Smart meters a concern??

[Redoctober]

The power company should have their own lock ring around the meter. You probably won't be able to put anything of yours on it. They usually keep it sealed with a plastic lock to see if meters have been tampered with.

They usually retro fit the old meters with a device that sends the signal to a meter reading truck once a month that drives by and pings it. Your meter is honestly probably already setup this way. The days of manual meter readings monthly are all but gone unless there's an issue and they need to send someone to confirm the readings.

@Ares2389 You're 100% right. I found this out today when I spoke with the power company. They don't even manually read it anymore, they just drive through the neighborhood and ping it as you say. I looked at the meter and saw that lock ring with what looks to be a microchip encased in plastic. Never really even noticed it before today.

I guess I'll just put a sign on the meter or next to it saying I don't want a smart meter, in case they decide to come around without notifying me (it's not even the power company that does it, it's a subcontractor). I never trust bureaucracies to adhere to your wishes, or have their paperwork and communications straight.

 

[Randodred]

All of it does. All of it is on 12/12. Maybe not thousands of watts but it adds up. I have a lot of plants with led over them.

You ever see the setups for corral growing? Thousands of watts.

Nobody is getting busted because of a meter. Its not illegal to run thousands of watts on a timer.

Show me one article where a smart meter got someone busted. That and that alone. No one can. It doesn't happen like that.

Talking or showing your grow, stealing power? Improper ballast setup and rf interference through cable lines. Things of that nature get you busted.

Does one show to anyone
....

Lol I mean some people are loyal

Buy yes golden rule

 

[whitebb2727]

Does one show to anyone
....

Lol I mean some people are loyal

Buy yes golden rule

Meh. I don't trust anyone but myself. I mean I got a couple friends that would even put thier life on the line for me and I would do the same.

I still wouldn't show them. It's human nature to screw up. Loose lips and all that.

Ill clarify on my original statement. I'm sure that light bills have been used as evidence. It wasn't the sole factor in getting someone busted.

The electric company is selling something. Pay them and they don't care as long as you are not stealing or sending interference out.

 

[Cx2H]

Does one show to anyone
....

Lol I mean some people are loyal

Buy yes golden rule

Used to be a guy on this site running an illegal grow and stealing power for a 20kW grow he vanished overnight and went inactive, he would post multiple times daily... Thought he was untouchable.

Then on a reality crime show like a month later saw a bust and swear it was him due to the setup and all the pix he used to post.

#JustSayin

 

[OldMedUser]

Here in Alberta they don't use smart meters but must use the drive-by method to get meter readings as I haven't seen anyone come into my yard to read a meter once in the 15 years I've owned this place. They only do an actual reading every three months according to my bills. We pay 23.5¢/kwh here so it costs me close to $90/mth to run one 1000W light 12 hours/day. The way I'm set up now that light will be on continuously unless I go smaller and can switch out to a 400w or two.

BC went whole hog on smart meters years ago and a lot of people got busted. In Maple Ridge and Mission they targeted people using higher power levels and forced home inspections on lots of people. Even if it was totally legitimate use like a new hot tub or something else they got hit with a bill of over $3000 for the inspection! Big class-action lawsuit still in the pipeline over that.

In Ontario the power company was using the smart meter info to flag growers then handing over the data to the pigs and many growers got busted. About a year ago the courts put the kibosh on that and the cases were dropped but your house had already been trashed, garden ripped out and all your gear stolen by the pigs. Big lawsuit wending it's way thru the courts over than now too.

The f'n gov'ts all over the world want to know our every move whether you're growing pot or taking a crap in your new "Smart" toilet. They are working hard on making cash obsolete so every f'n dime is accounted for too.

Brave New World my ass! New World Order presiding over a planet of sheeple is where we are almost at now.

 

[gwheels]

I think for smart meter locations LED might be the way to go to reduce the power consumption. In my 4 x 4 i pull a total of 6.5 amps with lights on. a 315 CMH and 200 watts of vero and 100 watts of quantum and fans. I picked the most efficient fans and ventilation.

And if the meter is outside the house. Check all you want. No one comes in. WARRANT? or fuck off.

But for me it is only personal consumption growing. 1 pound every 3 to 4 months.

 

[Cx2H]

I think for smart meter locations LED might be the way to go to reduce the power consumption. In my 4 x 4 i pull a total of 6.5 amps with lights on. a 315 CMH and 200 watts of vero and 100 watts of quantum and fans. I picked the most efficient fans and ventilation.

And if the meter is outside the house. Check all you want. No one comes in. WARRANT? or fuck off.

But for me it is only personal consumption growing. 1 pound every 3 to 4 months.

I got a mitre saw that pulls more juice than that.

 

[OldMedUser]

I think for smart meter locations LED might be the way to go to reduce the power consumption. In my 4 x 4 i pull a total of 6.5 amps with lights on. a 315 CMH and 200 watts of vero and 100 watts of quantum and fans. I picked the most efficient fans and ventilation.

And if the meter is outside the house. Check all you want. No one comes in. WARRANT? or fuck off.

But for me it is only personal consumption growing. 1 pound every 3 to 4 months.

It's not how much power a small grower uses but the tell-tale pattern of lights switching on and off 18/6, 12/12 or whatever is being used. Newer digital ballasts also identify themselves to the grid just as any other smart appliance does. They literally know the make and model of what is being used, how often and how long.

Unless the power company actually sets up their software to flag patterns like that no one really looks at it unless LEO shows up and specifically asks for a look at your particular data. Some power companies will want a warrant first and others will happily hand it over.

If they are looking at you they use all sorts of ways to investigate you to get enough info to go to a judge for a warrant. By grow gear etc online? PayPal and Amazon quite happily give cops info about your purchases without a warrant.

Dumb enough to sell pot out of your house while you grow? There's always a neighbour or two happy to fill a cop's ear.

A fight with a significant other is more likely to get you busted tho. Or something like a meter reader/delivery person who smells your plants. They are all trained on what to look for and many get rewards for ratting you out.

Until the plant is finally truly legal and and as safe to grow as tomatoes it pays to be careful.

 

[thumper60]

load up on tin foil kids lol wow had smartmeter 7 yrs u should c my spikes lol never get me got tin foil hat haha

 

[Cx2H]

It's not how much power a small grower uses but the tell-tale pattern of lights switching on and off 18/6, 12/12 or whatever is being used. Newer digital ballasts also identify themselves to the grid just as any other smart appliance does. They literally know the make and model of what is being used, how often and how long.

Unless the power company actually sets up their software to flag patterns like that no one really looks at it unless LEO shows up and specifically asks for a look at your particular data. Some power companies will want a warrant first and others will happily hand it over.

If they are looking at you they use all sorts of ways to investigate you to get enough info to go to a judge for a warrant. By grow gear etc online? PayPal and Amazon quite happily give cops info about your purchases without a warrant.

Dumb enough to sell pot out of your house while you grow? There's always a neighbour or two happy to fill a cop's ear.

A fight with a significant other is more likely to get you busted tho. Or something like a meter reader/delivery person who smells your plants. They are all trained on what to look for and many get rewards for ratting you out.

Until the plant is finally truly legal and and as safe to grow as tomatoes it pays to be careful.

Yeah, they can see a pattern with a timed operation. If using ballasts they can pass by and measure RFI.

 

[Cx2H]

load up on tin foil kids lol wow had smartmeter 7 yrs u should c my spikes lol never get me got tin foil hat haha

I had sheety ballasts before and would inject RFI into the cable TV system. They came out twice pissed. Said the bubble extended 10 blocks..
#uh

 

[NugHeuser]

I had sheety ballasts before and would inject RFI into the cable TV system. They came out twice pissed. Said the bubble extended 10 blocks..
#uh

So what happened, you said you don't know what it would be and refused to let them in?

 

[Cx2H]

So what happened, you said you don't know what it would be and refused to let them in?

I said idk wtf that was the first time and pulled the plug on the ballasts after I went in to check my wall outlet while they were outside. Came out told them I tightened the cable wire that was loose... They measured again said it was fixed..

Fired the ballasts up again the next day like duh. 3 days later they came back and put a trap on my line without even knocking. I went outside to see and they mean mugged me real hard and lectured me on FCC law and what will happen next time. My cable was fuxed up after that and I cancelled couple weeks later and cut the outside drop from the house.

 

[NugHeuser]

I said idk wtf that was the first time and pulled the plug on the ballasts after I went in to check my wall outlet while they were outside. Came out told them I tightened the cable wire that was loose... They measured again said it was fixed..

Fired the ballasts up again the next day like duh. 3 days later they came back and put a trap on my line without even knocking. I went outside to see and they mean mugged me real hard and lectured me on FCC law and what will happen next time. My cable was fuxed up after that and I cancelled couple weeks later and cut the outside drop from the house.

Luckily I've never had problems with rf, even with my cheap vivosun hps. With that hps I had interference out to about 10 feet. My cmh's don't give off any, all am channels come in.
I have a buddy who bought an ipower hps and the rf was so bad that he couldn't even get fm radio channels with it on.
I had a smart meter installed a couple months back.
I'm more worried about thermal imaging over head from helicopters and such, is that something to be worried about? At least once a week theres a heli zig zagging around fairly low over the neighborhoods in my town, I actually just saw it today not too far from my place, maybe 15 blocks at the closest, flying pretty low, covering ground quick but going back and forth kind of grid lining the area. I find that kind of odd, always have heard it and thought damn that sounds pretty low, today I happened to be leaving when I heard the noise

 

[Michael Huntherz]

Here in Alberta they don't use smart meters but must use the drive-by method to get meter readings as I haven't seen anyone come into my yard to read a meter once in the 15 years I've owned this place. They only do an actual reading every three months according to my bills. We pay 23.5¢/kwh here so it costs me close to $90/mth to run one 1000W light 12 hours/day. The way I'm set up now that light will be on continuously unless I go smaller and can switch out to a 400w or two.

BC went whole hog on smart meters years ago and a lot of people got busted. In Maple Ridge and Mission they targeted people using higher power levels and forced home inspections on lots of people. Even if it was totally legitimate use like a new hot tub or something else they got hit with a bill of over $3000 for the inspection! Big class-action lawsuit still in the pipeline over that.

In Ontario the power company was using the smart meter info to flag growers then handing over the data to the pigs and many growers got busted. About a year ago the courts put the kibosh on that and the cases were dropped but your house had already been trashed, garden ripped out and all your gear stolen by the pigs. Big lawsuit wending it's way thru the courts over than now too.

The f'n gov'ts all over the world want to know our every move whether you're growing pot or taking a crap in your new "Smart" toilet. They are working hard on making cash obsolete so every f'n dime is accounted for too.

Brave New World my ass! New World Order presiding over a planet of sheeple is where we are almost at now.

Well...Not governments so much as the giant companies that own them, but you aren’t far off otherwise.

On the electric front, holy damn. I guess am lucky to be paying $0.08/kwh

 

[Michael Huntherz]

Luckily I've never had problems with rf, even with my cheap vivosun hps. With that hps I had interference out to about 10 feet. My cmh's don't give off any, all am channels come in.
I have a buddy who bought an ipower hps and the rf was so bad that he couldn't even get fm radio channels with it on.
I had a smart meter installed a couple months back.
I'm more worried about thermal imaging over head from helicopters and such, is that something to be worried about? At least once a week theres a heli zig zagging around fairly low over the neighborhoods in my town, I actually just saw it today not too far from my place, maybe 15 blocks at the closest, flying pretty low, covering ground quick but going back and forth kind of grid lining the area. I find that kind of odd, always have heard it and thought damn that sounds pretty low, today I happened to be leaving when I heard the noise

Thermal imaging for law enforcement was ruled illegal search and seizure, it isn’t something you should worry about unless your op is pretty sizable. The lawman has ways around the FLIR ban, they can hire private detectives to spy on you with infrared then take their time gathering evidence they can actually use, once they know they have you by the nuts. It costs them more now, so they won’t go to the trouble unless you are important to them for some reason. Stay small.

 

[Cx2H]

I'm more worried about thermal imaging over head from helicopters

Be worried about drone's with flir, the bad guys are using them to find sheet to jack. Yeah choppers should always be viewed as hostile..

 

[Michael Huntherz]

Be worried about drone's with flir, the bad guys are using them to find sheet to jack. Yeah choppers should always be viewed as hostile..

Definitely worried more about rippers than the lawman, anybody can use a flir camera, except the law, lol.

 

[OldMedUser]

load up on tin foil kids lol wow had smartmeter 7 yrs u should c my spikes lol never get me got tin foil hat haha

Read this article about Grower Privacy and the court ruling in Ontario then go buy a tinfoil hat with a big point on top to fit your head better.

 

[OldMedUser]

Definitely worried more about rippers than the lawman, anybody can use a flir camera, except the law, lol.

You think cops don't use them to see if you're growing? They just can't use that info to get a warrant but it's another tool in the box to help them get info they can use legally.

Once they start looking at you they already know what to look for. They just don't bother with little guys growing their own unless they got nothing better to do at 5am on a Sunday morning.