Patent ID: 7091878

Claim:
An apparatus for determining tampering in an electricity meter arrangement comprising: a service disconnect switch operable to controllably disconnect electrical power lines from a load, the load including at least first and second feeder lines; a voltage sense circuit coupled to sense voltage on the first and second feeder lines, the voltage sense circuit operable to generate a single voltage detection signal based on a first voltage on the first feeder line and a second voltage on the second feeder line, the voltage detection signal having a characteristic representative of whether line voltage from the electrical power lines is present on the first and second feeder lines; and a processing circuit operably connected to the voltage sense circuit to receive the voltage detection signal, the processing circuit operable to selectively generate a tamper flag based on whether the characteristic of the voltage detection signal indicates the presence of voltage on the first and second feeder lines when the service disconnect switch has disconnected the electrical power lines from the first and second feeder lines.