Smart Meters - Public Service Commission
Smart Meters - Public Service Commission
Smart Meters - Public Service Commission
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will result in your power being shut off for however long it takes the contractor, that really doesn’t know what<br />
he’s doing, to put the new meter on… I don’t know about you, but I really don’t like it when people show up and<br />
surreptitiously shut off services that I ALWAYS pay for ON TIME… It’ll be great when we all get home and our<br />
Tivo’s and WIFI routers aren’t working anymore and, if you have birds like me, your pets have thrashed<br />
themselves and your house to pieces… And I’m not a crazy tin-foil hat person, but they showed up a month ago<br />
and installed one of their smart-meter repeaters on the telephone pole next to my house and now none of our<br />
cell phones work in our house and these are brand new phones that worked perfectly before they put the new<br />
repeater in.<br />
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Mine hasn’t blown up or caught fire, but after PG&E replacing 3 meters since the original installation they now<br />
say they need to replace it again. None of the ones they have put on my home have ever worked, they are not<br />
even registering at the central grid. I have been getting estimated bills or no bills at all ever since the first<br />
meter went in and they haven’t even been aware of the problem until I call them to ask where my bills are. Lord<br />
knows how much they are going to claim I owe them if they ever get this problem fixed.<br />
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“Earlier today our local utility sent around a person to install a new ”<strong>Smart</strong>meter”. Luckily a local ham gave me<br />
a heads up about the RFI generated by these things so I was prepared. By using a battery operated shortwave<br />
receiver (tuned to 7.2 MHz) I showed the installer what the background noise level was with the old<br />
(mechanical) meter. Once the <strong>Smart</strong>meter was installed, the noise level (seems like digital hash) was *easily*<br />
10 dB higher. I had him remove the <strong>Smart</strong>meter and re-install the old mechanical meter. The utility that<br />
supplies us with gas and electricity is PG&E and they are installing these things throughout California now.<br />
All hams that use the low bands should be aware of this issue. The last thing we need is another broadband<br />
noise source.”<br />
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While we haven’t had any fluctuations in our power bills since we had our “smart meter” installed we have<br />
been experiencing problems with our ceiling fans. We have Casablanca Intelli-touch fans in six rooms in our<br />
home; these fans have a computer board that receives signal from the wall switch via an electric impulse.<br />
These impulses turn the fans on, adjust the fan speed, turn on the light and reverse the blades. Until the “smart<br />
meter” was installed we had absolutely no problems with these devices – they worked flawlessly. Immediately<br />
after the “smart meter” was installed we started noticing that when the fans were on they were prone to bizarre<br />
behavior which includes change in fan speed, reversal of fan direction, operation of the lights and/or fan or<br />
both if only the power switch was on. We also began to notice that these problems, while somewhat<br />
intermittent, would almost always occur at the same time in the evening. We called PG & E and reported the<br />
issue and a service rep was sent out to our home. He looked at the meter and reportedly tightened a few wires<br />
and then proceeded to tell my wife that we probably had a short in our electrical system that was to blame for<br />
the odd performance of the fans (HUH?). Never mind that each of the fans in separate rooms are on different<br />
breakers! When my wife told me what the rep said and then told me I needed to check each of the house plugins<br />
for a short I said that wouldn’t be necessary since the PG&E rep didn’t know squat about what he was<br />
talking about. We got a survey in the mail which was dutifully filled out and returned only to explain the<br />
problem was not resolved. Another call was made to PG&E and about a week later another – smarter – rep<br />
responded to our situation. He called us first and patiently listened to my bizarre tale of fan woe. He asked if I<br />
would like an old style meter to see if the problem would persist or a new “smart meter” to see if the first one<br />
was flawed. Admittedly, he said we’d eventually have to have a “smart meter” anyway so we opted to have a<br />
new “smart meter” installed. And guess what – nothing has changed except the fans now go crazy at 12:45<br />
emfsafetynetwork.org/?page_id=1223<br />
9/20
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