On Mon, 1 Mar 2004 15:50:42 +0000, Wanderer wrote:

No. Older style two rate meters relied upon a local t/s.
Teleswitched meters use either a mains-borne signal or a broadcast
signal.

As far as the 198kHz signal is concerned there is, somewhere, on the
web a pretty reasonable description of what it does, how it does it
and the control the leccy co's have over the switching.

If you check the tariff, you'll see that the leccy company will give
you seven hours between the hours of, say, midnight and 08.00.

All depends on the tariff you have. See T i m ' s post about
variations in tariffs. It really is a nightmare now and you have to
know your actual consumption at the proposed peak/off peak hours to
come to any sensible conclusions.

There certainly are tariffs about that float the 7 hours within a
window, or split it within a single nighttime window. There are others
that give you 5 hrs in a night window and another two in an afternoon
window. Standing charges may or may not(*) exist, be more or less than
the normal domestic tariff.

(*) Though they normally they claw that back by charging you more for
the first X units each quarter. So it's just marketing puff, no real
saving to the consumer.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail