Octopus energy : Smart Meter Feed

@Timbones does you script handle missing data? Does recover missing data when it appears?
If so, can we see a copy? :grinning:

1 Like

Do you mean that a whole day can be missing from the data, and turn up later after other days have been received? Iā€™ve not seen that happen yet, so havenā€™t accommodated for it. Is this a common issue with smart meters?

The naive approach is to always download a weekā€™s worth of data, and rebuild the cumulative feed from a week ago. Any missing days will get slotted in when they (hopefully) appear.

Iā€™m currently writing directly to MySQL tables, so I need to rewrite my script to use more conventional bulk feed updates. Iā€™ll be happy to share it once thatā€™s doneā€¦

1 Like

Not that often, but it does happen. I lost a couple of days worth of data a month or so back.
Judging by the moaning on the Octopus forum, Iā€™d say it happen a lot more than people think, but itā€™s only people like us who notice.

1 Like

If you add the data to EmonCMS with the timestamp, and you pull in all (or at least covering your gap) the data not just the new data, it will simply overwrite the data that is there (with the same timestamp) so filling in the gaps.

Are you aware of @TrystanLea Agile App that does this?

I have only just got my smart meters up and running properly, but I still need to leave the garage door open sometimes for the WAN to connect properly :man_facepalming: :man_facepalming: :rage: I really need to get the data scripts working again as my meter numbers have changed.

What HAN arrangements do you have? Just standard, or have you had any contact with Alt HAN people? I gather theyā€™re supposed to be operating now to fix problems?

Dual Band meters now fitted, and these seem to be fine now on HAN (as Octopus IHD works fine). Initial issue was the Gas Meter would not talk to the CH.

Overall the issue is that I live in a Faraday cage (to all intents and purposes). The house has a ā€˜tea cosyā€™ of thick foil backed PIR insulation. The meters are in the garage, and the doors (although thick insulated aluminium panels) do probably provide the path of least resistance for the RF signals.

The CH was moved such that it is at 90Ā° to the doors (is was round a corner facing away - they have short flying leads to do this) and reception is much better. But having not had the garage open for a few days, the CH lost WAN comms (no data). This has now caught up.

I also have a Hildenbrand Glow IHD, but the installer failed to remove it from the CH before installing the new set of meters and CH, so it is bricked. Iā€™m waiting on a new one.

If there was a means to fit a remote aerial to the CH, things would easily be solved!

Not heard of them.

There was a thread on the Octopus forum a while back -

Using coax cable -
So 17 cm of copper core exposed and tied to the security tab on the comm hub, then directing it over the left hand side of the hub (where the hub antenna is), and up into the loft (in its full protected sheath) and exposing 17 cm of core again pointing upwards in the loft has improved the reliability of the signal.

seemed to fix the issue?

First hit in google. https://althanco.com/

But I had no reason to. I simply stated I hadnā€™t heard of them, not that I didnā€™t know how to find out if I wanted to.

That sounds interesting. Missed that. I have a load of Coax cable around so may try it :slight_smile:

Lee,

Would it be possible to get a picture of that?

Having been a Radio Amateur since 1968, antennas of all types are of interest to me.

THANKS!

@Bill.Thomson it wasnā€™t me who did it, but I can ask on the other forum?

I thought you might :laughing:

Is the theory sound?

On the basis that antennas are bi-directional - yes.

Whatā€™s been created is in effect a pair of antennas linked by the cable. Something picked up by one end and not by the other will travel along the cable and out the other end. How efficient the transfer is, I wouldnā€™t like to say.

Antennas can be as simple as a dipole or as complex as someting like an aperture radiator
or an active array made from hundreds of elements.

Hereā€™s an example of an active array:
image

This is Pave PAWS (Phased Array Warning System) in California. Operating at 450 MHz,
the beam is steered electrically, vice the old method of a rotating parabolic dish.
It was developed in 1980 to detect sea-launched ballistic missiles.

Antennas are black magic to many folks. Iā€™ve seen some of my fellow radio amateurs load up things like a steel bridge, or a section of railroad track and operate quite sucessfully. The ā€œsecretā€ to making something like that work is a good impedance match. Thatā€™s where an antenna tuner comes into play.

But, I digressā€¦ Yes! The principle is indeed sound.

1 Like

Thatā€™d be great!

If Iā€™m reading it correctly, it sounds as if youā€™re speaking of antenna reciprocity.
i.e what works for an antenna connected to a transmitter also works unchanged
for the same antenna connected to a receiver.

Bi-directional refers to the radiation pattern, which because of said reciprocity,
will be the same whether the antenna is connected to a transmitter or a receiver.

Not all antennas are bi-directional. Some are omni-directional, and some are uni-directional.

It sounds as if the antenna Lee descibed is a coaxial dipole.
A bit of a different animal than a dipole made from wire.

Depends on the length of the cable. e.g an unterminated quarter-wave section of transmission line,
(and from the description, it sounds as if thatā€™s the case here) acts like an open. The high impedance will cause the signal to be reflected back to its source, causing a mismatch between the transmitter/receiver and the feedline. The result is reduced radiated signal strength for a transmitter and a receiver will see a lower signal level at its antenna port.

1 Like

Yep, youā€™re right. The word escaped me at the time. It was late here.

After remembering your ā€œloftā€ is essentially our ā€œattic,ā€ Iā€™d say yes, it does indeed sound like two monopoles connected via a length of feedline.

Been there and done that.
:wink: :smile:

That link is only visible to octopus agile customers and thatā€™s not a competitive tariff just now. What did it say?