various meter parts and be so shaped that these parts are accessible for adjustment, repair and replacement. The cover is apparently unimportant, but it must be so designed that the meter will be dust, moisture and bug proof, must allow the meter to be read without opening and should permit observation of the operation of the meter. The cover must also block any attempt at interfering with its registration or at least show indications of these attempts. The housing should further provide a suitable terminal compartment so that the meter may be connected without opening the cover of the meter. Construction of Modern Meters The construction of modern meters may be illustrated by any desired type or make of meter, preferably that used by the local company. A modern D.Č. meter, see Figure 283, and modern A.C. meters (Figs. 295 and 296) with whose external appearance many of the audience are already familiar should be chosen. The following features should be pointed out with reference to the preceding discussion: General Construction of a Meter Element, As has already been pointed out, meters are subjected to periodical tests even if no error or trouble is known or suspected. These tests are made in such a way as not to interfere with the normal use of current by the customer. Facilities are usually provided for bridging the meter and connecting it together with the standard and suitable loading devices to the source of power. These tests are made with instruments which have been carefully checked against laboratory standards, which in turn are usually checked by and approved by the Public Service Commission or some disinterested testing laboratory. The instruments used consist either of indicating instruments by which the power is measured while the speed of the meter disc is timed with a stop watch or of a rotating standard test meter which is a carefully calibrated watthour meter of the same general construction as the service meter, but having additional features which make the meter portable and allow its use over a wide range of load without loss of accuracy in reading. When the rotating standard is used, the speeds of the two meters are compared when connected to the same load. Figs. 297 and 298 show pictures taken during the process of testing, the first showing a test of a large A.C. installation, and the second that of a small D.C. meter. Tests are always made of the accuracy of the meter "As Found," so as to provide records for adjustment of complaints and statistics from which the performance of any particular type of meter may be judged and the necessary test period determined. The meter is then cleaned, worn or damaged parts replaced and adjusted to be correct within commercial limits of accuracy. In addition to the periodic and complaint tests which are made in the customers' premises, after the meter has been operating for an extended period, similar tests are made in the meter shop before the meter is installed, and in the customer's premises shortly after installation to insure that the meter has not been damaged during transit or installation. MR. WADSWORTH: There are one or two subjects in this report which I wish to call your attention, the first being the "Education of Metermen," which I consider one of the most important subjects with which the member companies have to deal. This subject is a very live one and this report only covers the surface and does not begin to state all the excellent work that the universities and colleges are doing for us in educating our metermen. I have received since the report was printed, the results of the First Electrical Meterman School, which was conducted by the Purdue University, LaFayette, Ind., on March 28 to 30th inclusive, which shows an attendance of eighty-eight meter men. These universities and colleges should be given the best of help and co-operation. This year a subcommittee was appointed on "Standardization of Meter and Instrument Design" to co-operate with the manufacturers and it has filled a connecting link between them and the National Meter Committee. It is hoped that all the meter and instrument manufacturers will use this subcommittee as a means for co-operation, by showing their proposed changes and new devices to this Committee. Certain recommendations have been made by the Committee on Instrument Transformers, and attention is called to the importance of this subject to all members of the Association. Attention is also called to an outline of necessary data on meter accuracy and testing schedules, and the Committee asks your co-operation and help in this matter, and the Committee would appreciate receiving at any time data on this subject. Plans are in making for a possible revision of the Electrical Meterman Handbook and the Code for Electricity Meters, and the Committee is asking the members of the Association to send in to the Chairman any suggestions on the revision of these two important books. This year the Committee have made a start on the study of proper maintenance of switchboard meters and instruments, and it will be our duty to continue this investigation next year. The report of the Committee on Methods of Measuring Power Factor and Kilovolt Amperes is one of great importance to all of us, and your attention is called to this part of the Committee's report. The Meter Lecture is printed as Appendix 1 to the report, and it is recommended by the Committee that you see that each one of your metermen obtains a copy of this part of the report, as it contains considerable information and supplies a very much needed educational opportunity. Again this year's work was handicapped by the lateness of the members who were appointed to serve on the National Committee from the Geographic Sections. At the first meeting of the Meter Committee, which is generally held in September, the subjects which are to be reported and investigated are outlined, discussed and a subcommittee is appointed. After this meeting a member who is not appointed to the membership of the National Committee fails to receive all the benefits which he should obtain by the working out and the knowledge he obtains in investigating these subjects. After these subcommittees start their work it has not been found good practice to appoint additional members to these subcommittees, as it tends to retard rather than speed along the investigations. It should be the duty of those who have the matter in charge to see that the representatives to the National Meter Committee are appointed very early in the Committee year. It has been my constant aim to try to co-operate with the Meter Committees of the Geographic Sections during the past year, and while I have not found out the complete solution of this difficult problem, it is hoped that later some way can be worked out whereby there can be more co-operation, less duplication, better standardization and more effective co-ordination. (Mr. Wadsworth then took the chair.) CHAIRMAN WADSWORTH: Now, gentlemen, this report is open for discussion, and we want frank, open discussion on it. Pull it to pieces. Tell us what you think of it; where it is bad, where it is good, and also in that connection tell us what you want to investigate during the coming year. Tell us your problems. Let us make it a get-together meeting for meter men, and let us discuss our problems right here in this small room. F. G. VAUGHN: There are a number of most interesting points brought forth in the report, particularly the education of meter men. It has been of interest to me as a representative of a manufacturer to learn that some colleges in the West have taken up the educating of metermen. I doubt if the short courses can be other than to explain the way a meter functions. A man who is to handle meters must put more time against study than he will get from these courses. He should have practical experience. However, with the fundamentals he can get practice with his operating company. We are educating young men at our Lynn factory on an eighteen months' course. They are all high school boys, boys with good sound foundation for education. We find that we can't really turn one of these men over to any of you inside of eighteen months and call him a meterman. There is one very interesting thing in this report, because last year I was pulled to pieces regarding the shortage of meters. I notice in the report, mention of the shortage of meters is made. There is no such thing at the present time. We are short of orders. Now, if any of you need meters you can get all the meters you want. In September, 1920, there was a very disturbing feeling among you, that you could not get meters, and it was considered necessary for you to appoint a committee to investigate the source of supply and tell us to build more factories and so forth and so on, but it has all disappeared and I am glad to see it, but if anybody has got any orders to place we will be very glad to get them. Under "demand meters," I notice the report mentions the question of using 115 volts as a basis, or the customary multiples thereof, to be used when determining the full load capacity of the watthour meters. Would not that suggest that it might be a good plan for your Standardization Commitee to consider marking all A. C. meters 115 volts? Now, I have come here today to listen, and I would like to hear some of these metermen get up and tell Mr. Wadsworth and his Committee some of their troubles. I think that is the only way that we can get some real good out of this meeting. O. J. BUSHNELL: This report is so exhaustive that I feel there is nothing to add, and the topics are covered so completely and thoroughly that criticism is almost impossible. It remains therefore merely to add a word of appreciation of the Committee for the very thorough work that they have done and to emphasize the suggestions which they have included in their report. I think the work of the Committee in Standardization is very important. We have been developing meters and standardizing them for some fifteen or twenty years now, but we have not got the manufacturers entirely in line yet. Mr. Vaughn has just suggested a very good point. I know the Committee is working on a bottom connected direct current watthour meter, and I think it will be a splendid improvement if the Committee is able to get the manufacturers to redesign the direct current meter so as to give us a bottom connected meter, at least in the smaller sizes. The standardization of scales of watthour demand meters is also a matter which should be followed up. The first demand meter registers were for single phase meters and had an overload capacity of about fifty per cent. Manufacturers went ahead on this same basis for polyphased meters rated as twophase four-wire meters. This resulted in overload capacities on our demand registers of over 65 per cent, when those meters were used as three-phase meters. The accuracy of our readings was conse quently affected on account of the high scale values. The Committee has therefore fixed upon a maximum overload capacity on polyphase meters of thirty per cent. Whether this is the exact figure which will finally be used by the manufacturers I do not know, but it certainly gives them some idea of what the Central Station companies want. There is also in the report a mention of the necessity of revising the Meter Code which will undoubtedly be taken up this year. The first Code was published in 1910. A revised edition was published two years later. If this Code is to be kept as a standard it should be revised at least once in ten years. The Chairman of this Committee should be advised of anything in the Code which we think. needs change as early as possible, because undoubtedly that work ought to be done by the Committee during the coming year. There is also a suggestion that we discuss somewhat the revision of the meter handbook and the possible change to a two-volume edition. Perhaps I am not looking at the Meterman's Handbook from an unprejudiced point of view, because it was first published by a committee of which I was Chairman, and it has always been a hobby of mine, but I do not like the idea of making a two-volume edition out of it. I think we ought to have a handbook in one volume which will cover what a meterman especially needs. I notice that there is a lot of material which might be cut out, perhaps to advantage, in the present edition. I think if the Committee would take up the handbook with the idea of cutting out as much as possible of the present material or condensing it they would have plenty of room in one volume for the new material, which it is undoubtedly necessary to publish. For instance, in the chapter on "Meter Reading" I think you will find we have several descriptions there of how to read a meter as stated by the General Electric Company, the Westinghouse Company and the Duncan Company perhaps. Well, when we first got out the handbook we were not quite so cramped for space and we wanted to make it comprehensive, but those several pages of material could easily be contracted into about one-third of the space by careful editing and giving the best points in each description. Space could be gained, also, by cutting out some cuts of apparatus which has become nearly or quite obsolete. These are simply suggestions as to how the Committee could go at the present handbook to cut it down and still preserve all the different features which are involved and have both the instructive matter and descriptive and reference matter in a single volume. C. G. DURFEE: I happened to have the honor of being Chairman of the Meter Committee at the time of the first revision of the meterman's handbook, and when we started to revise it I did not think I had a very big job on my hands but before I got through with it I realized more than I ever was able to before what a job Mr. Bushnell's Committee must have had in making the handbook up originally. With reference to what Mr. Bushnell has said of the obsolescence of certain methods set forth in the original handbook, the Committee at the time of the revision thought first of retiring a great deal of the subject matter of the handbook, but when we studied it out we felt that while there had been a great deal of advancement which necessitated a great deal of new material being put in the handbook, enough time had not elapsed and the meter men had not progressed quite far enough, especially in the smaller companies, to warrant leaving out very much of the matter that Mr. Bushnell's Committee had put into the handbook. There was a great deal of matter in the handbook that could very profitably be left out so far as it interested the larger companies or the meter men connected therewith, but we realized that there were many small companies whose metermen needed the handbook very much more than the employes of the large companies, and they would be very much embarrassed if we left out any of the data that Mr. Bushnell's Committee had seen fit to get together and put into the original work. We felt, therefore, that it was well to leave in practically all of the old matter and add to the handbook everything necessary to bring it up to date with the idea that a few years hence it would be possible to eliminate 25 or 30 per cent of the matter in the handbook without detracting from the value of the work. I feel now that the time has arrived when the metermen, even of the very smallest companies, have through their association with the National Electric Light Association and the progress in the art, reached a situation where they can do without a great deal of the early data which was very valuable originally, and I think that it would help the meter committee very materially, especially the subcommittee which will be charged with the revision of the handbook, if metermen generally who are not on the committee will communicate with the Chairman of the National Committee and suggest such matter in the original handbook as they believe to be obsolescent avoid the necessity of having the revised handbook and which could be profitably left out in order to in two volumes instead of one, as I thoroughly agree with Mr. Bushnell that the handbook will be very much more serviceable in one volume than in two. W. H. FELLOWS: The idea of the two books was not brought forth for the purpose of making two books of it but to present to you gentlemen here in order that we might find out what was wanted, because that is where the book is going, to the people who use it, and if you think it would be of any value to you in two books, then we would like to know it. CHAIRMAN WADSWORTH: That is the point I was going to bring up, that we just brought it before you so you can discuss it very thoroughly. We will |