horstmann radio telemeter series 2a

[redvett]

Hi I'm new here and have a problem with my meter..

I have the above meter and a facility with Scottish Power to enter my readings (RATE 1 & RATE 2) every three months.

Rate 1 is ok and increases uniformly about 250 units every three months. However, Rate 2 was also increasing uniformly about 450 units every three months, until I checked the reading last week on 16/3/2011.

Rate 2:
9/8/10 29936
1/10/10 30420
22/12/10 31759
and now...
16/3/2011 01425
21/3/2011 01516

Can anyone explain how the numbers changed between 22/12/10 and 16/3/10? Is it possible that the Rate 2 reading could have zero'd somehow, say, after 22/12/10. The rate as it is now is still increasing as it should but how could the readings change so drastically? The meter was read a month ago or so, so could the meter reader guy have mistakenly zero'd the meter? Nothing has changed powerwise in the house to cause the reading to 'go over the top' so quickly. Rate 1 still shows its normally increasing readings and is the day rate whereas, Rate 2 is the night rate.

Help!

 

[Interrupteur]

Between 31759 and 00000 is 32767, or binary 0111 1111 1111 1111. This happens to be the maximum value for a 16-bit signed integer. Adding 1 to that would cause it to loop back to 0. Just a thought, may be coincidence.

 

[Roo]

That meter can be programmed for a few different tariffs.
Some tariffs only show 2 readings while others (the majority) will show 3 readings.

Usually if the meter is the property of Scottish Power (which it will say on it underneath the serial number) that type of meter only showing 2 rates would be programmed to the Economy 10 tariff.

Is this the tariff your on?

I have had a few problems with the E10 tariff while the other tariffs with the 3 readings seem to be fairly consistent and problem free.

If you do have a 3 reading type (E7, OP14, Twin heat A etc etc) the first reading is the Total for both the day and night readings.

The second should say Rate 4 which is your Night/off peak reading.

And the 3rd should say Rate 1 which is your Day reading.

Could it be that your reading the Total and Night readings as your rate 1 and 2?

This would mean that once the total reading reached 6 digits it would only display the last 5 digits of your readings.

For instance..

reading 90500 Day rate and 10000 night rate would be a total of 100500 but the meter would display it as Total 00500 Low 10000 Day 90500.

Hope I make sense.

 

[Wontdothatagain]

The "horstmann radio telemeter series 2a" is a devise that will either send a signal to your meter at a certain time to tell it to switch to a different recording rate and/or switch a load to power say night storage heaters.

What type of meter do you have? A pic would help.

 

[veggieman]

I am hoping that Redvett (the original poster last year) might be able to give an update as to how their problem was resolved. If anyone else can help, please do...

Here is our problem...

We have a big and worrying problem regarding an electricity meter and I am hoping that someone here can give us some good advice. Apologies in advance for the long and rambling story but I need to fully describe the problem.

My wife and I are retired and living on our own here in the Shetland Islands. We moved here in April 2008 and, apart from the crap weather seemingly all year round, we are happy. Our electricity is suuplied by Scottish Hydro Electric and is monitored via two meters. We pay for our electricity via a monthly direct debit and this is increased/decreased annually with maybe a refund given if large. We are on a plan called THTC (Total Heating Total Control). There is one meter, an old-fashioned one with a wheel going round, that records the "Standard Energy" electricity used via the sockets and the lights. A second meter, a digital one, records the "Heating Control Energy" electricity used to power our storage heaters and the hot water; and an electric shower is also linked to it. It is this latter, digital meter that is causing the problem.

The digital meter model is a Horstmann Radio Telemeter Series 2A (the same as the original poster has). It switches on, via radio-controlled signals at several times of the day but mainly in the early hours of the morning. We have absolutely no control over the hours that the cheaper tariff electricity is supplied to us. As I mentioned previously, it is just the two of us and we have lived in a similar lifestyle in each of the 4 years that we have been here. We have had visitors for about 2 weeks in each year and have holidayed at approximately the same time each year. We have had the same storage radiators on similar settings at about the same times in each year so the electricity that we will have used, via this cheaper electricity meter, would be approximately the same for each year. However, that is where our problem has arisen..

For each of the first 3 years, the usage of electricity via this radio controlled meter has been similar but, in this last year, it has increased by well over 200%. The meter reader tends to come to us only once per year but, if the quarterly estimated numbers are way out, we read the meters and phone them through to them. This has worked fine up till now. To illustrate the problem, I will refer to the 6-months periods, November to May, for the past 3 years. In each of the years, the November reading was an estimate and the May reading was an actual. The November readings, though estimates, would have been fairly close to the actual at the time, becuase we would have otherwise phoned them through as stated above.

17 Nov 2009 to 18 May 2010 units used 7062

17 Nov 2010 to 23 May 2011 units used 7881

5 Nov 2011 to 8 May 2012 units used 23586

It is this last reading that is the bummer. It would seem that, at some point(s) in the 6 month period to May 2012, the meter jumped by some 16,000 units. This could be in one or a number of blips totalling approximately that figure. The bottom line, financially, is that we have been overcharged by some £1,200 (including VAT) and we are being asked to increase our monthly payment from (an already expensive £145) to over £300 for the next 12 months. Gulp ! We complained to the customer services folks and, after a very long phone call and a few weeks of waiting, we now have a check meter installed which has been there for just a week. We are checking the readings daily but there is no sign of a blip in that week. We are worried that the check meter will, after however long it is installed, state that our meter has no variation to it and is thus deemed to be working correctly.