"Geir Holmavatn" wrote in message
...
Say I have a disconnected electrical cable dug into the ground. I need to
trace the cable to find out its route and where it ends.

I wonder if it is possible to inject a signal from a signal generator
between one of this cable's conductors and earth and walk away with a
metal detector to trace the cable.


Why would a metal conductor be any more "detectable" with a signal on it
than without using a metal detector?

A metal detector won't work worth a damn if there's six inches of material
on top of it. It won't do what you want it to do.

What you want is a commercial cable detector. The good ones have a mode
which detects 60Hz AC (or 50Hz depending on where you live) so you could
just energize the cable and detect it with the detector. If you can't power
it up, there's a mode which uses a transmitter to put an RF signal on the
line which is then detected. I don't know if you can rent them, but any
decent-sized excavation company will have one as will most municipal public
works yards. They all read depths as well, and I've found them good to
deeper than four feet, depending on the ground composition up to 6'.