I have a hidden dog fence, specifically this one , and apparently, the loop on the radio wire buried in my lawn has been broken; I know not where, how, or when. Is there a way to tell where the loop is broken? When the system was installed, the installer told me that if I ever forget where the wire was buried I could walk towards the property line with an AM radio held close to the ground, and when I herd a burst of static, I was over the wire. Seeing that this loop is not intact, I don’t think this is the tactic I should use. (I don’t need to know where the wire is, just where it’s broken.) I have broken the wire before planting some bushes, and fixed it with some THHN wire, no prob- for the record, I checked the splice- still good. Any ideas?
Thanks! :smack:
The Dogwatch website unhelpfully says:
[quote]
If you have a wire break, contact your dealer for assistance. I can think of nothing, short of expensive reflectometer testing or digging up the wire that might reveal where the break is, unfortunately. If the collar doesn’t detect any signal from any part of the loop, then there’s little else you can do. Telco technicians use a Fox and Hound transmitter/receiver to trace wiring, but you’d need to modify it for this particular purpose, and even then, success will be greatly dependant on the sensitivity of the receiver–most are designed to work in very close proximity to the wire being traced, not under several inches of dirt… Presumably the installers have such a device they use in cases like this.
We never bothered to install an invisible fence, we just told Duchess that we did. That dog will believe anything…
I’m ignorant of how the system works, so if my solution is laughably impossible for some reason please bear with me.
As long as the wire is insulated from the soil, something should change, electrically, when and where it breaks. You could try testing it with a grounded voltmeter close to where it enters the the soil surface at the box, then dig up the wire halfway, make a small hole in the insulation and see if you get juice there. In this fashion, you can track down the break a little more logically then digging up the whole length and looking for a physical break.
Of course, if the sytem output is not suited to this type of testing, you could temporarily connect a battery to facilitate this, looking for DC, or connect one probe to a (long) jumper wire back to the buried wire’s post on the box and measure resistance.
Good Luck
I’m facing the same problem with my system (not happy about the thought of burying wire around 3/4 acre lot again). The directions from the folks at PetSafe suggest the following:
Locate wire at about the halfway point in your underground loop, cut the wire, then run a new piece of wire along the top of the ground back to your power unit. Place one end of the new temporary wire into your power unit and splice the other end onto one of the ends created when you cut the wire at the halfway point. If you now have a closed loop by using the temp wire, you know that your problem area is in the other half of the system not being used. I know this sounds confusing, but I can’t think of any other way to describe it. Basically, what they are saying is that there is no way to find where the exact problem is, just ways to reduce the amount of buried wire you need to replace.
Only other suggestion I have is to walk the perimeter of your “fenced” area and look for any place where the ground has been disturbed by digging (dogs, moles, etc.)
I had the same problem. I went to Innotek.net and asked for advice. They made my system, but, hey, they all work the same. They told me to get an RF choke from Radio Snack and wire it across the fence terminals in the garage. That makes the remaining wire in the loop radiate a throbbing signal. Then take a portable radio tuned to pick up the throb, and walk the loop slowly. It will weaken where the wire has been nicked, and it will stop where the wire is cut. I spent some time crawling around with a claw cultivator, splicing past the nicks and cuts. I had a new wire stripper, a coil of wire, and a box of crimp-on butt splices. After each crimp, I sealed the fastener with silicone goop. When you’re done, remove the RF choke, and release the pooch.
Good luck.