D
IGITAL
C
ONTROL
I
NCORPORATED
DigiTrak Falcon F5® Operator's Manual
5
Getting Started
Introduction
1.
Aurora touchscreen
remote display
2.
Receiver
3.
Transmitter
4.
Li-ion/NiMH battery
charger
DigiTrak Falcon F5
®
Guidance System with Aurora
®
Remote
Display
Congratulations on your purchase of the DigiTrak Falcon F5
®
, the flagship system of the DigiTrak Falcon line
of guidance systems. Falcon technology represents a significant advancement in helping crews overcome
one of the biggest obstacles to completing their underground drilling projects: active interference. Falcon F5
provides crews with Falcon technology alongside all the advanced features of the classic F5 system, like
DataLog, fluid pressure monitoring, and
Target Steering
.
In today’s competitive underground drilling landscape of deeper bores and more challenging jobsites,
interference has emerged as one of the primary obstacles to completing HDD installations on time.
Interference varies from jobsite to jobsite, at different points within the same jobsite, and even with time of
day. After extensive research and testing in some of the most challenging interference environments in the
world, DCI concluded that selecting a transmitter frequency that sidesteps interference is far more effective
at overcoming this obstacle than simply increasing power.
The Falcon approach involves dividing a wide range of frequencies into bands, then selecting the frequencies
that are least susceptible to the interference in each band. Falcon F5 has eight bands that each use the best-
performing of hundreds of frequencies between 9.0 and 45 khz. Optimize one band for best performance on
the majority of the bore and the other for a high-interference segment. The system is easy to learn and simple
to use every day. By following a few easy steps at the beginning of each pilot bore, you will be ready to drill
within minutes.
Competing systems define success in terms of depth and data range. Falcon technology also provides
tremendous range, but that isn’t what makes Falcon great. DCI defines success as enabling crews to
complete the largest number of jobs possible in the shortest periods of time. Falcon technology is designed
around that principle.