[TowerTalk] DIY conduit locator?

[Gedas]

Being a smart-a$$ here but sounds like an ideal application for your 
typical Chinese SMPS wall-wart ! Puts out gobs of high-level RF from a 
few kHz to a couple hundred MHz !

Gedas, W8BYA EN70JT

Gallery at http://w8bya.com
Light travels faster than sound....
This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

On 10/28/2020 4:26 PM, n0tt1 at juno.com wrote:
> Grant,
>
> I made a "multi-freq" oscillator using a couple of 555 timers, one of
> which was
> allowed to run almost "wide open".  That was the signal
> generator/oscillator.  The other
> 555 turned the oscillator on and off resulting in a beep-beep that was
> easily
> heard when the signal was very low.  So, now I had a low-power, portable,
> RF regenerator with
> lots of harmonics that could be heard with say, a broadcast band radio.
> So now what?
>
> I connected the "hot" lead to the conductor I wanted to trace and then
> the "ground"
> lead was connected to say, a water pipe.  I was then able to trace the
> route of
> just about any underground wire for at least a couple hundred feet.  It's
> important
> to note that this method will not work if both connections are made to
> the
> same group of conductors.  The oscillator "ground" lead must go
> elsewhere,
> definitely not to the center and shield of the same coax for example.
> Experiment!!
>
> That said, I see no reason why you couldn't trace your conduit for some
> finite
> distance using just about any low/medium freq oscillator and a portable
> radio
> with the usual "built in" loop antenna.  That's even if your conduit is
> direct-buried
> or not.
>
> Happy hunting!
>
> 73,
> Charlie, N0TT
>
> On Wed, 28 Oct 2020 08:11:21 -0700 Grant Saviers <grants2 at pacbell.net>
> writes:
>> Trying to find a design for a empty conduit tracer.  We've dug at a
>> couple of places at the 501c3 where it was "supposed to go", NG.
>> Seems
>> to me this is a simple widget for energizing a test wire in the
>> conduit
>> or some sort of mouse - LF or magnetic placed on the end of a
>> snake.
>>
>> Some googling hasn't found a design so hoping a towertalkian has a
>> design or link to one that works.  This 2" conduit was installed
>> some
>> time ago at 24" depth but where it routes is now lost.
>>
>> The commercial tracers are $3000.  My budget is more like $20.  The
>>
>> usual AM radio and dongle SDR's are available.
>>
>> Also interested for when I need it to exactly locate my coax
>> conduits
>> before digging.
>>
>> Grant KZ1W
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>>
>>
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