-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">
</A> -Cui Bono?-
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Bill I received this response to the Stray Voltage Story
>from another listee who is in the microwave field.
>Peter
>
>>Technical comments or clarifications appreciated!
>>
>>-------- forwarded message --------
>> From: MARJORIE LUNDQUIST <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> Subj: Comment on "Stray voltage story (Beal) (Kingsbury).."
>>
>> Bill Kingsbury recently reported:
>> > Stetzer said he discovered more than current overflow. Based on
>> > his oscilloscope readings, he found that the current flowing
>> > through Quarne's and other nearby farms was not regular
>> > alternating current, or AC, which flows 60 times a second or
>> > 60 hertz. He says he saw frequency similar to microwaves.
Hugh wrote:
> I would feel better about the certainty of the measurements
>if he said they were done with a spectrum analyzer. An oscilliscope
>cannot see microwave frequencies. The response isn't fast enough.
><snip>
Here's some info I found... Looks like there's no 'microwaves',
but there's somthing strange in these power-lines:
All new power meters transmit 10 kHz radio signals over the
power-line as "large current spikes", 24 hours per day!
This is done on purpose -- it is how the system 'remotely'
reads all the power-meters. Now everyone has these radio-
frequency, distorted sine wave, "large current spikes"
from 3,000 neighbors' power-meters (24 hours per day!)
running through (and radiating from!) every AC power conduit,
cord, appliance, and light bulb in the building.
First, a note on the 10 kHz frequency. You'll read
about it again, below this:
~~~~~~~
From: Jason Ringas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Org: Rife Research Group of Canada
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000
....I think the most probable reason that the frequencies
are "felt" is because the human nervous system is sensitive
to frequencies below about 10 kHz. This was found by
D'Arsonval, the father of high frequency electrotherapy.
The higher frequencies used in the original Rife instruments
would naturally be beyond the sensitivity range of the
nervous system.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
from: http://www.amrahq.com
What is AMR?
Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) is the remote collection of
consumption data from customers' utility meters using
telephony, radio frequency, power-line and satellite
communications technologies. AMR provides water, gas and
electric utility-service companies the opportunity to
increase operational efficiency, improve customer service,
reduce data-collection costs and quickly gather critical
information that provides insight to company
decision-makers.
~~~~~~~
from: http://www.amrahq.com/resourcelib/unb_plc.htm
UNB Power Line Carrier: Meter Reading Is a
Communications Issue
By Paul Hunt, Chief Technology Officer,
Hunt Technologies, Inc.
Meter reading is all about communication -- accurately
conveying information from thousands of separate locations
(the meters) to one location (utilities' office). Automatic
meter reading systems are best classified by which
technology they use to communicate. Telephone, radio, and
power line carrier are the three most popular. In this
article, we will focus on power line carrier and how Ultra
Narrow Band (UNB) technology is solving problems industries
have experienced for years.
Metering via power line carrier has a long and somewhat
checkered history. High frequency carriers have been used
on high voltage power transmission lines quite successfully
for relay control and voice messages. High frequencies
propagate very nicely on transmission lines because the
lines are long, simple and carefully controlled.
What About Distribution Lines?
Distribution lines, however, can create real challenges for
carrier systems. High frequency waves love to bounce off
any change in line impedance like branches and taps,
transitions between underground and overhead, capacitor
banks, even the loads themselves. All those waves bouncing
around tend to reinforce in some places and cancel in
others. That makes high frequency carrier systems very
difficult to predict or control on the ever-changing
power lines.
To solve the problem, distribution line carrier systems
evolved toward lower frequencies. They dropped from the
100 kilohertz range down to the 10 kilohertz range. Ripple
carrier systems using frequencies in the 100 Hertz range
had wonderful propagation and were used successfully for
peak load management for many years. This all made
propagation problems more manageable, but they didn't
go away.
One persistent problem is that as frequencies go lower, the
size and cost of the transmitters get larger. As a result,
ripple technology has generally been limited to one way
messaging where a single large transmitter is installed at
a substation and low cost receivers are located downline.
That's good for load management but not for reading meters.
A variation of ripple is Sequential Waveform Distortion.
This is a carrier that doesn't think in terms of
frequencies at all. It works in the time domain,
transmitting messages down line from a substation by
changing the shape of the voltage sine wave. A transceiver
located downline can respond to the message by creating
large current spikes that can be detected upstream at the
substation. In this way a meter reader can be polled by the
central equipment.
Ultra Narrow Bandwidth (UNB) power line carrier technology
is a relatively new concept that has distinct advantages
over other carrier systems. Signals in UNB systems have the
long distance and reliability virtues of low frequency
signals used in ripple carrier systems, but UNB
transmitters are inexpensive and can be built small enough
to easily fit inside the average kWh meter. These meter
reading devices don't have to be polled because each one is
transmitting all the time. Similar to radio and television
stations, each unit transmits on its own private frequency,
and thousands of these transmitters can be sending signals
up the power line simultaneously.
To a power distribution company, all those continuous
signals traveling up the line from each customer can
provide an important advantage. They help maintain the
system by providing deep and rich fields of data waiting to
be mined. If a customer loses power, the signal for that
meter will disappear. Any subtle variations in the power
system will cause changes in the received signal. Alert
personnel use that information to locate bad grounds, arcs,
power outages, outage blinks, tampering, etc. Because they
know which phase the signal travels on, engineers can keep
the phases balanced and system records up to date.
Further advantages stem from the fact that meter readings
are reported daily. This helps engineers and technicians
watch trends and usage profiles. Among other things,
utilities can use this information to resolve high bill
complaints. It eliminates the need for special reads when
customers move. When these readings include peak and
time-of-peak information, engineers can use it to properly
size transformers, reducing line loss and transformer
failure.
Going Slow Is the Secret
UNB technology has all these advantages because it goes
slow. In communication theory, getting your message above
the noise is the name of the game. When you transmit data
very slowly, it occupies a very narrow bandwidth, which can
pierce through noise like an arrow.
Recent advances in technology allow this principle to be
taken to the extreme. For example, the most popular
implementation of UNB carrier, the Turtle ™ energy
management and automatic meter reading system, sends data
at the incredibly slow rate of .0005 baud. This is fast
enough to send a reading every day, yet slow enough to
allow even a tiny transmitter to send signals hundreds of
kilometers up a power line, through megawatts of noisy
power.
This low bandwidth also allows the carrier to operate at
very low frequencies, which travel everywhere the power
goes, through transformers and capacitors. This helps make
a complete working system simple, low cost and easy to
install. Because distance is not a consideration, such a
system is especially attractive in rural environments.
The real magic in a UNB system is in the receiver. Located
up line from the meters, usually at a substation, the
receiver monitors the current on the lines. Inside this
little box is a computing powerhouse called a Digital
Signal Processor (DSP) -- a specialized computer that
emulates physical processes. In the Turtle system, the DSP
simultaneously emulates 3000 FM radios, each receiving a
signal from a different meter. Without the magic of DSPs,
the 3000 receivers would be completely impractical.
What Is Bandwidth? A Physical Analogy
To a communications engineer, bandwidth is like real
estate. Some of it is considered valuable. Some is
considered wasteland. If you want to use some, you have to
wrestle with Mother Nature to keep it clean and suitable
for your purpose. Then you have to compete with other
people who also want to use it.
An Ultra Narrow Bandwidth signal is so tiny that it can use
bits of real estate that previously were considered
worthless. Because of the small space it takes, it can be
unobtrusive even in crowded neighborhoods where space is
valuable. Its small size also makes it more immune to the
ravages of nature, and tends to make it lower cost. In this
analogy, if an AM radio broadcast signal is one mile wide,
then an FM radio signal is about 20 miles wide. A standard
television channel is 600 miles wide. A signal from a
Turtle meter reader is the width of a human hair. It takes
that much less power to transmit because it is that much
more immune to noise. (See real estate/signal comparisons
below.)
UNB Metering Poised to Expand
UNB sprouted from the basic concept that every disadvantage
brings compensating advantages. When everybody wants to
communicate faster, see what you can gain from going
slower. The advantages of UNB metering systems become vivid
when evaluated for reliability and efficiency in certain
applications. Rural utilities have been some of the first
to implement UNB systems because of its economical long
distance capabilities, but the technology offers benefits
for many industries that use power line carrier. And newly
focused research and development is discovering a bright
future for this technology.
Sidebar Information
Communication Approximate Physical Analogy
System Bandwidth/Baud Rate (Width of Real Estate)
Television 6 MHz 600 miles
FM Radio 200 kHz 20 miles
AM Radio 10 kHz 1 mile
SSB Radio 3 kHz 1500 feet
Emetcon PLC 76.2 Baud 38 feet
TWACS PLC 15 Baud 7.5 feet
Morse Code 100 Hz 50 feet
Ripple PLC 5 Baud 30 inch
Turtle 3 Hz 18 inch
Downstream
Turtle EOLVM .005 Baud .03 inch (small needle)
Turtle Meter .0005 Baud .003 inch (human hair)
When you see a trend... Look the other way!
--End--
[Look the other way? What's that supposed to mean? -BK]
.
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