determining ltc 102 position changes includes sensing the movement of ltc motor 120 by current sensor 110 at step 202 this sensed movement is passed to rtu 150 and software application 140 as a status change at step 204 at step 206 the status change keys rtu 150 to read the regulated voltage input v 1 when ltc motor 120 stops running at step 208 the status reverts keying a second voltage reading v 2 at step 210 the two voltage readings are then subtracted to approximate the voltage change produced by ltc 102 this voltage change is then divided by a configurable value which in this example is about 0 75 volts per step again as described above this is based on a standard u2212 10 ltc that changes voltage at about u215d per step on a 120 volt base wherein u215d of 120 volts 0 75 volts per step each direction for raise and lower directions of movement this result is rounded to the nearest integer to represent the number of taps moved to complete step 212 the number generated at step 212 is then added for voltage increases or subtracted for voltage decreases to the previous ltc position to obtain the new value at step 214 this new value is used for subsequent tap changes in order to continue monitoring system 100 and repeating method 200 further this new value then becomes the ltc position for the next calculation referring.