Why does this work???

[underground quester]

Coupled onto a ground wire under u tube on a wooden power pole the other day in order to locate the power cable transitioning from overhead to underground.
In this instance it worked sweet as heck.

But, the question in my orderly,
need to know all the answers mind
is:

WHY DOES IT WORK?

If I am coupling to the grounding wire, why does the signal not take the easy way out and simply run to earth?

Have been playing this around in my mind for a few weeks now. Have thought of a few things that COULD be occuring.

Is it simply a matter of the signal travelling to earth, inducting onto the underground cable and travelling along it? Naw, that would be too simple!

Anyone have an answer to why this works?

ThanX everyone

[hawkeyejr]

Because that ground wire goes up the pole and is grounded to the power, It works good as long as there is no Cable TV or Phone on the pole with the same ground

[Jared]

Try it again on 512Hz... it won't work worth a crap. Lower frequencies will seek out ground on the path of least resistance more than higher frequencies. The flip side of this is that higher frequencies will push toward paths of greater resistance (dead ends, etc) more easily.

Hooking to the ground wire on the pole is literally hooking up to the neutral conductor. That is exactly what you're doing when you hook to a power meter, transformer, switch, j-box, etc. The neutral is bonded to the metal case of the fixture, while on a pole the ground wire is bonded to the neutral conductor. What you're doing at the pole is no different than hooking up to any other power box.

Power boxes are grounded just like the pole. In both cases, most of your transmitting current IS just going into the ground, but some travels down the neutral conductor. This is why power typically takes more transmitting power or more gain to get a similar signal strength compared to other utilities.

Clear as mud?

Jared

[Goldenboy]

I have seen guys couple ground wires on poles and even ground wires in peds. I don't think I'd ever use coupling in these situations but I've seen it done. I don't know why but when you couple the ground the signal jumps from the ground wire to the sheath of whatever you're coupled to.

That's one thing with locating. Even though we all know what we're doing, half the time we don't know why it's doing what we're doing.

[RD_Wrangler]

Try it again on 512Hz... it won't work worth a crap. Lower frequencies will seek out ground on the path of least resistance more than higher frequencies. The flip side of this is that higher frequencies will push toward paths of greater resistance (dead ends, etc) more easily.

Hooking to the ground wire on the pole is literally hooking up to the neutral conductor. That is exactly what you're doing when you hook to a power meter, transformer, switch, j-box, etc. The neutral is bonded to the metal case of the fixture, while on a pole the ground wire is bonded to the neutral conductor. What you're doing at the pole is no different than hooking up to any other power box.

Power boxes are grounded just like the pole. In both cases, most of your transmitting current IS just going into the ground, but some travels down the neutral conductor. This is why power typically takes more transmitting power or more gain to get a similar signal strength compared to other utilities.

Clear as mud?

Jared

What he said!

Though I'm with Golden...I'd rather dc the groound than couple.

[Oldschoollocator]

Because that ground wire goes up the pole and is grounded to the power, It works good as long as there is no Cable TV or Phone on the pole with the same ground

All of the above is true On poles if others are attached you will find they all will bond to the ground wire on the pole. you can clip on the groud walk away and find all the lines comming off the pole ,But you really cant identify what is what unless you follow each signal to the next available structure, also if you clip on a ground wire at 1 pole walk down the road and you will find that you can locate other pole drops down the Poles as long as the bond on the poles are intact your signal will carry on the over head wires, this works great except again you will need to follow to another structure to identify the cable. I spent years building the aerial cable in Arlington all strand and cable is required to be bonded, except for fiber (but thats a different animal)

[yahoo]

All of the above is true On poles if others are attached you will find they all will bond to the ground wire on the pole. you can clip on the groud walk away and find all the lines comming off the pole ,But you really cant identify what is what unless you follow each signal to the next available structure, also if you clip on a ground wire at 1 pole walk down the road and you will find that you can locate other pole drops down the Poles as long as the bond on the poles are intact your signal will carry on the over head wires, this works great except again you will need to follow to another structure to identify the cable. I spent years building the aerial cable in Arlington all strand and cable is required to be bonded, except for fiber (but thats a different animal)

i used this trick to locate a fiber coming down the next pole that had u-gards all the way up the pole and no ground wire on that pole.....the fiber was going to a school duct that i could not couple to close to the brick wall!!!

[yahoo]

Coupled onto a ground wire under u tube on a wooden power pole the other day in order to locate the power cable transitioning from overhead to underground.
In this instance it worked sweet as heck.

But, the question in my orderly,
need to know all the answers mind
is:

WHY DOES IT WORK?

If I am coupling to the grounding wire, why does the signal not take the easy way out and simply run to earth?

Have been playing this around in my mind for a few weeks now. Have thought of a few things that COULD be occuring.

Is it simply a matter of the signal travelling to earth, inducting onto the underground cable and travelling along it? Naw, that would be too simple!

Anyone have an answer to why this works?

ThanX everyone

dude....have yet to figure out how it works ...but know that it does work!!!

[underground quester]

A great big


THANX

everyone!