User's Guide

Table Of Contents

Chapter 5 • Features

A c l a r a R F E l e c t r i c I - 2 1 0 + c U s e r G u i d e 29

Ordinarily a single reference meter is sufficient for a deployment. Imagine that the

large blue circles in the following image represent the area that a DCU can cover.

Figure 5.10

DCU Coverage

Ordinarily, RF infrastructure is deployed so that multiple DCUs cover the

communication to each meter on each house. This DCU overlap is used to relate

the findings within one survey to the findings of other surveys. For example, if the

reference meter is at the green house, a single survey can determine the

relationship of all of the other houses served by the same DCU to the reference

meter. However, there must exist a house such as the yellow house and blue house,

so that the surveys occurring at those DCUs can be joined with the original survey

containing the (green) reference meter.

If the service infrastructure is not contiguous, or if overlapping units are not found,

the results from the original reference survey cannot be joined with the results

from the isolated locations. One or more additional reference meters must be

installed and identified at these other locations (such as the black house on the

right in the preceding image).

The installer must take careful notes as to the serial number of the reference meters

and their phasor connections. This information must then be entered into a

configuration table at the headend. The pieces will then be in place to allow the

system to run surveys, collect measurements, analyze them, join surveys, filter

noise, and ultimately determine the phase connections of the meters.

OTE

There is nothing special about the reference meters. The hardware is not

different than any other meter. The installer's notes, and the claim by the

installer to know the phase connection with good authority, is what makes a

reference meter different from any other meter.