Power source detector - radar for detecting powered function

We live in an ocean of electrical noise. It is only noise if you do not have the means to discriminate signal, but even noise is a signal.

Had a problem with mixing desk once. It used motorised faders that reacted to touch, but for some reason the faders did not operate properly. A colleague mentioned that the faders responded to the body electric field and it may need a little boost. To do that we ran a socket extension lead from the wall point under the desk near the engineers feet. The extension had no load other than its own resistance, it worked a treat and the faders were fine.

Noise from thousands of people averaging 1.2 phones each and an addiction to getting wireless updates to things that shouldn't need them (like basic kitchen appliances) would probably emit more noise than a starship with a half-meter thick steel-honeycomb hull and its transmitters off, even with high power usage. Sure, you might detect something, and I am familiar with ways to detect current at a distance that will only logically get better as time progresses, but I still think heat would be easier to make the average joe believe than stray noise.

Also I'm an electrician, not a disk-jockey, my knowledge of mixing desks is that they exist and need electrical power. If you want me to make sense of it then you'll need a better explanation of that device, why it didn't work, and how the solution fixed it, because what you just said came across sort of like "we fixed this music device by shorting hot to neutral in an extension-cord plugged in to a random receptacle near someone's feet".

I apologise for a lack of clarity and assumed knowledge, this is a physics thing. A lot of high end audio tech can use, what was, cutting edge functionality. The recording, mastering engineers and producers will find it funny that they have been called DJs. I will try to refrain from going too tech in the future.

No worries, tech and physics are fine, they just need more detailed explanations. I mostly do commercial/industrial power and tend to find myself dealing with far more with lighting/power-systems, logic circuits, and "We hired another guy to upgrade our building but now the lights on the third floor don't unless we plug the coffee machine in, but then it catches fire and the lights go out again. Can you please make the coffee machine not combust?" sort of stuff. Specific singular devices to be plugged in to the power I am playing with are all boxes of magic operated by wizards until I've disassembled one and compared a schematic to the bits and pieces inside.

Mixing desks aren't devices exclusive to DJ's then? Good to know, and I do apologize if if my about someone's title has inadvertently offended.

NP.

Off topic.

You mentioned schematics, now would that have a place in SE?

It would be cool to be able to bring up a screen with the conveyor network and functional units that could identify points of failure or flow control problems, sort of a systems map.

Someone has probably posted this already.

A system that shows conveyor breaks and choke points in factory setups would be interesting.