Cable locator

[Kerimov]

Hi y'all,

can you please help me to find any papers about cable locator (e.g. Leica Digicat) principle? I do not know what key words to look for, I just find some commercial brochures.

Many thanks. Keri

[Davor]

It is described fairly well here:
http://www.friese-electronic.de/ortu...echnik-lf-vlf/
There are also schematics and PCBs. It is in German.
(I'm not at liberty to share it)

[Kerimov]

Thanks a lot. It looks good. Unfortunatelly German is my weak side. Just some only basic brochures describing principles and electronics of industrial cable (active and passive) locators are enough for me.

[Davor]

I'm not aware of such papers, but from what I know about these locators is that they use either some existing LF transmission, or you have to power some LF transmitter of your own. The (far) field concentrates near conductive objects (opposite is for caves) and by ferrite antenna pointing down you obtain a minimum (!) when you are on top of such pipe etc. So by approaching a pipe you read increasing of the field, and a sharp minimum when right on top of it.

[chemelec]

It is described fairly well here:
http://www.friese-electronic.de/ortu...echnik-lf-vlf/
There are also schematics and PCBs. It is in German.
(I'm not at liberty to share it)

Right Mouse Click to get English Transulation.

[Funfinder]

The german product is called EMFAD and seems to works from 42-144 khz at Europe and Turkey because of
some longwave and time-pulse radio-stations there but for US the receiver must have 24 khz (military waves).

Depending how strong mineralized is the soil I doubt those weak longwaves will create good reflection signals of the buried pipes etc.


The Leica Digcat 550i detector comes with an extra transmitter and it also has special live-electricity detection, often through electrostatic fields.

[Davor]

...I doubt those weak longwaves will create good reflection signals of the buried pipes etc...

It is mostly "ground wave" propagation, and as such it becomes anomalous when metal objects, or voids are present in the soil.

[Qiaozhi]

It is described fairly well here:
http://www.friese-electronic.de/ortu...echnik-lf-vlf/
There are also schematics and PCBs. It is in German.
(I'm not at liberty to share it)

I tried to order it via PayPal. The website states that they'll send you an invoice by email telling you how to pay.
That was 2 days ago, but so far nothing.

[Davor]

I have no idea how to obtain it. Most probably people behind the website are enjoying their holidays somewhere on a Croatian coast right now. A friend passed me a copy, and I'm obliged not to forward it. I know what's inside and it strains my knowledge of German a lot, but circuit diagrams and pictures are very straightforward.

[bernte_one]

hello all

i hav eordered the book some month ago
funny to see it here
but with the info in the book you are not able to produce
all unit which are shown on te website

i mention it are two untis which a complete discribed

for cable locating
you van use the signal produced by the time transmitting stations
or some other longwave transmitters

or you take a locator which has a own transmitter part

so you can generate a signal which is injected direct into the cable
and you can follow the cable with the rx part of the locator

if you need any bad translation from german toenglish feel free to ask

[Qiaozhi]

hello all

i hav eordered the book some month ago
funny to see it here
but with the info in the book you are not able to produce
all unit which are shown on te website

i mention it are two untis which a complete discribed

for cable locating
you van use the signal produced by the time transmitting stations
or some other longwave transmitters

or you take a locator which has a own transmitter part

so you can generate a signal which is injected direct into the cable
and you can follow the cable with the rx part of the locator

if you need any bad translation from german toenglish feel free to ask

Is it worth buying?
It appears to be physically quite small (120 x 175 mm) with only 128 pages.

[bernte_one]

hello george,

i think you get more as you pay
the author is a known man in the radio amateur scene

i take a look into this book
and there a two diy projects
(but no layout for the solder tracks - bottom layer)

but partlists, sheme and placing layer (component side)

some theoretical stuff
and some modifications and other projects (but not in detail)

i thinks the critical part of all projects there are the ferrit antennas

[Qiaozhi]

hello george,

i think you get more as you pay
the author is a known man in the radio amateur scene

i take a look into this book
and there a two diy projects
(but no layout for the solder tracks - bottom layer)

but partlists, sheme and placing layer (component side)

some theoretical stuff
and some modifications and other projects (but not in detail)

i thinks the critical part of all projects there are the ferrit antennas

I took another look at the website. The book was in the shopping basket, even though I had gone through the whole ordering procedure, tried to pay by PayPal, and then received a message saying they would send me an invoice by email.
Still nothing...
I don't want to try again in case I end up ordering 2 copies.
Might contact them by email after a few more days, although I could have lost interest by then.

[Funfinder]

It is mostly "ground wave" propagation, and as such it becomes anomalous when metal objects, or voids are present in the soil.

Interesting topic, but its very doubful if it is really useable for treasure-hunting - this is the same passive locator stuff as Mineoro,
OKM and some of those homebrew pistol-ferrite-antenna-passive-locators.

The author writes on his website: http://www.friese-electronic.de/ortu...echnik-lf-vlf/
quote & translated:

Selbst mit einem kleinen DCF77-Pegelempfänger lassen sich metallische Rohrleitungen verfolgen, selbst wenn diese in einer Tiefe von mehreren Metern liegen.
Even with a little DCF77-EM-Level-Receiver metallic pipes are traceable, even if those are some meters deep.

Some meters deep - by unreliable longwave-ground waves or better by the vertical magnetical component of them?

Highly unprobable. Especially in regions with hills or mountains and even more questionable if the site is full with all kind of junk.

And he tells about locating with this stuff fundaments of bunkers and with some experience even mines and tunnels underground.


An usual sensitive gradiometer will work much more reliable as such a "misused AM-radio".


Davor, you may have more knowledge about it, thats why I have quoted your answer:


How this anomaly-stuff should work?

Assuming the 3m deep and 25cm thick metal pipe buried in high mineralized soil goes from north to south, the weak longwave AM radio station is 1000km in the east and the treasurehunter moves from west to east. All you will see on that "magnetwave-anomaly radio" is white noise and no special peak- or low-levels, but you may get signals if some horseshoes or other large iron objects are buried near under the surface. Not to mention ionosphere-anomalies, bad-weather conditions, earth-magnetical field distortions or EM fields who distort those ultra weak radio-signals. I have high gain AM receivers and large long wave antennas installed since many years and the only good reception at far distance is those of short waves at night, even many AM stations only transmit starting at the evening so bad are the transmission problems at daytime.


It may work in Germany if the transmitter-station is 100 kilometer nearby, at a junk-free test-field but for shure not reliable under real conditions for treasure-hunters!

This is the same mambo-jambo as the LRL-types wanna propagate with their passive-receivers.

A pure waste of time, interest, money, soldering-tin and electronic-parts - at least if there is no extra longwave-transmitter box close to the search field.

But in that case the receiver needs AGC - auto gain control - otherwise it will miss the detection range if the "ground wave" is either too weak or too strong
or seen under working conditions - if the detector-user walks too close or too far away from the transmitter box. And if there is some metal-spear that
injects the waves directly into the ground it will be even more complex, because ground conditions can varying alot.

[Qiaozhi]

Interesting topic, but its very doubful if it is really useable for treasure-hunting - this is the same passive locator stuff as Mineoro,
OKM and some of those homebrew pistol-ferrite-antenna-passive-locators.

This has nothing to do with LRLs. It is a perfectly legitimate method for cable and pipe location.
Here's a commercial example from C.Scope ->
http://www.cslocators.com/products/