Sygma Solutions is the foremost provider of cable avoidance training in the UK, with our trainers having a combined experience of cable avoidance when excavating of over 100 years. There is nothing that we don’t know about locating and identifying underground services – and that includes the limitations of the CAT and Genny, the main tools for the location of services. Unfortunately, they do have some limitations and it is essential if you are required to locate services, that you fully understand what those limitations are. If you do not, you could make a mistake and believe that the area in which an excavation needs to take place is free of any services when the opposite is true.

As an example, let’s take depth. Let us suppose that you need to excavate to a depth of six feet in order to begin foundations for a building. You use the CAT, and it tells you the area is clear. Unfortunately, your CAT can only read to a depth of four feet, but you need to dig to six feet, and there is a cable located five feet down. You need to be aware of these limitations because if not, things could go very wrong.

Our training courses are recognised by the CSCS, The Survey Association, the EUSR, and they lead to qualifications which are required by more and more companies, such as HS2 for instance.

We also provide full training in the use of the Mala HDR, Mala HDR Pro, and Mala HDR Wideband GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) machines. At Sygma Solutions, we have been appointed the sole UK distributor for the Mala Easy Locator GPR System. As such, we supply, service, and calibrate the machines and we also have five nearly new Mala Easy Locators for hire.

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range and the Mala Easy Locator has revolutionised the utility survey industry being faster and easier to use, delivering cleaner data with more detail. It can also locate underground services at 20% greater depth than comparable systems.

Unfortunately, today more and more services are designed and constructed using non-metallic materials – plastic gas pipes, and so on – and there are inherent difficulties in locating these without the abilities of ground-penetrating radar. The Mala Easy Locator System ground penetrating radar is the only system that can locate underground services without either requiring electromagnetic radiation from the service itself or requiring a signal generator to be attached to the service.

The Mala Easy Locator has a hinged shaft which means that it can easily be folded over and transported from site to site in the back of an estate car. The monitor is easy to read, even in direct sunlight, and the interface is controlled by a single turn and push dial rather than a keyboard. All the sensitive parts of the system, including the high dynamic range antennae, are housed in a tough aluminium casing that has been designed to withstand rough handling and bad weather, and the machine now has a continuous run time of up to 14 hours which is more than enough for most purposes. In addition, it has a built-in DGPS receiver which makes the positioning of identified utilities easier. It also comes with an optional rough terrain cart which makes it easier to carry out measurements on non-paved surfaces. The larger wheels provide a larger air gap between the antennae and the ground, helping to avoid small obstacles on the ground.

We have a fully equipped workshop and can service, repair, and calibrate your Mala Easy Locators, as regular maintenance is essential for this type of equipment which is often subject to harsh conditions. We can also arrange for collection and delivery.