Tracing Supply Cable

[richo106]

Morning All

 

I am trying to trace my supply cable into my house, Western Power have no drawings to help me

 

I have traced in by hand (as needed to move it) but i need to find the route to the road

 

At work I use an radio scanner with generator but this was no use as it has no earth (I am guessing)

 

Has any body got any other methods of how to trace my incoming supply cable to the house?

 

Many Thanks

[ProDave]

Buy or hire a CAT scanner    https://www.hireandbuy.co.uk/p/c-a-t-scanner/

 

Random link to show you what one is in case you don't know, not a recommendation to use that source.

[richo106]

I have CAT scanner that i borrowed through work. I couldn't get it to pick the power cable up even though I knew exactly where it was so I am a bit stumped

 

 

[Radian]

I made a wideband receiver using an old ferrite rod antenna and some cascaded transistor amplifier stages driving headphones to do the same thing. The harmonics from light dimmers gave the most detectable RF but the general mush from all the SMPS in the house also gave plenty to pick up. Of course this amplifier was not tuned and demodulation into audio was only by virtue of inherent non-linearities so I don't know how a fancy scanner might behave. Whatever, you could try scanning near a dimmer to identify the strongest harmonic then take that channel outside - starting at the incomer and see if, and how far from there, it persists. 

[nod]

3 hours ago, ProDave said:

Buy or hire a CAT scanner    https://www.hireandbuy.co.uk/p/c-a-t-scanner/

 

Random link to show you what one is in case you don't know, not a recommendation to use that source.

Good advise 

I borrowed one to check out a plot we where buying 

I was surprised how accurate it was 

[TonyT]

Cat and generator.

 

you clip a loop from the generator around the supply cable, it induces a signal into the cable you are trying to find, the cat scanner is tuned to that signal.

 

or just put the cat scanner on power mode to defect Cabling.

[SteamyTea]

22 hours ago, Radian said:

I made a wideband receiver using an old ferrite rod antenna and some cascaded transistor amplifier stages driving headphones to do the same thing. The harmonics from light dimmers gave the most detectable RF but the general mush from all the SMPS in the house also gave plenty to pick up. Of course this amplifier was not tuned and demodulation into audio was only by virtue of inherent non-linearities so I don't know how a fancy scanner might behave. Whatever, you could try scanning near a dimmer to identify the strongest harmonic then take that channel outside - starting at the incomer and see if, and how far from there, it persists. 

Sounds like English, but makes no sense.

Don't we just love technical language.

[ProDave]

10 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Sounds like English, but makes no sense.

Don't we just love technical language.

I understood it perfectly.