Man Chains Electric Meter To Prevent Utility From Installing Smart Meter

It's obvious Norbert Sliwinski of Monroeville does not want Duquesne Light to install a so-called smart meter on his property; KDKA's Jon Delano reports. FULL STORY: cbsloc.al/2bHKcPF

[@Simple5.0]

The electric company make us responsible for these meters in their contracts. That includes any and all fees from damage fire theft etc. if that’s the case then we as homeowners should be allowed to decided what’s on our houses.

[@noahleventhal5024]

“Don’t fix what’s not broken”

[@anonq479]

The man is a mechanical engineer, im sure he knows what he's talking about..

[@matrim1762]

The meter is the companies property the box and everything else is the home owners property and he has ultimate say on what is installed on HIS equipment.

[@89.8kiwifm9]

Here in New Zealand, if you don't want a smart meter installed you just tell them to get off the property and they have to leave otherwise they're trespassing. Friend of mine still has his old meters, refuses to let them install smart meters for the very same reasons as the guy in this video states.

[@themanthelegend7048]

Yeah burning down the house is pretty energy efficient.

[@rwdplz1]

Don't want a utility meter? Go off-grid. Install a solar system big enough to handle the home's electrical needs, no meters.

[@noconsentgiven]

Nice👍❤️!! This is ridiculous and criminal what these legislatures are passing through, smh.

[@DR0CK]

Wow. A chain that can simply be cut in 5 seconds with bolt cutters. Some engineer he must have been...

[@russell5078084]

the answer is simple. take the steps to produce your own power and get off the grid. then you can tell them where to stick their smart meter.

[@psdaengr911]

The utility company owns the meters. The highest voltage inside a smart meter is the line voltage. The radio signal is at wifi levels. This old engineer is afraid of new technology, and seems to have forgotten everything about basic EM physics that he learned in school. (I'm older and haven't stopped learning.)

[@borisb1831]

High frequency radio waves you say? Old curmudgeon probably refuses wifi all the same, its right in the middle of the microwave range. Sounds like a lot of bunk, I get it engineer and everything, not a doctor though but I agree that he should be able to keep his old meter if he so chose. Only of course if the electric company has to go out of their way to read the meter manually then a fee should be associated with it

[@alandoherty5804]

High voltages? What is this guy smoking. Of course it has high voltages, so does the rest of the house. The wiring inside the walls is probably more dangerous, especially if the house is old. And emitting radio waves? So do cell towers, electronics, WiFi, radio stations. You cannot escape radio waves and the smart meter calling home is the least of your concern.

[@sergeantseven4240]

LOL hes worried about things he knows nothing about. RF radiation is prevelant everywhere. Cell phones are more harmful then a smart meter which operates on a lower frequency then your home WiFi router. and yes its high voltage but what does that have to do with anything? theres a mix of high voltage stuff with low voltage stuff in any household. its common everyday stuff.

[@-Good4Y0u]

More power to him I don't think that the RF is a huge deal... But I definitely agree that there is a fire risk..

[@fermitupoupon1754]

I've been refusing smartmeters at every turn. Why? Because the utility company refuses to guarantee that a smartmeter will only measure actual power used and not apparent power. Why is this important? Because a lot of electronics have a super shitty powerfactor these days. And a shitty powerfactor means that it draws a lot of apparent power, even if it only uses a trivial amount of actual power.

[@TheCyndicate.]

So explain to me why a private company has the power of government law being made for it,.. and why it has a monopoly?

[@k.m.9418]

The homeowners should have the right to say no. If the smart meters catch on fire who's responsible for the damages??? ..... The homeowner.

[@SoundFantasy]

It's actually really scary we have no choice.

[@electronicsolutions1126]

Most Smart Meters use the 900 MHz ISM band and transmit about 1/2 of a watt. The thing does not transmit all the time. Mainly to cut back on interference with other devices. Examples of other uses would be like baby video/audio monitors, wireless security cameras, some outdoor internet bridging equipment, natural gas pipeline monitoring, river water level monitoring, etc. There is a lot of devices that can use the ISM band. It is a low power radio band with decent propagation. It is normally in receive mode waiting on instructions. The power company can send out a signal telling the meters to "upload" their data once or twice a day or they can "push" out a software upgrade from time to time. The meter does very little transmitting. It just sends a few packets of data occasionally. It could be for a few seconds or a few minutes during a day. The power output (when transmitting) is about the same as a home wifi router or a cell phone while on a call. I have managed equipment in the ISM band and I know how it all works. I have worked together with the engineers that build the meters to reduce interference problems.