Smart meters, less smart companies

My "smart" water meter has no wire/s coming out - even though it's in the ground.
The "smart" bit is a Diehl P/N 3135287 clipped onto a newly installed Diel meter. I could not read the old meter, and had complained to the water company about that... they offered to install a new meter, so I took them up on that.
"smart" in uncapitalised and in quotes, because it's not doing anything smart for me.
 
Oh... this thing is about 3 metres away - it has an antenna on the top of it. It may be the comms for the water pressure adjustment devices they installed in a huge hole in the ground about 6 months ago. Or it may be to read smart water meters?
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HugeMaximum said:
Oh... this thing is about 3 metres away - it has an antenna on the top of it. It may be the comms for the water pressure adjustment devices they installed in a huge hole in the ground about 6 months ago. Or it may be to read smart water meters?
View attachment 7838
Click to expand...
What happens if you get a suitably sized tin can lid, paint it black, and just quietly drop it over the antenna ... :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

I wonder if that would be enough of a Faraday cage/attenuator to upset the RF. might need some aluminium duct tape around it to seal the leakage gap I suppose.
 
antipodean said:
What happens if you get a suitably sized tin can lid, paint it black, and just quietly drop it over the antenna ...
Click to expand...
Maybe not much. I just tried a simple test. You'd expect a microwave oven to form a reasonable Faraday cage - the mesh over the glass in the door is probably tuned to stop 2.45GHz. I put a phone with hotspot switched on (2.4GHz band) in the microwave (door shut). Signal attenuated but still usable in the next room.

Maybe I should be worried the next time I microwave something!
 
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