On Oct 28, 4:17*pm, "Pete C." wrote:
wrote:

On Tue, 28 Oct 2008 08:59:53 -0500, "Steve Barker DLT"
wrote:

BzzzzzzzzzzzzT! *wrong. *they don't drive by.

They do if you dont pay the bill.

They do a drive by shooting, killing the guy who didn't pay the bill,
or shooting holes in his transformer.......

(Oh, wait, that's only in Texas, and they dont drive by, they come on
horseback, or riding a bull. *The rider is always wearing a BIG cowboy
hat.........) *

On a more serious note, they drive by, then they stop an pull your
meter or the fuses at your pole transformer.

Actually they're working on remote controlled meters so they can remote
connect / disconnect in addition to remote reading.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

AIUI there are various methods.
Ranging from;
a) Replacing the mechanical spinning disk meter by a digital one;
still read manually.
b) A digital meter that can be read wirelessly from a hand-held or
vehicle mounted interrogation device.
c) A digital meter that can send or be interrogated by wireless/
digitally; either via the power line itself, by an attachment to a
phone line or via cell/phone mobile service etc. etc.
In some other countries gas supply and water supply meters can/are
also read in a similar manner.
To what extent these systems would be/are forward or backward
compatible would depend on design.
For example our digital meter has a display. (It alternately flashes
all '8's and then the cumulative kw.hr reading on an LCD display. But
it does not appear to have any capability to be read remotely! Nor
have I seen any power utility activity or billing info that suggests
they yet do any 'remote' reading!