THTC meter - Removal Request

“I’m sorry to hear this. I’ll get our Forum_Support team to reach out again to look into this further for you.”

@Shads_OVO Thanks!

I haven’t heard anything yet from the Forum_Support team.

Also haven’t heard from the Advisor I spoke to last week who promised to email me with an explanation as to why I can’t get a Smart Meter. 

The problem is that it’s DCC who rule over the ‘coverage map’ which tells suppliers and installers whether the SM WAN is likely to reach a particular property or not. No mere electricity customer can get to know what it says about his own neck of the woods, and of course it can never be perfectly accurate. 

Arqiva tend to mount SM WAN aerials on the 1500 or so television transmitter masts they have dotted about the kingdom. If you have decent TV reception, your TV aerial is probably pointing towards the mast where your SM WAN antenna is mounted. If your meter box/cupboard happens to be on the opposite side of the house and the house is hewn from native granite, there might well be problems. 

However, there are so many customers in similar situations that some of the more adventurous RF-savvy ones have come up with solutions that seem to work in many cases. You could spend an entertaining hour or two trawling through threads like this one to see how people have overcome the hurdles, started receiving and transmitting smart meter data and promptly switched to suppliers offering favourable EV tariffs. 

And somewhere over the rainbow there’s a scheme to equip awkward customers in the north region with dual-mode meters that default to the LRR solution but switch to a mobile phone band if that doesn’t work. Of course, if your bothy on the banks of the Quoich is out of range of both, this won’t help. But then, not many bothies up there have mains electricity anyway, so it’s probably moot. 

Hey @monster9,

We’ve been updating you on this thread: 

If we could keep the conversations going on one thread that would be amazing, as it holds everything together 😊

Thanks @Firedog 

I looked at the local planning portal’s historic planning applications and identified that Arqiva do indeed have an antenna close-by, although hidden from sight (neighbours tell me there’s a dish nailed to a tree not 500m from the house).
That planning portal detailed a request from Arqiva to install a VSAT link.
Not sure what that link would be used for - could be any sort of data, I suppose?

We do get the majority of Freeview channels in the house, so that’s also encouraging.

P.S. the house is hewn from native granite.

😐

P.P.S.

The planning portal and your television transmitter masts link both identify the same location.

That transmitter is identified as “Freeview light transmitter”.

I’m sure there’s a reference to ‘Freeview Light’ masts somewhere in those EV forums, where IIRC the poster claimed that they were typically not used to host SMWAN aerials. I may have got that wrong, but you might have a look yourself. So even though you have a decent TV signal, it may be coming from the wrong sort of mast …

And this old pedant should have read what he wrote before posting. It sounded all right, but of course it’s the granite that’s hewn, not the house. But you got my meaning. Anyway, with a house like that, it would be vital to have the meter (or at least any antenna that might be taken into use) is on the windward side of the house, so to speak, i.e. with no bits of house between the meter/antenna and the mast it’s trying to connect to.

“I’m sure there’s a reference to ‘Freeview Light’ masts somewhere in those EV forums, where IIRC the poster claimed that they were typically not used to host SMWAN aerials.“ @Firedog 

Just received a call from OVO support telling me there’s no WAN connectivity in my area, therefore, no possibility of a Smart meter.

I asked when the WAN would be provided at my location and was told there is no target date.

Still confused as to how my neighbour has a working Smart meter, if this is the case?

I asked about the possibility of utilising my neighbour’s meter in order to connect to the WAN as I believe this meter-to-meter communication is possible. It sounded like this was news to the advisor.

Progress!

I’ve been promised a site visit in a week or so to check what is possible at my property.

Fingers crossed!

In a separate note, someone on a forum elsewhere has stated that “"I’ve spoken to a different agent at OVO this morning who has now confirmed that THTC meters are being replaced with a dual circuit smart meter"

Is anyone able to verify this “Dual circuit smart meter” theory, please?

It sounds entirely plausible. My worry would be that trying to move away from OVO with this kind of Smart meter may pose problems for the new supplier?

By Dual-Circuit I think they actually meant 5-Terminal. OVO has no plans to do Twin Element Smart Meters.

Oh dear, the vagaries of technical terms! It would be good if @monster9 could give us the reference to the ‘other forum’ post he read. 

I’d be inclined to think that it was referring to the ‘dual mode’ communication hubs currently being trialled, the ones that have both LRR and ‘mobile’ transceivers in a belt-and-braces approach to communication. I’m furious that I can’t remember where I read about them.

There’s also confusion with ‘dual band’ CHs for the Northern region, probably only in the RAF Fylingdales danger zone. They operate in both the 420 and 450 MHz bands for the WAN, but they also have both 823MHz and 2400MHz HAN capability. I’d call that ‘double-dual-band’!

‘Dual circuit’ does sound like a five-wire arrangement similar to that already being used by many THTC systems - one for heating and hot water, the other for everything else. There’s nothing new about this.

Hi @monster9,

Are you able to provide a link to the other topic so we can take a look into this for you?