CAT & Genny Cable Detectors

About CAT & Genny Cable Detectors

Everything you need for detecting and tracing the path of underground buried utilities is included in this section. Don't neglect underground safety; use this equipment to quickly find hidden utilities.

Cable avoidance tools (CATs) and Gennys are essential equipment for use by any excavation professional. As modern society becomes increasingly reliant on underground structures, including electrical cabling, telecom cabling, and piping, the complexity of underground systems has increased over time.

This leads to a higher danger for those excavating to reach cabling and other installations. The chances of accidentally striking a live cable, causing damage to essential systems, and endangering yourself when digging has increased exponentially, thus increasing the importance of using detection equipment to accurately determine the location of buried utilities and work safely around them.

A CAT is used for this purpose and can detect signals naturally radiated from metallic surfaces to allow the user to map out the path of an underground cabling structure. These tools are used to determine the path of most types of buried utilities, but some utilities, such as underground piping, do not give off signals for the CAT to pick up on.

For this purpose, a Genny must be used in tandem with a CAT. A genny is used to generate a signal that bounces through the ground around the CAT, allowing the CAT to determine the location of a utility as the generated signal bounces off the utility and returns to the tool.

Although it isn't always necessary to use both a CAT and Genny simultaneously, it is always best practice to do so. This way you ensure that you don't miss anything buried underground and generate an accurate map of the underground installation. If a genny is not used, the CAT could easily miss buried utilities that do not generate a signal, posing a potential risk to the professionals excavating the ground.