Too Much Signal: Taming the Sensitivity Control
Full signal is not always your friend: the erratic CAT, backing the output down, and finding the level that traces clean.
2:07
2026-08-05
Held, and searchable
Transcript
The whole recording in text, the same words Hertz answers from, so what you can watch you can also search and ask about.
0:00got full signal and then you try and just back it down a tiny bit and you end up with no signal. You can't kind of get your needle in the middle. It's either all on or it's all off. Has anybody ever had that experience with a with a cat before? Oh, got some nice fresh air coming through. That's nice. So, the reason for it and and it's the same with other locators as well, guys. We're talking about cat 4 is the re or the there are a few reasons, but the main reason that typically happens is that you have too much signal on the utility.
0:39The signal is too strong, basically, and it makes the CAT behave quite erratically. And this is a problem with all the kind of historical training that a lot of people have had. They talk quite a lot about make sure you get a really good earth and stick that pin right in and make sure you get a really good drop in tone. And it's not true, guys. You know, we don't want bucket loads of signal on there. We we just want enough to be able to locate it. Put too much signal down it and it causes us problems. So, if you look on the video now, what I want you
1:06to see on here is I'm watch my finger how much it moves and then watch the sensitive watch the needle here and you'll see what I mean. It's either full or it's off. I can't get it in the middle here. So, let me just play this for you. There's no comments coming back in about that Cat 4. So, maybe you've not had it, but oops. So to correct it, we turn the power down. And the easiest way of turning the power down is by pulling that earth out. You'll see now that it fixes it. See that, guys? Okay. If it's if it's especially wet as well,