Q: When we select Meters with Current Reads from the AAG Billing Reads module, some meters have tampers and encoder errors. How can these “current” reads be valid?
A: The current reads you are describing are the last valid read sent to the system before the Tamper or Encoder Error occurred. As such, they are valid reads that you can use for billing purposes. In other words, within a 24-hour period, the system received and stored valid reads. It also detected Tamper or Encoder errors after which the reads were treated as invalid and were not stored.
Similarly, if you export billing reads for these meters, you may still see Tamper flags. If you see a read in the Billing_Read column, it is because the read being exported was valid and occurred before the Tamper.
If you export Billing Reads via a BEACON Web Service API from a meter with a Tamper flag, depending on the read tolerance setting you could see a column with “Null” or a read. Null indicates that the Tamper prevented BEACON from getting a valid read within the specified tolerance. A read represents the last valid read within the specified tolerance.
