National society acts over Smart Meter interference

Say what you want, in the USA I would not play chicken with the FCC, and on St Kitts I would not play chicken with the St Kitts and Nevis government, via the NTRC "The National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission". St Kitts being an independent country, chartered by the United Nations and bound by the ITU.

 

So, now you are an expert in the legal powers of the NTRC in St. Kitts, just as you thought you were an expert in the way their power company’s smart metering system works??? Do you really have knowledge of this or are you just blowing smoke?

 

Perhaps they use switching mode power sources to power those 900 RF modules?

 

I am sure prior to making such demeaning statement that you read the "Cease and Desist Order" carefully. Also I do not think the Attorney General of St Kitts would agree with your "legal threat someone paid a lawyer to write". BTW, he is also the Legal Council for Eastern Caribbean Telecommunications Authority (ECTEL). But I am sure you know all that as you are an expert on the St Kitts government legal system.

 

I bet the real story is that somebody is about to make a ton of money on the "new and improved" system.

That interference to a couple hobbyists is a laughable excuse.

Find out who is $elling, in$talling, and $ervicing the replacement- not to mention removing the old gear, and I bet a box of assorted wavelengths $elling all those "bad" meters to someone else.

That's what's really happening.

Rege

 

The St Kitts NTRC is a member of the United Nations sanctioned "International Telecommunications Union" (ITU), HQ in Geneva. The St Kitts government NTRC is bound by that agreement to enforce the ITU frequency plan, of which the Amateur Radio Frequencies are a very small part. So no matter if there is one or a million Amateur Radio operators on St. Kitts has no bearing on the ILLEGAL and unauthorized use of the 2-12Mh frequency range, which is also used by Commercial, Maritime, etc. users. Also the RFI does not stop at the St Kitts borders so it is an "international" problem to neighboring islands. It is a BIG picture of which Amateur Radio is a very small part, hence the reason the NTRC is taking it VERY serious, and not a "laughable excuse".

 

Well, I'll be YOU taught LG a lesson they'll not soon forget! Good job sir!

 

WAWW!!! Worked All Wall Warts!

 

Not well versed in "smart meter" technology, but curious. If these meters can cause interference on ham radio frequencies why can't the reverse happen and ham radio signals cause interference to the meter(s)?

 

No sir but I know how biz and lawyers work, I own my own company, Cease and Desist are legal Bluffs or threat of lawsuit. As I said I hope it works and if the club has some other entity backing them with unlimited resources to fight, well guess who wins. Not an expert, just been through it many times in my career doing design/build work with large companies especially utilities and telephone companies. Example when GE lawyers told be to stop or else, I stopped because they had more money.

In the USA I know a fair bit. Currently taking part in a huge Grid Smart system for a Utility that covers 12 states along with the P25 Radio System. Going on across the whole country. In the USA, electric utilities have worked out M2M (machine to machine) contracts with all cell phone carriers utilizing 3G CDMA and GSM bandwidth services. Since 4G emergence, 3G traffic fell off a cliff. How ever the FCC mandates carriers keep those services in place for now for hams still carrying Flip Phones. . Carriers got smart and came up with M2M Services using what was a liability (3G Service) and found new use for the technology. CDMA and GSM occupies 800, 900, 1900, and 2100 Mhz portions.

What they do in ST Kitts if I understand correctly, is use the same CDMA GSM UHF radio network M2M services at customer meters just like we do. What I did not know is the Smart Meters send that data to a Concentrator that stores the data temporarily as a buffer, and re-sends the data on a HF data link which is the source of interference. My original point was and still is. It is not the Smart Meters, those are low power cell phones.

Am I full of smoke? You gotta decide. . What I don't know now is why the heck they would use HF as a data-link. I suspect is not secure which would not be tolerated here due to electric utilities data and voice services are regulated by a NAZI regulator called NERC CIP. All I could do is blow smoke and guess.

I do hope they reach a workable solution and learn why they use a HF data-link.

 

It is the St Kitts GOVERNMENT NTRC on behalf of the Federal Government of St Kitts that issued the "Cease and Desist Order", so I believe money will not be a problem.
The reason SKELEC decided to use HF and not VHF or UHF, Corinex told them that VHF or UHF data transfer would have required external antennas at EVERY data site, to send the collected Meter Data to the "Main Office". So SKELEC wanting to save a "lot" on the system and installation cost, went with the HF BPL using the Power Lines as their antenna on HF. Their BIG mistake was not getting the St Kitts Federal Government Authorization to use those HF frequencies from the NTRC, which the NTRC has stated by ITU agreement they could NOT have ever authorized.

 

Ok, your right. Sammy hammys hobby is going to co$t the ratepayers what, couple hundred dollars each? New meter, labor to swap, new data collection syatem, billing software, etc.

You have a very naive world view.

And don't seem to have a problem spending OPM - Other Peoples Money.

Make a bet with you.

Call the "ITU", tell them the power lines outside your house are interfering with your ham radio.

Post their reply.

Rege

 

Gotta love all the experts here.

 

Yep, I think you were blowing smoke.

You assumed that your legal experiences in civil lawsuit matters applied to actions of the government of St. Kitts, which they don’t. You also assumed that the smart meter system there is the same as what you are familiar with here in the states, which it isn’t.

Which led to another bad assumption, that the original post is completely wrong - “ laughable “ was your comment, when in fact it’s essentially correct.

Assumptions can be risky.

 

No, they would just go back to the Meter reader truck driving up and down the streets to read the Smart Meters, once a month as they did for the past 10 YEARS, prior to installing the BPL Concentrators.

Question:
Let us say ABC Waste Company puts a waste dump next to a friend of yours home on the other side of your town. He is the only one that can smell it, hear the trucks all day, and who's property values have fallen. The town sues ABC Waste for the ILLEGAL Waste Dump, because the "lot is ZONED Residential", and "ABC Waste never asked or received approval from the town to make that lot a waste dump". The Town wins and ABC is ordered to remove the Waste Dump. ABC Waste says we must increase our rates to everyone to pay for the removal, if we are not allowed increase our rates we will file for Bankruptcy, and the Town will get stuck for the cleanup. The Town says we would have to increase everyone's taxes to pay for it.
So would YOU say, it is only one friend on the other side of town had the problem......so screw him, I am not going to pay my Bill to ABC or any Taxes..... you lose.