Ironically-Named ‘Smart Meters’ Prove to Be a Dumb Idea

The Blaze ^ | 03-26-11 | Mike Opelka

[FrogMom]

Headaches, insomnia, tinnitus, DNA breakdown. . . These are just a few of the myriad problems mentioned when people talk about the constant bombardment of EMFs or electromagnetic frequencies, a huge by-product of the new Smart Meters being installed by public utilities around the country.

[backwoods-engineer]

The meters, with transmitters, can be easily shielded. Take one of those very large cans, the really big ones that hold tomatoes found at COSTCO, and cut it in half from top to bottom. Mount it behind the meter/tranmitter between house and meter.

Um, how are you going to be sure your COSTCO can doesn't re-radiate back into your house? Depending on the size, your can could be an efficient radiator, especially if it is tin-plated.

Please don't do this, folks.

[count-your-change]

Nobody really cared if you knew they were listening in since you didn't know who for sure and there wasn't anything to done about it.

We only had a small radio and it was a killing offence for anyone to touch it except my father. But I remember the old tubes and the machines in the grocery stores to check them, this switch for heater, another for emitter, a couple of dozen sockets.....oh yez, I remember. Now looking in the back of a t.v. is no fun at all!

[from occupied ga]

Anyone surprised, raise your hand.

Anyone believing this, raise you hand. I have some excellent protective field devices that can be installed in individual rooms for $199.99 each (plus shipping and handling) that are guaranteed to work at protecting you from this rf. Try them for 90 days, and if you're not satisfied I'll refund your charges.

[count-your-change]

I always thought as a kid that being the telephone repairman was a neat job because he had spurs that allowed him to climb poles, how cool would that be!
But then the cable was buried in the ground and the county's backhoe would repeatedly snag a big black rubber covered root and break it while cleaning ditches.
Not so cool then, sitting and splicing dozens of little wires together.

[exDemMom]

My company does extensive testing on each and every type of meter we produce, determining the RF exposure. In fact, we are compelled by the FCC to do so. As long as you keep your brain 20cm from the meter when it is transmitting (which is usually about every 4 hours at the most), YOU ARE FINE.

Drat. So much for my plan to wrap the meter in foam and use it as a pillow.

[meyer]

I visited a company called Itron in the early 90s. They made remotely readable utility meters even then.

I've got an Itron on the back of my house now. But instead of using an RF signal for remote meter reading, mine's tied into the fiber network that I use for my internet (and will use for TV once my dish contract ends).

No fancy billing schemes or rates yet, but that's coming.

[backwoods-engineer]

The mechanisms are being placed to trace anybody who might rebel from forced relocation. The reasonable and plausible explanations for these extremely high cost systems do not make economic sense. They cost at least 1 to 2 orders of magnitude more than the value of any energy conserved in their implementation.

Paranoid nonsense! Do you know what they actually cost? I do! I design them! And there is NOTHING in the firmware about forced relocation! Geez, these things barely have enough RAM and flash memory to perform their main function!

[Cvengr]

Replacing a meter is one thing. Like I posted, nothing wrong with that to save labor costs in data collection.

I also know what they cost.

Installing fiber optics in parallel conduit, controllers, and rewiring distribution panels to accommodate remote monitoring of power consumption and controlling HVAC and motors loads is my point, and it has been actively been pursued in federal properties for the last 5 years.

Why would one spend $2k to save maybe $20/yr on a structure with a 70yr life expectancy?

One can avoid the notion of conspiracy by ignoring these stupid ‘smart’ installations (and I’m not just refering to the meter-only swap-out).

Finding a plausible explanation at least points to low level corruption known several tiers of authority above it.

Those promoting it have an agenda, such that the high construction and installation costs are inconsequential compared to the value they give them. Go figure.

PS. Study up on relational databases. These devices don’t need much memory to provide the functionality some with ulterior motives may seek.

Follow the money. Follow who is implementing all these programs, not just the innocuous ones. The paths converge.

[meyer]

Installing fiber optics in parallel conduit, controllers, and rewiring distribution panels to accommodate remote monitoring of power consumption and controlling HVAC and motors loads is my point, and it has been actively been pursued in federal properties for the last 5 years.

They brought out the fiber network here late last year, but it serves other purposes - I get internet (very FAST internet), cable TV, and telephone service if I want them. The meter is tied into the fiber. The distribution panel, no way. They will not tresspass into my home to touch that.

But yes, that is a trend. Florida power had, several years ago, a rate scheme whereby they could turn off your pool pump, water heater, and/or the AC for a short period of time during peak demand periods to reduce load. In exchange, they gave a small monthly discount. This was before so-called "smart meters" were being used. They used a controlling contactor separate from the meter that turned off selected circuits remotely by radio command.

The concept is to avoid having to build power plants. The greens have the big floppy ears of the commie in the White Hut right now, and he believes that we are living our lives way too luxuriously. So, he wants to knock our lifestyle down a few notches to match the lifestyles of some third-world countries. That can only be done by reducing the availability of energy. And the way to do that is to sell "green". The remote load controlling is a means to sell green.

It would be far better for the country overall if we'd just remove the greens, and build a few dozen stinky coal-fired power plants every year for the next decade or so rather than chase this pie-in-the-sky BS solution to the myth of global warming.

[Cvengr]

I know that most of these programs all have valid basis to their design, ....in part.

I don’t naturally doubt all of them independent of one another.

What bothers me is how they all are being coordinated with some very stupid consequences and are being promoted by similar ‘lunatic fringe’ advocates.

People do things for reasons. Granted, human error may account for a lot of stupid results, but there are also those who have ulterior motives for their positions.

Al Gore promoting ‘Green’ living isn’t about saving the environment. I may not know his true intentions, but his actions and lifestyle are not consistent with that philosophy. Although I disagree with him, I also don’t attribute his behavior and agenda to simple stupidity. I believe he well knows what he is doing, although I don’t trust him, nor agree with his agenda.

There is something more to all the remote monitoring of individual circuits than simple load shed analysis. Capacity is being built for some purpose. What that is, ...I don’t know.

[FrogMom]

It leaves many a pregnant question and too many nefarious possibilities.

Al Gore had interests in plumbing and one of his best friends had the patent on the freon replacement.

Now he's HUGELY invested in "alternative energy" companies. We are paying out the nose for less-effective stuff so Al Gore and his cronies can get richer. End of story.

[Ditter]

Of course the problem could be psychological but also someone who has severe headaches is always looking for the trigger. I had severe headaches of the migraine type until I figured out I was allergic to corn and chocolate. I never even thought about the cause being microwaves.

[Cvengr]

IMHO, there is a greater chance of unhealthy side effects from cell phone usage, but if they exist, they aren’t immediate.

[Ditter]

Do you see a possible danger from cell phones only when you have it up to your ear and are connected to someone, or is there also a danger when it is in your pocket? I don’t talk on my cell phone very much but I always have it in my pocket.

[Cvengr]

I don’t think they really pose a danger.

There hasn’t been enough time, though, to statistically have determined if there aren’t causal effects from cell phones.

Regarding field theory, it’s obvious the force imparted on an external body by a point charge varies by the cube root of the distance. In most field theory designs, distance and separation are the easiest solutions to avoid external field interactions.

[Cvengr]

My point above is to counter the claim that the smart meters are causing these symptoms. A cell phone is more likely to cause such problems from the viewpoint of actual electromagnetic energy being fluxed on the human body.

Do cell phones cause such things?

IMHO, they don’t and it’s obvious from their prolific usage.

That doesn’t mean there might be some side effect not yet identified, which comes with holding the phone in a certain place along the temple, inducing some type of unforeseen neurological condition over 40 years of use. Of course if such symptoms were to appear, I would expect to see them in young women addicted to cell phone use since age 10.

If I wore a pacemaker, I don’t think I would carry the cellphone in my breast pocket, even though they reportedly don’t cause interaction.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Probably the most hazardous radar on any carrier is the SPS-49. It is 10 kW average power. (Marine navigation radar, whether high seas units or leisure craft, run about 1/2 W, typically.) Your microwave oven is about 1 kW, but the food is right up against the feed. The power density at the reflector of the ‘49 is still only about 0.3 mW per cm-squared, as opposed to occupational standards of 5 mW/cm^2. Like I said, you really have to try to die of microwave exposure.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I had to replace my central air conditioner commpressor last summer, 2010. As of 2009, it was illegal to manufacture new freon units, but it was legal to install existing units. I got a freon unit for about half the price of a replacement. The replacement would have had a much bigger footprint, so we would needed a new slab for it to stand on, the coolant isn’t compatabile with the existing heat exchanger, and the heat exchanger would have to be much larger requiring replumbing the heat exchanger. Really sucks.

It is my understanding that if the ozone layer disappeared completely (it can’t and it won’t) it would pose the same cancer risk as moving from Boston to Providence. Big whoop.

[jrushing]

when people talk about the constant bombardment of EMFs or electromagnetic frequencies

I wish they wouldn't go down this road. It makes them seem like quacks & idiots.
You cannot escape EMFs in this Universe. Even sunlight is an EMF.

[madison10]

Just had one installed, may be too late to ask, but can they turn off our power remotely with one of those things? Say I have window air conditioners and they think we’re using too much energy?