RTS turn off

[morqthana]

Years ago I was on economy 7 but it turned out that the day rate part was higher than a normal all day rate and it meant that I was actually paying more on E7 than a normal rate.

"Turned out"?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

They have just announced, that the RTS turn off, is to be delayed, phased they called it, to enable the likely issues to be dealt with first. How do they phase the switch off of a transmitter?

 

[ericmark]

They have just announced, that the RTS turn off, is to be delayed, phased they called it, to enable the likely issues to be dealt with first. How do they phase the switch off of a transmitter?

If the valve fails, can't see how, with the best will in the world, it can be kept running.

The R4 LF (low frequency) valves were end of life when I was working (2005) and ex-BBC Transmission staff had already bought all existing stocks up.

 

[ericmark]

Years ago I was on economy 7 but it turned out that the day rate part was higher than a normal all day rate and it meant that I was actually paying more on E7 than a normal rate.

I have worked it out with solar and battery, but for off-peak heating can't see a way to work it out? If one looks at off-peak kWh used, and peak and multiply by the rates, then divide by the sum of peak and off-peak you get a figure, with me around 19p/kWh which is well below the 23.86p/kWh for single tariff, so clearly gaining.

But with storage heaters, need to add on how many times a room was overheated, or heated when not in use, due to the system, and that would be very hard to work out, only comparing one year's bill with another year, could one get somewhere near true cost saving or loss.

 

[Rodders53]

How do they phase the switch off of a transmitter?

There are three LF sites:
Droitwich, England
Westerglen, near Falkirk, South Scotland
Burghead, on the Moray Firth, North Scotland

As lots of the weird tariffs supported by RTS signalling are in Scotland they can keep those two going for that area (and some spill into northern England and NI even) and switch off Droitwich first?

Also may be possible to run Droitwich on only one of the two Marconi B6042 transmitters that are run as a parallel pair to reduce coverage as the phase encoded data is pretty robust cf audio. Mind, the other B6042 may never restart if the valve is allowed to cool down.

 

[ericmark]

Thank you, @Rodders53 I have found the government link, seems a bit late.

A widespread switch-off of Radio Teleswitch Service (RTS) meters will not happen on 30 June.

As of 30 May, there were 314,935 RTS meters requiring replacement in Great Britain, according to supplier data collected by Ofgem.

For RTS customers that live in an area without smart meter signal, their supplier will explain what other options are available before the radio signal is switched off. Energy suppliers are obliged under their licence conditions to ensure that a suitable alternative metering system is installed and that the customer’s service is not disrupted.

No point quoting it all, you can read on government website. However, think they need to proofread it.

Thousands of people with a Radio Teleswitch Service (RTS) meter will not face any unexpected disruption to their heating or hot water at the end of this month, as the government confirms there will be a cautious and targeted phase out to the service, protecting working families.

So if living on your own, or retried you don't matter it seems? So what other errors made?

 

[flameport]

. How do they phase the switch off of a transmitter?

They won't.
More likely is that certain regional codes won't be transmitted any more, so a subset of devices in a certain area will stop working.

Latest from the gov website suggests about 300k RTS devices in use. Not long ago other sources claimed 600k.
Appears that no one really knows how many of these things still exist. Even if the 300k is correct, that doesn't mean 300k will have problems with storage heaters as plenty of those probably had the heaters removed long ago, with the RTS just left there because no one could be bothered to replace it, or those who live there were unaware of what is was or why it existed.

This 'phased' business is really 'turn some stuff off and see who complains'.
Of course doing this in June when storage heaters are likely to be switched off anyway is a complete waste of time.

 

[AndyPRK]

Well turning it all off in Winter isn't a better idea, causing people to freeze and die. And be unable to go around quickly enough to fix the problems.

You could do some trials, switch it off for a week in June and see who complains they have no hot water. First phase.
Switch it off for 2 days in September and see who complains.
Fix known problems, and wait for next summer for full switch off

 

[morqthana]

And then when the last transmitter valve goes pop, turn it all off at once.

 

[morqthana]

But never mind storage heating - that's a trivial issue compared to nuclear armageddon. Have they sorted out the nuclear sub protocols vis-a-vis the disappearance of R4 LW?

 

[JohnW2]

If the valve fails, can't see how, with the best will in the world, it can be kept running.

Indeed. However, the issue is not primarily a technological one, since I feel sure that the entire transmitter could easily be replaced by a modern one.

New 500 kW short-wave transmitters (from about 4 MHz upwards) are available 'off-the-shelf', so (although I haven't yet found one) I feel sure that one for ~200 kHz could be found - or, at least, produced.

 

[morqthana]

Building a new long-wave transmitter for Radio 4 would cost "many millions of pounds", according to BBC insiders. Part of the problem is that pumping the signal so that it can cover England, Wales and lowland Scotland requires 500 kilowatts of power, far more than other long wave transmitters, which makes the kit both unique and expensive.

 

[JohnW2]

Building a new long-wave transmitter for Radio 4 would cost "many millions of pounds", according to BBC insiders. Part of the problem is that pumping the signal so that it can cover England, Wales and lowland Scotland requires 500 kilowatts of power, far more than other long wave transmitters, which makes the kit both unique and expensive.

It probably would cost 'millions of pounds' but that's pretty modest for a major bit of kit, and ....

TV licence fee revenues in 2023/24 were £3.66 billion. Total BBC income in 2023/24 was £5.4 billion

...not to mention the fact that, were it done, it would not seem unreasonable for them to get some contributions from the electricity suppliers who were using RTS.

I'm not suggesting that the demand for teleswitch technology is necessarily adequate to justify even that cost, but was merely pointing out that it is a commercial decision, not a technological impossibility of replacing the transmitter.

 

[morqthana]

...not to mention the fact that, were it done, it would not seem unreasonable for them to get some contributions from the electricity suppliers who were using RTS.

Or from the defence budget.

 

[plugwash]

Appears that no one really knows how many of these things still exist.

I would expect the electrical distribution industry to have reasonably accurate records of how many dual-rate meters there are, but I could well see records being poor as to which installations had radio teleswitches vs which had traditional time clocks.

Of course doing this in June when storage heaters are likely to be switched off anyway is a complete waste of time.

Given you are going to make a disruptive change at some point, the best case is basically "hot water stops working, customer complains, issue is fixed before customer needs heating". Second best is "customer finds out they have no heating in autumn, issue is fixed before the depths of winter hit".