Replacing a smart meter comms hub

Reed_Richards

Fair enough, @molerat.  I wonder why some MPANs are not found?

Qyburn

Reed_Richards said:

I don't know if this is progress; it's certainly a change.  If I now go to https://homebrew.n3rgy.com/ and input my MPAN it says "MPAN Not found / Not Smart".  Hitherto it worked but still had the details of my old comms hub, replaced over two weeks ago. 

I'm inclined to think that known incorrect information being removed is a positive sign.

Reed_Richards

That's very much what I'm hoping, @Qyburn.  Are your issues completely fixed now?

Qyburn

Reed_Richards said:

That's very much what I'm hoping, @Qyburn.  Are your issues completely fixed now?

They seem to be. But I'm remembering that after the comms hub was replaced on 20th June, everything was perfect until it dropped dead on 26th.

Reed_Richards

And it would now seem that replacing the comms hub was the wrong response to a completely different issue?

Qyburn

Reed_Richards said:

And it would now seem that replacing the comms hub was the wrong response to a completely different issue?

Could well be. Although that's not to say there might not have been more than one issue. 

Reed_Richards

Reviving this thread, I have been trying and failing to detect the signals sent to the comms hub.  I bought a very inexpensive spectrum analyser called a TinySA.  Connected to a small wide-band ("Group K") TV aerial, it can easily detect the TV signals from my local transmitter, which is a 20 miles away, when pointed in roughly the right direction.  The TV transmitter belongs to Arqiva, who do the LRR for comms hubs, so it is very likely to be the source of the comms hub signal also.  But below is a triggered spectrum in covering 410 to 440 MHz.    


There is a signal at 420 MHz which seems to be constant and directionless; perhaps it's an artefact?  And a signal at 439 MHz which does seem to vary according to which way I point the aerial.  And every minute or two (which I have to set the analyser in trigger mode to capture) there is a burst of the big signal at 434 MHz.

The comms signal is nominally at 420 MHz and I'm not sure how far away from that nominal frequency it can be.  I have been told that the comms signal is pulsed but much more frequently than every minute or two and I cannot find any signal in the right band that fits that description.  Maybe I don't have the right instrument or the right expertise to operate it correctly?

I'm open to any suggestions.  

   

Ildhund

Reed_Richards said:

I have been trying and failing to detect the signals sent to the comms hub ...  
... the TV signals from my local transmitter, which is a 20 miles away, when pointed in roughly the right direction ...  
I'm open to any suggestions.     

That's really enterprising, and I wish I could help. The only suggestion I'd make is that perhaps you're looking at the wrong TV mast. I read somewhere once that Arqiva only put SMWAN aerials on their main towers, adding as few as possible elsewhere to meet their agreed target. The 'main'  towers are, I think, the ones on this map: Full service Freeview transmitters. I suspect that most people are more than 20 miles away from these, and may well be getting their TV signal from a closer repeater.
  

Reed_Richards

I am just some 20 miles from one of the full service towers on the Freeview map.  And I can see a weaker TV signal from another full service tower which is about 40 miles away.  I read somewhere that main towers transmit a horizontally polarised TV signal whilst repeaters use vertical polarisation; I don't know if that is true but both the transmitters I can "see" use horizontal polarisation.  I have also read (once) that the SMWAN signal is vertically polarised, but I can't find hard information either way.  And I can't detect the SMWAN signal at all, whichever way I orient my aerial.   

Ildhund

Bang goes that theory, then. Sorry!