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Develop your craft and get into In House locating. It can be somewhat physically demanding job depending on location… Manholes are heavy man… id say be comfortable lifting 50 pounds minimum… but for manholes, idk how heavy they are but they are not light! Lol but we all need a reason to get into the Gym. You should want to treat your body better, live healthier, be better, this job really can develop life skills, communication, driving, deescalation skills, confrontation skills, DOGS, CRACKHEADS… minimum, carry pepperspray… it works on Dogs and Id say people but crackheads are another level… ive seen a lot while locating. You have a right to self defense. God given right. Pepperspray is a tool but there are better tools for the job that ensure you safely return to your family at night man. This job puts you into dangerous situations man… AINT NO AMOUNT OF MONEY OR JOB IS WORTH YOUR LIFE… these companies dont trust you to be a good honest decent human being and do the right thing. Take that as you will if u catch my drift. Stay strapped or get clapped… but honestly, hope it never comes to that point but you never know man. Pepperspray works on dogs… dog is just a dog and it does dog things when protecting owner/breed it is, etc… i used pepperspray to save my ass 3 times from dogs. Its been immediate change in behavior so far. Anyways, thanks for reading! If u want more and made it this far… feel free to ask a question

LASTLY, Locating is an awesome Job man. Company vehicle, company gas… you’re basically paid to drive around and perform a task. This task, often has plenty of OT opportunities. I mean 60 hours plus… but the days FLY by man… and you get a specific geographic area, you get all 811 tickets in that area and the utilities depends on who u work for. Company truck, work on ur own, outside, its different and freeing in a way… however, there is countless stress, risk to accidents, driving, crackheads, gangs, EVERY SINGLE PERSONS HOUSE YOU WALK UP TO IS RISKING CONFRONTATIONS… im not saying be aggressive, but be professional and polite but also state what you do, why youre doing it, the importance of doing it, especially gas and ESPECIALLY power… gas is bad to hit no doubt… Power is unforgiving… that shit will MELT you… or anyone digging/drilling. Its serious business man. MILLIONs of dollars and lives at stake… every day. So much digging everyday… so much work goes into being able to flip a light switch everyday. Thats the cheesy seriousness end… not saying we are heroes by any means… but my point being is, its a field that isnt truly taken seriously by these companies… they dont care about protecting the public from utility damages(whether its bitching about internet or power, etc etc)… they care about jobs done an hour… more tickets an hour the better… reality is, its hardly doable… to PERFECT YOUR TRADE, You have to be in a company and mindset of prioritizing preventing damages of the customer. COVER YOUR ASS. Youre forced to use ur instincts on people, hard to take anyone at their word… thus, the importance of developing relationships with local crews to work together to perform a task… its rewarding job when u do it… but youll be bitched at for tending to crews helping them protect the utilities…when you *should be closing tickets. It develops a lot of life skills honestly! Driving, fitness, stress, time management, being in rhythm… day to day, its more rewarding than Taco Bell or Mcdonalds, walmart, etc… ur on ur own, can listen to music, books, jam tf out while driving job to job, eat as u go, day flies by… its awesome. Just not taken seriously enough all around… from existing locators, to crews, to companies, etc. underpaid and overworked but thats life aint it

All in all, the Physics behind locating is the same as the physics for Electricity… it is the same. We are turning conductors into magnets by introducing electricity onto the conductive material. You cannot have magnetic fields without electricity and you cannot have electrical fieldswithout magnetic fields. They are simultaneous energy fields dancing with eachother in time in space… in the United States, Power lines run at a base 60Hz… this is the frequency, the speed at which waves flow within an electromagnetic field… this is what power mode is doing on higher end receivers like RD models and vivax models… The receiver is a tool that uses a 2D lense to capture the invisible 3D energy fields all around… this is why power lines can cause distortion in locates, rebar in concrete, cars in the locate path, any metal… its distrubing an energy field and fooling the instrument you are using… this is why RD is the best because the chips they use and the codes they right, help decipher conflicting electromagnetic fields. This is very basic understanding of the electromagnetic spectrum… learning this can help advance the view of locators from being “ahhh ya dumb ass locators” to freaking scientists lol

So how does this apply across the utilities? Well if you lucky and have a vivax like this guy or a RD cuz its the best… When hooking to trace wire for instance in 8Khz… when using the RD transmitter on 2 “bumps” of power (this meaning how much energy ur putting into the line). I know, that its likely to be a good locate if I see on my TRANSmitter that Im pushing 20milliAmps… youll also notice Voltage indicator too… with 8Khz frequency, I should see 20mA and the voltage all depends… this is where what ive said throughout my comments takes place… I know I should receive 20mA on the box. If I dont, then I immediately know there is continuity issues in the utility or trace wire… if I do get 20mA and the voltage is at 30 volts (in the RDTX10 case, this is the max standard voltage output) voltage for locating sense tells me as the locator, How much Energy is required to PUSH the Current (20mA is the current we are pushing while using 8Khz with 50% power (2 bumps)… the lower the voltage the better the circuit, the better the circuit, the better the locate. However, like everything, this is not an absolute… ive located bare wire trace wire that is buried with old gas lines. This wire is often eroded completely away but not always… this is an example where youll see the readings put out by transmitter and it sure looks good… but u must understand that the wire u locating, is corroded, broken and directly touching the ground… giving the illusion of a good circuit connection but in reality its not… but this is one tip that can help u identify immediately, depending on context so use it as a general guideline… once u know ur area more then itll help adapt that guideline to ur needs…

Test this yourself, take copper wire, to simulate trace wire. You can do it in ur back yard, shit use an extension cord… but hook up to wire like u would a locate and just leave the other end open ended… use ur receiver and cycle thru freq to see how freq affect locate. Higher frequency allow u to trace it out closer to the end… lower freq just dont have enough power to give u feed back due to the wire not being grounded… Next, using the same technique, but ground out the trace wire and go back to locating… youll immediately notice a far better signal, especially in lower frequency.

3: CONTINUITY: This could mean many things depending on the utility you are locating… Electric Primaries are a freaking nightmare at times and they should be treated as exception, not the rule for what im going to say… What we are doing when we are locating is, creating an electromagnetic field, by using electricity from our transmitter and direct that Energy onto a CONDUCTOR. Conductors in this sense is anything with metal (for simplicity sakes), trace wire, telephone, fiber(if sheathed on inside), gas lines, water lines, steel gas mains… The Frequency is the wave length measurement, higher frequency creates more waves, giving it a stronger tone right away, really nice cuz it saves a lot of bullshit readings that frequencies like 512 Hz, 940 give… however, downside to this energetic frequency level, is itll lose its energy faster over distance, meaning signal strength does not go as far as lower frequencies… so if ur going 10 mile locate… 200Khz might not be it… the other issue is that, in highly congested areas (other conductive materials in ground; i.e. god damn copper telephone lines abandoned in ground, live telephone, my god theres so much communications.) an inexperienced or lazy locator can easily bleed off onto adjacent facilities. This isn’t necessarily because high freq tho… if ur trace wire is broken down the road, that frequency you are sending down the line is traveling at the speed of light… when a trace wire is broken or corrosion on the line happens, that electromagnetic field wants to be grounded, if it comes into resistance, such as a wire break, corrosion, etc, itll look for a way to return back to the ground rod you have in the ground (which also is why placing your ground rod isnt like playing beer darts; Especially on shitty locates), the signal can jump onto the next conductor because its the path of least resistance. This can back field the signal back up to you and cause you to mark the wrong facility… (like if a company drilled in a phone line and it crosses under your utility, and you notice the bleed off and know where ur line runs, u can often work it back, marking the bleed off utility and finding out where that utility crosses your utility… this may be cuz they hit the trace wire when they crossed it and that signal is now jumping from the trace wire, back onto the cable that damaged it. Too complex to type but easy to demonstrate… ive kinda gone off the deep end here which is why I should start making videos. Ive been through the stresses, mental breakdowns, endless sea of Late tickets… one ticket at a time my friends… itll pay in time

2: Induction via Ring clamp: if you have a induction clamp, this can solve a lot of issues that direct connection can have, such as finding a ground point. The covers at the base of the light are often not fastened down but instead freely move and only protect the bolted joints from direct exposure to elements. This cover can be moved upwards and you can look underneath the base and often see the conduits coming up. If your clamp is small enough, you can wiggle it under and clamp around the conduits. This is the more direct version of the method he is using. This directs the signal to anything inside the ring clamp. To test if you have a complete circuit from the clamp, put your frequency to the lowest it can go, if u hear high pitching ringing noise, then you know you have a circuit while using the clamp… 8khz, 9.8Khz, 33Khz all work well. People will shreek about using high frequency like 33 but thats cuz theyve been drilled constantly about dangers of bleed off. Bleed off is when the frequency you are forcing onto the utility, is jumping onto another conductor in the ground. But ive found if you pay attention to your tone (strength can be measured by the bar itself, you dont need numbers or arrows, just visually watch the bar, if the bar holds true then you know mentally youre onto something, important note when it comes to reading your DEPTH… when INDUCING, the closer you are to the induction point (box or clamp), your depth reading WILL not be accurate. The distance at which you need to walk away to loose that distortion is based off the Frequency you are using and the utlity but its mostly Frequency. The higher the frequency, the closer you can get. I recommend getting a feel for how the utilities tone out before you start using high frequencies… street lights run shallow in MN, 12-18” but mostly around a foot deep. A lot has to do with experience on identifying potential distortion in area. But after ring clamping conduits, do a big 360 Degree sweep about 30’ away, just walk in a big ass circle (which is good tip for anytime you lose a signal, hook up to unknown utility, etc). Street lights and Power lines really like this method for whatever reason… street lights especially, but NOT ALWAYS. Then with your receiver, hold it in a single orientation as you 360 degree sweep. Once u get a tone, if you have receiver that displays the mAn depth then you can pause and let the display show you, this is why I say tone bar is far better than mA and depth cuz it tells you the strength via sound and visually. From there, you can put a dot down to reference as you continue your sweep. You likely will get two tones, dont be alarmed, this is normal… if daisy chained, the cables you are locating are all connected to each other… and in order for power to work correctly, it needs to be a complete circuit. From this point you can proceed to dotting out your peak tone and keep following it out until you are outside the work area. When marking power, people struggle with focusing so much on a physical spot, if you have shitty power ur trying to mark, walk out the tone and see where it takes you, this can save a headache by not wasting time painting the ground then having to cross it out or bleeding off onto something else. This will be experience that helps you understand the infrastructure of how steeet lights usually run in your area. If you go to every light and it does the same thing, more likely than not its all ran the same way… and its easy to be complacent this way… we arent paid to be complacent and assume. Always verify… but knowing that it often runs this way, can eliminate some of the steps and speed you up… i often try and visually identify a light that is farthest away, this helps the locate tone better for one, since you arent trying to force a signal two different ways, when encountering troublesome utilities. CONTINUITY in the conductive material is crucial for locating… how this fits in to this example is, if you locate at a random light and this random light just happens to be in the middle of the circuitry (think of the lights as the circuits, the best tone will be in direction that has the best ground… often back towards the building. Sometimes when inducing or direct connecting to Street lights, it can locate one direction really good but wont go anywhere else… it could be because there is only one line or it could be cuz at the end of the circuit away from building (the last light in the daisy chain), is not as well grounded as the main ground back at the source. So by going to the farthest light away, can eliminate having to go from one pole to another. I recommend looking into electromagnetic fields… cuz honestly once you understand the very basic of the science in how this method works, youll be unstoppable…

I need to make a video on some tips. I can get you locating anything. A lot of it though is experience and “feel.” Once you understand the basics of how shit is running in ground (electric, private elec street lights like he doing, gas, water, co-ax). To use this example in video to help me stay on track. First off, this is just one technique of several possible ways of finding this power line. Im going to speak as if those who are reading this have no experience. If your contract locating, more likely than not you are not required to mark none customer utilities because in marking those utilities, you therefore set yourself (the company you locate for technically) for being thrown under the bus. However, a tip of advice is when you are locating for companies like USIC, UtiliQuest, etc, you are often under staffed and overworked, so ur prolly stressed as is… but in developing a good reputation with local crews gets talked about, you often can save them THOUSANDS of dollars and good crews will show their gratitude but dont expect a trophy. It makes you feel good inside and do it long enough, you might end up on the facility owner side of things. For me, that is Xcel Energy. The point is, taking the time to sharpen your experience level makes you an asset and betrer locator overall. Alright back to tips, 1.) Direction Connection: in a comment I made a year ago from this post, I said you can often just hook to the bolts of the street light itself to tone out the electric line. The issue is, if ur in the middle of the parking lot, u got nowhere to ground. When you hook to the bolt fasteners that attach the light to the base, you are sending signal to the common ground of the light itself. There is most likely going to be 3 wires inside, containing a Black; White and Green. Im not an electrician but I do this a lot and I have general knowledge of electric code which helps, but just know IM NOT SPEAKING IN ABSOLUTES. Black is HOT, White is neutral, Green is GROUND. Do not go poking into anything if you dont know what youre doing, I use a voltage tester to verify most of the time. More likely than not itll be this wire config…. But ive opened them up and found, Red, blue, white, green, black and orange and brown all the same one (which i later found out was the contractor that ran the lights just used whayever cable they had lol, this is why I voltage test). If you are lucky enough to have bollards by the light (the cylinder barriers that prevent vehicle damage; like at gas stetions, gas meters, etc etc). You can use a file from ur multitool to expose bare metal on the bollard, then using a magnet, hook ur ground lead to the magnet and ur red lead to the bolt… then if ur Transmitter indicates its pushing a signal, then you know you’re good to go. Sometimes the magnet may not be touching the bare metal exactly so if ur hooked up and get 0mA at the transmitter, wiggle the magnet around with the ground lead still connected and see if you get a signal output then. I use the RD8100 and Tx10… the equipment is top tier but it still relevant to the basic principle… if u have a very basic unit with no displays, read the manual (sorry, im limited to my experiences). IF NO place to ground out, like dead center of a parking lot, its not the end of the world, Street lights like this are often daisy chained together, meaning that the electric wires run from light to light to light to light, often using wire nuts or connectors inside the pole itself… what this means for you is that, this means you often can find a street light close to a grounding point. The MAIN feed for these lights is being supplied by power from inside the building out. Meaning while observing your environment, sometimes there will be conduits on ext of buildings, the conduits for these lines are usually smaller in diameter… this helps you because if you spot a conduit outside a building, this can help you find where its coming from and you can work it back (which is another Direct connect OR induction method).

I am a locator but a certified locator so i know all of it man.

If you had tried 69%, it would’ve been niiiiiiice

Your equipment works like crap.

I’m just being honest you suck hopfully you do not locate any more

Woooow !!!!

#technique

My supervisor has our vivax locator strictly on peak null, I think it works well, but it’s still all new to me. I’m down for my comment to be a conversation piece on what actually works best

Taking over the family business this helped a lot

Excellent

Nice, so it’s kind of like triangulation

I applied for a utility locator job, how does the training work? Do I need to drive to a classroom?

Out of interest, what camera are you using? It has great image quality. I was thinking I would invest in a camera so I have a good record of all of my locate jobs...

You just earned a subscriber! Great video

An easier way to do this is, on top of the pipe touch the ground with the receiver and tilt it to 45 degrees. Slowly start to move left or right until your meter peeks. The distance between the peaks is your dept. A Squared x B squared= C Squared.

Power 60 that

I appreciate the spirit of the team work as well as the service to keep the people well informed. . . . WELL DEDICATED . . . . .

Would like to see more videos great info for green horns.

I’m 17 and I’m watching your vids over and over to learn how to locate better as I have no one in real life to help lol. Starting a business locating. Trying to find more channels that teach this, hoping you upload more ❤️

You can also hook up to the bolts on Street lights with standard leads. Hard part usually is finding a ground spot

Awesome info looking forward to some more videos from you.

Thanks for the videos fr I start a new locating job Monday and really needed this

Looking up these videos. I applied for this job almost a month ago. Application still in progress. I hope to get the job

Most accurate thing "the locates you think will be easy and quick aren't and the ones you put off for a couple days because you think it will be a bad one is quick and easy" 😂

Thanks!

What’s the best way to locate low voltage street lights

Thanks!

Thanks

Excellent

Thanks for this post! Super helpful!

Do u have basic concept or pdf file that i can study for deeper understanding on this field. Planning to change a career in this field. Thanks a lot.

Seems like good info but the shaking of the video makes it hard to watch.

I read several comments below from new inexperienced locators and I would like to comment to them. I have been locating for about 50 years and have been a trainer for over 20 years. I would never recommend to a new locator to use this method. Direct connection is always the preferred method. Different employers have different rules but everywhere I've worked we trained our locators to open the inspection plate and use a voltage tester to test the circuit and then use the green ground to hook up to. If you are unable to access the wires and the pole is metal you can try connecting directly to the pole, as was stated below. Sometimes you may fine a pull box at the base of the pole and you an access the wires there. You really need to know haw many lines are leaving a pole so you can account for all of them. Inductive locating may not always create a signal all all of them. Remember your signal will take the path of least resistance to ground. If you have multiple circuits leaving a location Inductive locating will not guarantee you will detect the all......Just my opinion

Hi. Can you tell me the deepest it can go? Can I use it to find a buried treasure?!!

Hi. Can you tell me the deepest it can go? Can I use it to find a buried treasure?!!

Love this way for cast and steel. Easiest way more bleed over but it’s good as long as you know where the lines are.

Thanks for sharing - great video

Is it possible to get a reliable depth with the vLoc Pro 3 while inducing? We tested some known utility depths based on top of utility being spotted and we were seeing numbers more than double the true depth.

What’s the best things to say on the phone interview?

USIC phone interviewer/recruiter offered $18.00hr starting pay. I drive 70miles to the Northeast Florida, Jacksonville office for the in-person interview, and the pay offered was $16.50. Total bait-and-switch bullcrap. Totally not interested in any company which relies on unethical business practices like this. I have 2 other job offers from unrelated businesses @ 17 & 18hr. I would not have wasted my time and gas on USIC had they been honest. Florida is an 'at-will' employment state. A bait and switch is not illegal, but just reasonably imagine what USIC management may do through the years of employment if they have the cajones and moral-deficiency to do that at the very onset!

If you had to check an area of slab just to see if there are any conduit lines, would you be able to do this without the box? If youre scanning an area just to see if there are pipes, you cant really attach the box to anything.

Amazing video. Keep coming. I have learned a lot

What did you ground to near that light?