That's what they looked like to me. I've seen them in Troy, Michigan also.

Bill Crocker


"Jack Myers" wrote in message
...
krackula wrote:
On Sun, 03 Jul 2005 11:51:41 -0700, Scott en Aztl?n
wrote:

On Sun, 03 Jul 2005 02:50:50 +0000, Guy Macon
http://www.guymacon.com/ wrote:

http://tinypic.com/6okknl.jpg


one thought about these : this device is located on a utility company
light pole. it's highly unlikely that it belongs to anyone
commercial other than the utility company / or the " city of "
people.

Are we looking at equipment left over from the old Metricom Ricochet
service? Their strateqy was to operate a mesh network in the unlicensed
ISM band. By cutting a deal with the city to use lamposts they could
avoid having to pay the high utility pole attachment fees.

I forwarded the photo to an distribution engineer friend of mine at a
nearby power utility. He suggested it could be a remote meter reading
transponder repeater. The technology has numerous ways of doing it, and
low power radio modems are used in some demand metering systems where
individual phone lines are not practical. The transponder gets its power
via the power tap inserted between the lamp body and the light
controlled switch. The nearby low power transponders all report into
their local transponder which in turn relays the reports to a central
gathering station. That's how the system works. Whether or not that is
what it is is yet to be verified.

The antenna's element and coil dimensions look too big to be 2.4GHz. It
does however look right for ISM.

Are they not boxes for switching traffic lights for emergency vehicles?

Not in Troy, MI. The Fire Dept. uses the modulated light beam aimed at
photoelectric sensors for that.

Bill Crocker


"SamSez" wrote in message
news:w7wye.2317$gD5.1632@trndny06...
Are they not boxes for switching traffic lights for emergency vehicles?

On Tue, 05 Jul 2005 08:36:43 -0400, Phoneguy wrote:

I forwarded the photo to an distribution engineer friend of mine at a
nearby power utility. He suggested it could be a remote meter reading
transponder repeater. The technology has numerous ways of doing it, and
low power radio modems are used in some demand metering systems where
individual phone lines are not practical. The transponder gets its power
via the power tap inserted between the lamp body and the light
controlled switch. The nearby low power transponders all report into
their local transponder which in turn relays the reports to a central
gathering station. That's how the system works. Whether or not that is
what it is is yet to be verified.

The antenna's element and coil dimensions look too big to be 2.4GHz. It
does however look right for ISM.

That is a Ricochet Radio.
Part of a Mesh network on 900 Mhz for Internet connectivity.

The company has been about about 7 or 8 years and has had a hard time of
it. I first ran into them in there home city of Seattle in 1998.
In some places they pulled the plug on the network leaving the radios
on the poles. I thought they were out of business.

http://www.ricochet.com/


--
Korbin Dallas
The name was changed to protect the guilty.

"soliton" wrote in message
...
"SamSez" wrote:

Are they not boxes for switching traffic lights for emergency vehicles?


In the photo, it is connected to a street light not a stop light so it
would be useless for controlling a stop light.

what in gods name does where it is mounted have to do with what it does?

would be useless for controlling a stop light.


what in gods name does where it is mounted have to do with what it does?



Quite a lot actually.

The ricochet radio answer gets my vote.

On Fri, 08 Jul 2005 00:14:07 -0400, Bob wrote:

The ricochet radio answer gets my vote.

Give the men a see-gar!

A closer look at the box with a pair of binoculars reveals the name
"Metricom" printed on the outside.

In article ,
Scott en Aztl?n wrote:

On Fri, 08 Jul 2005 00:14:07 -0400, Bob wrote:

The ricochet radio answer gets my vote.

Give the men a see-gar!

A closer look at the box with a pair of binoculars reveals the name
"Metricom" printed on the outside.


then it is a leftover from the old Ricochet Network that went
tits-up a few years back... Makes a nice 928 Mhz packet system.....


Me who actually ownes a complete Ricochet 800Mhz
Base Station including the router

edison uses them as line of sight transmitters for remote switching of
the power lines and outage indicators.