Is this a ‘threat’ to make me go over to the dark side to a Smart Meter?

[Deleted User]

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023-04/Smart%20Meter%20Rollout%20Energy%20suppliers%20Rollout%20Delivery%20Open%20Letter%20April%202023.pdf

Page 7 puts suppliers under the ‘cosh’ to fit smart meters ahead of the planned RTS shutdown in March 2924

Mstty

[Deleted User] said:

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023-04/Smart%20Meter%20Rollout%20Energy%20suppliers%20Rollout%20Delivery%20Open%20Letter%20April%202023.pdf

Page 7 puts suppliers under the ‘cosh’ to fit smart meters ahead of the planned RTS shutdown in March 2924

Still 901 years then lol

[Deleted User]

Mstty said:

[Deleted User] said:

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023-04/Smart%20Meter%20Rollout%20Energy%20suppliers%20Rollout%20Delivery%20Open%20Letter%20April%202023.pdf

Page 7 puts suppliers under the ‘cosh’ to fit smart meters ahead of the planned RTS shutdown in March 2924

Still 901 years then lol

Good spot. At the rate that our smart meter rollout is going, my typo may well yet prove to be correct.

Gerry1

Raxiel said:

Gerry1 said:

No, Droitwich has failed or been off the air for aerial maintenance many times but my RTS has always carried on quite happily.  It remembered my split E7 hours which I'd specifically requested long before it became standard in my region.

I do !  The Ovo site is even worse for scaremongering

As above, no problem when Droitwich has failed.

Did you lose power between it failing and being restored?

No, it always carried on quite happily.  AFAIK all my power failures have always been area wide, as evidenced by blacked-out neighbours and streetlights together with the local mobile phone mast instantly going off the air.

The BBC has long threatened that when the last big transmitter valve fails then that's the end of R4LW.  The energy industry would never have agreed to anything so insecure that an RTS network failure (or consumers screening their meters) could leave the cheap rate permanently on or the supply permanently cut off.

Raxiel

Gerry1 said:

Raxiel said:

Gerry1 said:

No, Droitwich has failed or been off the air for aerial maintenance many times but my RTS has always carried on quite happily.  It remembered my split E7 hours which I'd specifically requested long before it became standard in my region.

I do !  The Ovo site is even worse for scaremongering

As above, no problem when Droitwich has failed.

Did you lose power between it failing and being restored?

No, it always carried on quite happily.  AFAIK all my power failures have always been area wide, as evidenced by blacked-out neighbours and streetlights together with the local mobile phone mast instantly going off the air.

The BBC has long threatened that when the last big transmitter valve fails then that's the end of R4LW.  The energy industry would never have agreed to anything so insecure that an RTS network failure (or consumers screening their meters) could leave the cheap rate permanently on or the supply permanently cut off.

Yeah, so yours kept working because the internal clock was powered throughout the signal disruption.

When I say "lose power", its the area wide type I'm talking about. I know the RTS only switches between circuits on latching relays it doesn't have the capacity to interrupt supply on the domestic side altogether.

Caveat: this is all based on the particular models of I've seen the insides of, its possible other units are built differently.

If the radio signal goes off, the computer in the switch can maintain its previous program until the radio signal comes back.

If the supply (to the switch) is interrupted, there are capacitors that might keep it alive for a short while, but unlike a modern smart meter, there's no battery to keep the clock running through an extended blackout.

Instead, when the power returns the computer reboots and gets the current time from the RTS signal, (which is broadcast every minute with the current time, not just at switching time) and can re-establish a default program until it's able to download a 'current' switching program from the RTS signal, (with the DIP switch settings telling it which program to follow).

What I'm saying is, based on what I've seen, once the R4LW signal goes permanently dark, I can't see how an RTS could resume its switching program after a supply interruption. It might operate just fine for a long time, the supply might be particularly stable, but likewise, it might not be. After last year's heatwave we had an extended interruption the first time it rained on the cooked HV lines.

At best it might start its 17/7 switching cycle 17 hours after rebooting, but more likely it would just remain on peak until it learned the time. They were never designed to operate permanently in the dark.

You can't say the industry would never have agreed to that, because R4LW wasn't on borrowed time in 1983, and they no doubt assumed that a replacement would be ready before it was. Which is true, there is a replacement - smart meters. If smart meters weren't a thing there doubtless would have been a program to replace them with something else. Mechanical timers or a different type of RTS.

And in the minds of those designing and approving the RTS system in the early 80's, it wouldn't have been anything like the smart meter rollout with today's privatised energy industry, with a myriad of suppliers meekly 'offering' a swap. It would have been done street by street by the Electric Board. If anyone refused (if they even could) they'd simply say goodbye to their off-peak period. Not the designers problem at all.

Gerry1

We'll have to agree to disagree, but based on my experience I'm firmly convinced it has a clock and some non-volatile memory because it's remembered my (opted-in) split E7 hours for around three decades.  That change required a site visit.

Affordable digital watches were available from the mid-70s so an internal clock wasn't rocket science.

Nor was the problem limited to R4 LW's eventual shutdown: tower and mast collapses are not unknown and must have been considered, ditto the screening effects of new buildings (and dodgy customers).

Obvious revenue-threatening vulnerabilities would never have been designed in.

Raxiel

Gerry1 said:

We'll have to agree to disagree, but based on my experience I'm firmly convinced it has a clock and some non-volatile memory because it's remembered my (opted-in) split E7 hours for around three decades.  That change required a site visit.

Affordable digital watches were available from the mid-70s so an internal clock wasn't rocket science.

Nor was the problem limited to R4 LW's eventual shutdown: tower and mast collapses are not unknown and must have been considered, ditto the screening effects of new buildings (and dodgy customers).

Obvious revenue-threatening vulnerabilities would never have been designed in.

As I've said. I agree it has a clock. The clock generator chip is visible on the board. I just don't believe it has a way of maintaining it through an extended supply interruption. It gets the time from the signal when it boots and presumably regularly syncs to avoid drift.

Watches and computers of the time still needed a battery. Perhaps some models do have batteries, but the one dismantled in the video I linked didn't.

You're also correct in that there is a form of non-volatile memory too. A bank of physical switches that tell it which of the various programs are encoded in the RTS signal it should follow.

A temporary signal interruption due to a mast or transmitter failure (and it would have been temporary, due to the importance) is not the same as a permanent shutdown.

You're free to disagree of course, and free to take your chances, but I don't think its right to tell others that all the suppliers are definitely lying and that their own RTS will definitely work indefinitely, signal or no.

If you or anyone else have any technical details to the contrary, I'd be happy to see them.

There's an RTS on ebay right now for about thirty quid. This could be tested by de-soldering the antenna before powering it up, but I'm not that invested in this.

phillw

Raxiel said:
You're also correct in that there is a form of non-volatile memory too. A bank of physical switches that tell it which of the various programs are encoded in the RTS signal it should follow.

Yeah, there is no way they would have used battery backed ram for that if it required a site visit to reprogram.

Gerry1

My bet would be that without R4 LW it would happily cope with most power cuts,  and if a deadly storm cut the power for an extended period then the worst that might happen is that the clock will have reset; there will still be seven hours cheap rate but at different times.

If so, it would be no worse than the drifting motorised timers that several forumites have mentioned.

But the claim that you'll freeze or boil is just scaremongering.