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Anyone know how this system works? By AMR I'm talking about Automated Meter Readings, not the sick people's taxi. Googling only seems to bring up this company that's pretty vague about how the system works.

http://www.landisgyr.com/

Uses the 33cm amateur band.

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"A well regulated breakfast, being necessary to the healthy start of the day, the right of the people to keep and eat food shall not be infringed."

Bellingham has PSE AMR that are located in the meter heads or on the box the meter head is located you may see a 900 Mhz antenna. Most are internal.
You may also see a box on power poles with 3 900 Mhz antennas which is used to monitor the load at that location of the grid. The data is spread spectrum and encoded so not worth monitoring on a scanner. PSE can remotely read these meters
with a vehicle equipped to monitor and record the data. They don't have to come in your yard anymore to read your meter and get bitten by your dog :D

CELL NET DATA SYSTEMS
(PART 15 SPREAD SPECTRUM)
917.580 PSE BELLINGHAM

OTHER:
917.600
917.650
916.5 to 918.6
905 to 923
929.0
952 to 953

Additional AMR

SENSUS AMR:
952.48125

ITRON:
910-920 GAS METERS
ALSO:
952-956
951-962
948-960
912.5-918
1430.525 to 1431.925

SPEED READ TECHNOLOGIES:
451.1875
451.7625
451.5125

HEXAGRAM:
467.3125

_________________
" SILENCE IS CONSENT "

Made to Government Specs:
1) Measured with a micrometer.
2) Marked with a chalk.
3) Cut with an axe.

Jim N7UAP - Bellingham, WA / InterceptRadio.com

Nice....

Portland General Electric down here just installed one of these at my house.

When the guy came by, I asked what band it was using and like previously mentioned, its in the 900 Mhz side of things. I mentioned I am a ham and well, I do use radios in that range and I was concerned about interference from it. I was surprised to hear that he's aware of interference issues, and mentioned to me if that its a problem, I can talk to someone directly at PGE's engineering department to fix it, since its a Part 15 device.

And yes, I am aware us hams are secondary users on 900 MHz.

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Mt Wave SAR member
Support Search & Rescue: Get Lost!
http://www.mwave.org

Isn't the reading done by those Corix guys? The little white trucks with all the antennas?

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President-in-Exile, Seattle Area Radio Communications And Scanner Traffic Intercept Crew (SARCASTIC)
Don't feel bad if you can't use your STD100/200; there are still people using Digital Frequency Search!
Bunnery definition for the under-fives

Yes, Corix, It's a doppler array of 4 antennas on a flat lid covering the box. I talked to one of them a long time ago. He said sometimes they still have to get out of the truck to read the meter.

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"I was installing un-programmed radios"

Schlumberger Ltd., an oil-service company, has announced that it has acquired CellNet Data Systems Inc., a market-leading provider of meter-reading and electroniccommerce services, for a total of $235 million. Schlumberger, which provides professional business services for water, gas, electricity and heat service providers, already uses CellNet, which filed for federal bankruptcy protection in February, for meter-reading and electronic-commerce purposes.

_________________
" SILENCE IS CONSENT "

Made to Government Specs:
1) Measured with a micrometer.
2) Marked with a chalk.
3) Cut with an axe.

Jim N7UAP - Bellingham, WA / InterceptRadio.com

My water meter recently died. LA DWP replaced it with a Badger meter coupled to an Itron AMR:

My water meter has a transmitter on it also. Don't remember the brand. Do they have to replace the battery once in a while? There is no power going to it so it
must run on a battery :idea:

_________________
" SILENCE IS CONSENT "

Made to Government Specs:
1) Measured with a micrometer.
2) Marked with a chalk.
3) Cut with an axe.

Jim N7UAP - Bellingham, WA / InterceptRadio.com

I suppose the water flow could be used to generate a small amount of electricity. Perhaps this is done to float a lithium battery.

This document has a photo of one of the Cellnet
"pole top processor" boxes and sample maps for realtime power outage monitoring for PSE in King County. The map shows locations of PTP's.

Puget Sound Energy AMR & Demand Response Case Study
http://egov.oregon.gov/PUC/electric_gas ... pollom.pdf

The system within Seattle is used for gas meter reading. Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities
have done some testing of AMR power and water meters in small trial areas of the city.

Kerwin