Smart meters and "risk"

Fir

Senior member
Jan 15, 2010
484
194
116
Do people really believe these are dangerous to your health?

I was on this site and could not believe the hogwash!

https://stopsmartmeters.org/

I'm willing to bet some of these nuts have half a dozen cell phones, a bunch of wifi routers, etc.
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
17,466
16,797
146
Do people really believe these are dangerous to your health?
Yes.
I was on this site and could not believe the hogwash!

https://stopsmartmeters.org/
I recommend against that, for future reference.
I'm willing to bet some of these nuts have half a dozen cell phones, a bunch of wifi routers, etc.
Yes, most likely, or at least something else that gives off non-ionizing radiation. But people are stupid, and will believe what they want to/are told by someone they feel is more knowledgeable on the matter, even if they're nuttier than squirrel turds.
 

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
25,134
2,450
126
Do people really believe these are dangerous to your health?

I was on this site and could not believe the hogwash!

https://stopsmartmeters.org/

I'm willing to bet some of these nuts have half a dozen cell phones, a bunch of wifi routers, etc.

I have to wonder who they got to make their website for them. If you're that worried about getting exposed to EM radiation, there is no way in hell that you would be willing to sit in front of a computer :)
 

tynopik

Diamond Member
Aug 10, 2004
5,245
500
126
it's dangerous to my health in the sense that they open a broad surface to cyber attack, and an attack that shuts down all power delivery in my city for an indeterminate amount of time would be bad for my health
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
70,999
13,948
126
www.anyf.ca
Paranoia aside, putting that many cell basestations seems like a ridiculous thing on many levels. From the telco stand point it means WAY more cell sites to manage, they may be tiny, but it's still a site that needs to be managed. It needs rectifiers, batteries, cooling, portable generator hookup, fibre feed/transport equipment, etc. That seems like a super inefficient way of doing it when you can put up a couple towers at the city outskirts in the bush with 3-4 sectors each to feed the whole city like a normal setup. These small base stations will probably have small gel cells and not larger ones you'd see in a bigger cell site with a hut, so that means they will run flat faster and will lose lot of capacity each time. There are only so many techs and so many portable generators to go around, you end up having to prioritize and drop stuff. It's going to be a shit show when the power goes out, glad I don't work for that telco. :p

I'd also be a little worried about that much RF, cell antennas are really meant to be up in a tower and "beam" to a larger area. Those levels of RF is not super dangerous but still something that can be problematic at high levels. RF burn is a thing. At super close proximity (like touching an antenna) 5w is enough to be an issue. As for the smart meters those operate at under 5w I believe, nothing to worry about unless you're sticking your tongue in it. :p I'd have to check mine to see if it says on it, it might have details such as frequency.

Suppose there is a privacy issue as they can figure out your usage patterns and that data could be used against you to determine if you were home or not at a specific time but I have not heard of this ever happening.

Overall it seems to be blown out of proportion, I'm more surprised at the hilariously inefficient plan they have with how they want to distribute cellular service.
 

BarkingGhostar

Diamond Member
Nov 20, 2009
8,410
1,617
136
I think they are safe considering that small cells and microcells and Femto cells are being placed a lot closer to you than you might think. And keep in mind that with each generation of cellular 'cell' the power level drops.
 

Fir

Senior member
Jan 15, 2010
484
194
116
Hey Fir, how bored do you have to be to find sites like that in the first place?

I found this place, right?

Actually I was looking for information relating to net metering grid tie solar systems and smart metering technology in general. We're putting about 350kW of solar on line.
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
70,999
13,948
126
www.anyf.ca
Damn how big is your property? I wish I had property to do something like that. I only have room for like 3kw on mine. Everything else gets shadows.
 

IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
73,347
34,850
136
Smart water meters are worse. The water company can monitor your bathroom habits and sell the information to big data.
 

Fir

Senior member
Jan 15, 2010
484
194
116
Damn how big is your property? I wish I had property to do something like that. I only have room for like 3kw on mine. Everything else gets shadows.

~450 hectares.

Smart water meters are worse. The water company can monitor your bathroom habits and sell the information to big data.

Not sure if you're serious about that.
It is true though about smart electric metering. Depending on your utility, usage can be broken down to hour to hour so you can see peaks from running AC, cooking, etc. And if you have grow lights you can tell when the timers kick on and off too! ;)

We have two wells that supply our water so no water bill. But the pumps are 7.5hp each, they do use a fair amount of power.