by Diana Ostermann*
Diana resides in South Haven, Michigan, and is a retired wireless data strategy manager with 22 years experience. The author has drawn on some material earlier published in an article written by Mary Beth Brangan and James Heddle. A link to that work may be found at the end of this article.
Utility companies nationwide are moving toward installing transmitting electrical, gas, and water meters at each customer’s service. The new digital meters being installed on electrical services are a type of meter being called “smart” meters because they can do time of day metering, keep very close track of energy usage, and potentially perform other functions. In the case of both Consumers Energy and DTE, and most other utilities, the “smart” meters selected are (wireless) transmitting “smart” meters. The transmitting electrical rate meters typically transmit in strong bursts every few seconds 24 hours per day 7 days a week. The other utility meters also transmit similarly.
In addition to transmitting in strong bursts, transmitting “smart” meters can also overexpose the general population to high frequencies by putting high frequencies on home and building wiring, either deliberately through signaling or inadvertently through poor engineering. This is potentially dangerous in the long-term for everyone; however, for people who already have radio frequency sickness, sometimes called ‘Electromagnetic Hyper Sensitivity or EHS, this exposure can cause disability nearly immediately. Experts estimate that 3-15% of the general population is electro sensitive, and continued chronic exposure could drive that number to 50% in five years.
Radio frequency sickness results from overexposure to radio frequency radiation. The symptoms include headaches, ear ringing (tinnitus), nausea, fatigue, skin rashes, irregular and/or racing heart beats, muscle twitches, difficulty concentrating, insomnia, memory problems, high blood pressure and more. Radio frequency sickness is not a disease. It is an environmentally induced functional impairment. Radio frequency sickness has real and disabling consequences. People with radio frequency sickness experience illness (or even death) upon exposure to radio frequency radiation. The most common sources are electrical pollution – high frequencies that travel on building wiring, – and transmitters – all wireless devices.
In addition to its radio frequency transmitter, each wireless digital meter also has a component called the ‘switching-mode power supply’ (SMPS) – switching power supply for short. Its function is to ‘step down’ the 240v alternating current (AC) coming in from the utility pole power lines to the 2 to 10 volts of direct current (DC) required to run the meter’s digital electronics which record the electricity usage data.
The SMPS function emits sharp spikes of millisecond bursts constantly, 24/7. The SMPS on the OWS 514 NIC model, for instance, which is the smart meter model widely installed by PG&E throughout its territory (notably, California), has been measured to emit spikes of up to 50,000 hz and higher. This constant pulsing of high frequencies, in addition to the RF function, is causing not only interference with other electric and electronic equipment in many homes with smart meters installed, but also is causing havoc with biological systems (plants, animals and humans) in its field of exposure.
When current flows through the wiring of a building it generates a surrounding electro-magnetic field that radiates outward all around the wires at right angles to the direction of the current’s flow and reaches out into the room. It is well known that switching power supplies can generate spikes of so-called electromagnetic interference (EMI), or high frequency transients, which then travel along the wiring in the walls, radiating outward in the wiring’s electromagnetic field. Such spikes are known as ‘dirty electricity’ and can be conducted to a human body that is within the range of the radiating field. This function is on all smart meters used by all utilities and is on constantly, 24/7.
One engineer explains it this way:
“Extensive measurements have demonstrated that all of the meters measured so far, including ABB, GE, and Landis Gyr, emit noise on the customer’s electric wiring in the form of high frequency voltage spikes, typically with an amplitude of 2 volts, but a frequency anywhere from 4,000 Hertz, up to 60,000 Hz. The actual frequency of the phenomena is influenced by the devices that are plugged into the customer’s power. Some houses are much worse than others, and this observation has been confirmed by PG&E installers that have talked to us.”
Wikipedia agrees that SMPSs have this drawback:
“Disadvantages include greater complexity, the generation of high-amplitude, high-frequency energy that the low-pass filter must block to avoid electromagnetic interference (EMI), and a ripple voltage at the switching frequency and the harmonic frequencies thereof. Very low cost SMPSs may couple electrical switching noise back onto the mains power line, causing interference with A/V equipment connected to the same phase. Non-power-factor-corrected SMPSs also cause harmonic distortion.’ ”
Many believe that it is this ‘dirty electricity’ generated by the smart meters’ switching power supplies that is a major contributor to the symptoms being reported by growing numbers of people in association with the smart meters thus far installed.
The ‘opt-out-for-a-price’ arrangement put forward by some utilities (in Naperville, IL for instance), in which the wireless meters would, at the ratepayer’s expense, have its RF transmitting function turned off, would still not eliminate the ‘dirty electricity’ flowing into the buildings wiring, and so would not prevent negative health effects in the buildings’ occupants.
What does all this mean to you? It means that in their current form, all smart meters negatively affect the health of nearly everyone. Those who are electrically sensitive (EHS) are immediately affected. Others may not notice the effects for years, even decades. However, both the wireless radiation from the transmitters, and the ‘dirty electricity’ are suspected carcinogens. They have also been associated with autism, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, MS and asthma. The only safe path for the time being is to continue to use the old analog meters. The industry needs to redesign the digital meters before they can safely be placed on homes and businesses everywhere.
New Critical Problem with ‘Smart’ Meters: The Switching-Mode Power Supply (SMPS) by Mary Beth Brangan and James Heddle.
Do smart meters radiate up Or sideways out? I ask because my apt sits atop 13 of them & a boiler.thx
Linda – the most common antenna designs tend to radiate most of their energy in expanding circles in one plane, with little energy in the direction perpendicular to that plane. In the case of typical installations of smart meters on houses (in a “mesh system” such as Detroit Edison uses) we would expect most of the energy to be radiated horizontally and not vertically since each meter must communicate with smart meters on other nearby houses. But in your case it sounds like the 13 meters may be in a basement (since you also mention boiler). So if the nearest receiving devices are well above ground – on power poles or meters of nearby buildings – the meters may be adjusted to send their signals upward to reach those targets. The only way to know for sure would be to purchase or borrow a handheld emf meter (approx cost $125)and directly measure the radiation strength. You would want a meter that can measure in the 900 Mhz frequency range and that can measure and store peak energy. In a “mesh system” high intensity pulses will be transmitted about every 10 seconds or so, with quiet periods between those pulses. If you are in Consumers service territory, a non mesh system is used where each meter communicates directly with a cell phone tower. These communications will be far less frequent but with higher energy pulses (because they must travel a greater distance). Again, if your meters are in a basement, their antennas may well be configured to send those pulses upward since the cell phone towers will be far above ground level.
Did the author of this article realize that nearly every electronic device these days comes equipped with an SMPS? Your TV, computer, and DVD players contain SMPS’s in order to adjust the frequency and voltage of the 120VAC line to something better suited to the device, and are thousands of times more powerful than the ones that power the Smart Meters. Even your cell-phone charger wall-wart contains an SMPS. All together, the SMPS’s in a normal American home, even homes of impoverished families, produce a million or more times electrical noise inside the home than the a small one that is on the outside of your wall to power a Smart Meter.
If you feel the need to base your fight against Smart Meters on SMPS’s (which have been common since the mid 90′s) then go ahead. I still think it’s a ridiculous claim, that weakens your overall position, but it is your right to completely mismanage your argument. But blaming the infiltration of SMPS’s solely on Smart Meters would be like blaming Subaru for all the air pollution caused by automobiles around the world. Sure, they contribute, but their contribution is a small amount compared to the whole industry, and they joined the industry rather late in the game.
Paul, Your points are well taken but what you are evidently not seeing is that (1) the dirty electricity from a smart meter is 24/7/365, so there is no respite during sleeping hours, and (2) this is not a VOLUNTARY exposure like the other devices you mention, which electro-sensitive people can choose not to have in their homes, or choose to use sparingly during limited hours of the day.
The one mounted by our kitchen window IS SLOWLY KILLING MY MOTHER since it’s installation. She has since developed dementia and Alzheimer’s symptoms.
The only thing I can do is put a bullet through this meter. Doing that I would be charged with vandalism/property damage (even though it’s not on Their property) and they would only replace it with another smart meter–and charge us for it.
I live in NJ not California or Canada. Nobody listens to me. Not even our doctors.
In fact my doctor thinks it’s a mental delusion or form of paranoia on my part for so much as bringing up such a concept!
Your doctor has failed to take continuing educational courses for medical credits which specifically teach the extreme hazards of ultra low frequencies. Apparently he is not aware that long before these frequencies were rebranded as convenient wireless devices able to surveil and radiate, they were originally designed to do this as military weapons of mass destruction, also at ultra low frequencies. Tell you doctor to take a course from IHF and then join all the doctors who are aware of the fact that electromagnetic radiation causes electrical induction, by polarizing and depolarizing of all nerves and muscles, forcibly overriding and coupling to the bioelectrical system of everything biological, and flipping on and off the switches of the body like a strobe light, literally billions of times a second, while shredding the DNA irreparably. If your doctor had bothered to be up to date at all, even if only by simply reading the serious warnings to avoid these frequencies and to avoid them if any patient has any electronic medical implants, be it deep brain implants, pacemaker defibrillators, insulin pumps, perhaps this might lessen such ignorance. 900 megahertz and 2.4 gigahertz were designed to and are best suited to induce a myriad kinds of health damage. Shield your meter as well as the entire interior wall behind it with Reflectix type double walled foil house insulation. Box in the meter with a Faraday cage made of aluminium mosquito screening, before you become irreversibly sick as well. Your mother’s cognitive impairment needs bentonite clay to rid the body of radiation, spirulina to stop damage. Tell your doctor to take EMF/EMR hazards as part of continuing education. This way perhaps it will be easier to professionally recognize countless other EMR created, induced and exacerbated neurodegenerative diseases, including but not limited to MS, Parkinson’s, fibromyalgia, polymyalgia, dementia, and far far worse.
This technology is not serving but killing us!!! How can we stop this?
By using common law, carefully constructed to prevent it.
Check out bcfreedom.wordpress.com.
Ask how such documents could perhaps be altered for your situaiton