<SOLVED>
OK so my presumption/suspicion was right, does need to be sending an active signal for the node to transmit any data.
Seems to be working well now, just have to find a spot in my long house where the gateway will reliably talk to the polytunnel AND the meter reader.
And for any others struggling with this, especially getting the sensor LM393 to work, I found it needs to be pointed directly at the LED in my meter, not side on. To achieve this I drilled a small hole in the top of a jam jar lid and epoxied the board to it, then taped the lid to the meter. Seems to be working a treat now. YAY! Thanks MS team, you have a great product. Next step is temp sensors for the kids bedrooms and a relay on their heaters (winter is coming to the deep south of NZ)
Cheers,
Matt