Meter reading
From casual observation, the meter readers have to lift the plastic lid off the meter pit before using the reader. So from that I can assume close proximity is required, I suppose it stops the wrong meter from being read. The reed switch method will be tried this weekend, I have a bicycle speedo/distance meter that actually came in a cornflakes packet, it has a stting to read pulses from a magnet attached to a wheel. So a quick bit of screw mangling and I'll have a proto-reader.