Back, before Covid, when we could actually travel interstate, I attended a meeting with a group of other locators. During it, there was a discussion about which antenna mode you should use when locating. I can’t quite remember how the topic itself came up. It certainly wasn’t on the agenda, but it was something like, “On the receiver do you use combined mode, or do you locate in peak and then confirm in Null?”
Surprising, despite there being a lot of locators in the room, many of whom were experienced and had been in the locating industry for several years, there was still quite a heated debate with a range of different opinions.
There were those in the room that are trainers and they stated that you should locate in Peak and then confirm in Null and never use combined mode.
There were others that said that was impractical in the real world and that they only use combined mode and reminded the others that the service they offer is only a guide and you have to dig down and prove the underground utility, so if it is a few millimetres out here and there it is no big deal.
There were others that said that despite the locator being in combined mode, they were smart enough to be able to look at the screen and see what the peak was doing and see what he null was doing and they could tell when they weren’t lined up correctly and that they did not need to individually select peak and then null.
There were actually a couple of other responses as well, but I can’t quite remember them right at the moment.
In the end, with no one willing to admit that the other method was better than what they do, we finally decided to just move on. Locators can be a bit of stubborn breed and sometimes it’s easier to just agree to disagree lol.
So hence my excitement when the very next week I went out to do this service proving job and found that I had an optic fibre trace wire that, for some reason, wasn’t giving me a round signal. At first, the locate seemed fine, it didn’t seem like I had any issues with it, but it was only when I went to confirm with null mode that I found there was an issue.
Now yes, there will be some that will watch this video and will say that the combined mode was a touch over a foot out, so that is fine and is perfectly acceptable. But that was today on this job. What about if tomorrow’s job it is two feet out, what about if it is 4 foot out.
I say for the peace of mind, for yourself, to know you have done the locate correctly, a quick little sanity check is worth the extra couple of minutes it might take over the entire locate.
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www.geelongcablelocations.com.au
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Geelong Cable Locations are the experts to call when you need to know where underground cables and pipes are buried.
We service Geelong, Melbourne and Country Victoria.
We offer:
- Electromagnetic Field Locating (also known as digital locating, or just cable locating)
- Ground Penetrating Radar
- Non-Destructive Digging (also known as hydro excavation, or vacuum excavation, or even just known as NDD)
- Concrete scanning
- Acoustic locating (perfect for locating poly water pipes)
- Drafting
- GPS plotting
- Project management
We’ve been in business since 1998, making us one of the oldest and most experienced service locating companies in Victoria.
Our manager Ben Minutoli was the first in Victoria to obtain his Dial Before You Dig certification and, to date, we’re still the only company in Victoria to have multiple technicians within the company who are DBYD certified (if you don't know, that’s the highest level of certification for a locator in Australia).
Actually, if you don't know about the Dial Before You Dig certification you can find out more about it here, at a blog post Ben wrote when it first came out: geelongcablelocations.com.au/...
And you can also read more about it on another blog post he wrote 12 months after it was started, as well as some tips on how to know which locator to pick to come out to your site: geelongcablelocations.com.au/...
If you have a question about either of those blog posts or, better still, if we can be of any assistance to you with any of your locating needs-or even if you’d just like to discuss a project you’re working on-then feel free to call us toll-free on 1800 449 543.
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Music for this video sourced from www.bensound.com