power cut. (At present, the time would be corrected within a minute of power being restored.)

While I would normally agree that the companies are all too keen to scare people into having smart meters, in this case I think the timeswitches will be useless once the signal is ended.

Wrong again.  My Radio Teleswitch has always remained accurate whenever Droitwich has gone off the air.

And did one of these, apparently numerous, occasions when Droitwich went off air coincide with a power cut at your property, with the transmitter remaining offline both after power was restored, and until after the meter was next due to switch? Those are the only circumstances under which what I describe could occur at present, which is why the radio timeswitches work so reliably. Once the transmission is permanently stopped, it's a different matter, as there is no way for the clock to reset after a power cut.

Gerry1

jrawle said:

And did one of these, apparently numerous, occasions when Droitwich went off air coincide with a power cut at your property, with the transmitter remaining offline both after power was restored, and until after the meter was next due to switch? Those are the only circumstances under which what I describe could occur at present, which is why the radio timeswitches work so reliably. Once the transmission is permanently stopped, it's a different matter, as there is no way for the clock to reset after a power cut.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

(IIRC there was short power cut when period when Droitwich was off the air.)

The teleswitch must have a device that keeps the clock running accurately during a power cut, otherwise the radio teleswitch system would be wide open to fraud.  It would have been quite easy to screen the radio teleswitch, knowing that sooner or later the cumulative effects of power cuts would cause the E7 time to drift into daylight hours.

This could also have happened quite easily even without fraudulent intent if the R4 signal were weakened by other events, e.g. construction of a nearby steel framed building, or high levels of local electrical interference.  An impatient fraudster would only have needed to have broken the seal and removed the company fuse to achieve the same result.

Such obvious system vulnerabilities would never have been permitted.  If you think about it further, an internal clock without the ability to retain accurate time during a power failure would be absolutely pointless: the LW data signal already contains timing information so a volatile local clock would add no value whatsoever.  It would be as useful as a Write Only Memory !

Note that the internal clock doesn't need to have a battery per se.  Its current drain will be extremely low, hence a capacitor would suffice, and indeed several are visible.

MWT

Gerry1 said:

If you think about it further, an internal clock without the ability to retain accurate time during a power failure would be absolutely pointless: the LW data signal already contains timing information so a volatile local clock would add no value whatsoever.  It would be as useful as a Write Only Memory !

Note that the internal clock doesn't need to have a battery per se.  Its current drain will be extremely low, hence a capacitor would suffice, and indeed several are visible.

I did try to find verification of the clock being able to survive a power cut, but I can't find anything, and of course it isn't actually necessary if the clock can be re-sync'd with the radio signal...

jrawle

Well, this is certainly an interesting question which we may only find the definitive answer to when the switch off actually happens, which is seems won't be for another year at least. I hope people will report back at some point in the future.

I no longer have a property on E7, but obviously I hope no-one else's supply or timings are going to be mucked up by the change. I always thought my time switch was rather neat, with the way it switched bang on 11:30pm and "just worked". Some of my neighbours still had ticking mechanical clocks in their meter cupboards - I could hear them!

CatMomma

May I ask, how can I tell if my meter is radio signal enabled, or the dumb kind? (Its been here since we bought the house in 2005).

Gerry1

CatMomma said:

May I ask, how can I tell if my meter is radio signal enabled, or the dumb kind? (Its been here since we bought the house in 2005).

If you have a Radio Teleswitch it's likely to be separate from the meter on the wall and it may look like this.

Coffeehound also posted a photo of a typical installation, just scroll up.

LucyLu1986

Does anyone know if this is an RTS meter?

Gerry1

No, it's a dual rate meter with its own internal clock.  Here's a video about how to read it.