In alt.home.repair, on Wed, 3 Jun 2020 20:54:48 -0700, Bob F
wrote:

On 6/3/2020 12:45 PM, Todesco wrote:
10 years ago I installed a post lamp in the front of my property.* The
house builder left a 2" plastic conduit (maybe 100 feet) from the house
to the area where the post light was to be installed.* I put a 4" square
plastic box at each end of the conduit as ground level.* The house end
is no problem as it is in the asphalt driveway.* At the house end, I
connected an underground "romex" to a breaker on the panel.* At the
other end, I connected 2 underground "romex", one to the post light and
one to an outlet, some 25' away.* Through the years, the outside box has
disappeared and I can't find it.* I've tried raking up the leaf mulch.
Nope.* I've also tried one of the non touch voltage testers.* Nope. I've
tried a tracing unit connecting a signal to the power line and snooping
with the other end.* Nope!** I don't have a metal detector. Not sure
where to go from here.* Any great ideas out there?

If there's any chance that the wire conductors are in contact with the
ground, you could connect the wires in the breaker box together to a hot
breaker,

I think you should put the current through a load first. A 150 watt
lightbulb or a 1100 watt heater.

and then probe the ground near where you think is is with a
volt or mA meter set to AC and connected with a wire to the power
ground. You should see some voltage or current as you probe close to the
wire end. I used this method to find a break on the cable from my
fathers house to his shop.