"Geoffrey S. Mendelson" wrote in
:

hr(bob) wrote:

Where I live now in suburban Chicago - Naperville, we are getting
smart meters. But there is a group of about 10% of the residents who
are opposed to the meters. Either they fear the radiation from the
meters - electrophobia - or they don't want the government to know
they are using many kilowatts of power at 3 am for their marijuana
plants grow lamps in their basementsg.


I have a friend who is an expert in BPL (broadband over power lines)
and he says that while it works, it's no longer viable as a business
selling internet access because in the real world it could never
produce the speeds that people want and get from other methods.

HOWEVER it works fine for "smart" meters, and the bandwidth they need
is so low it does not interfere with radios.

My guess is that the people running large grow lights in their
basement are more upset that they can't turn the meters upside down
and have them run backwards or bypass the meter than anything else.

It's an old trick that works on old meters, and in some places the
meter readers did not look very carefully at the seals to see they had
been broken and put back.

Since no one actually has to stand in front of the meters to read them
now, they can be placed where it is difficult or almost impossible to
tamper with them. :-)

Geoff.



those MaryJane grow operations are often caught by the huge amount of
electric power they consume,the utility company turns them in to
authorities. Power companies track usage and keep a history of a home's
consumption over the years and easily spot large increases in power
consumption.My utility prints out on my bill the usage by month of the last
year,a nice little bargraph.
Plus,the growers often bypass the meters to not show up by their overuse,or
they run a line over to the nearest power pole or house next door and steal
power from them.

the police were trying to use thermal cameras to scan neighborhoods from
airplanes(drones??) but the courts nixed that as an invasion of privacy.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com