Utility locator training

Onboarding ends.
Practice keeps going.

Your crew covers a lot on day one. Give locators short lessons to revisit those skills, and see how practice metrics can help a trainer choose the next crew debrief.

Try a micro-lesson Explore trainer metrics

Illustrated cutaway of a training yard with practice flags, a loop road, trees and a site hut. — **Signal Yard**A fictional practice ground↗

01 Try a lesson 02 Explore the atlas 03 Read the metrics 04 See the research

01 / Micro-lessons

One decision.
One useful debrief.

In the classroom, a trainer can stop and ask, “What did the receiver actually show?” A ToneBud lesson gives a locator that same pause after onboarding.

Try this exercise from the pilot pack. Read the situation, make a call, then compare your reasoning with the debrief.

No sign-in needed. Your answer stays on this page.

Signal Yard / Exercise 01● Sample lesson

When peak and null disagree

In a training yard, the peak repeats in one spot, but the null falls to one side. Which note belongs in your debrief?

Compare the midpoint and disagreement answers

The better note is “The indications disagree. I haven’t verified the position.” Averaging the two readings would add a conclusion they do not support.

Fictional exercise. Follow your approved procedures in the field.

02 / The learning world

A field atlas for your crew.

Start in the yard, work through a scenario, then bring a question back to the crew. Explore the three stations taking shape in ToneBud.

In the tester pilot

Signal Yard

Read a peak and a null, then practice describing what you observed. Approved testers can save the two guides and practice question on an enrolled device and unlock the pack offline with their PIN.

Try the signal exercise

Private testing

Scenario Lab

Work through a fictional locate and explain your next check. We’re testing a scenario trainer and a push-to-talk coach where a locator can describe a confusing reading in their own words.

See the trainer’s view

Planned station

Shift Huddle

Picture a trainer opening a shift with a decision the crew saw last week. Everyone recalls the reasoning before the answer is revealed. We’re designing this station for short crew discussions.

See the thinking behind it

03 / Trainer metrics

Know what to practice next.

A checkmark tells you who finished. A debrief tells you where people got stuck. Together, they give a trainer a better question for the next shift.

Trainer’s notebookIllustrative data

Example cohort / Signal interpretation

From attempt to debrief

Attempted the scenario12 of 12

Completed the scenario9 of 12

Trainer’s next step Bring the three unfinished attempts to a debrief. Was there a reading the group found hard to interpret?

Example of a training review. These numbers are fictional.

Live · Owner dashboardWho made it into the pilot?: Follow waitlist requests, approvals, account activations and valid online sessions. A session tells you someone has access; it doesn’t tell you they finished a lesson.
Private testing · Training dashboardHow did they reason through it?: Review attempts, completions and practice scores for accuracy, safety reasoning and efficiency in fictional scenarios.
Planned · Retention over timeWhat can they recall later?: Compare a learner’s first answer with a later, unprompted answer on the same topic. Offline practice is not tracked in the current pilot.

04 / Research notes

Why come back to a lesson?

Two ideas shape the atlas: ask someone to recall the answer, and leave time before they try again.

Study 01 / Retrieval practice

Recall it before rereading it.

After a teaching session, medical residents practiced recalling one topic and restudied another. More than six months later, they averaged 39% on the recalled material and 26% on the reread material.

Larsen, Butler & Roediger · Medical Education, 2009

Study 02 / Spaced practice

Give the next attempt some space.

In a study of more than 1,350 people learning facts, the review interval that worked best depended on how far away the final test was. Remembering for longer generally called for a longer gap before review.

Cepeda et al. · Psychological Science, 2008

These studies measured learning in other settings. ToneBud hasn’t measured a change in locator retention or jobsite safety.

Early access / Tester pilot

Bring your crew’s
next question.

We’re inviting locators, trainers and crew leads to try the first practice pack. Join the waitlist; if you're approved, we’ll email you a link to create your account.

Already a tester? Sign in

Onboarding ends.Practice keeps going.

One decision.One useful debrief.