When No One Is Looking Try This

[klunker]

  A couple of weeks ago I got a rare day off on a Monday. I was determined to go detecting but there were severe thunder storms all around the area. Due to my sinful nature, I normally don't tempt lightning but my foolish nature is slightly more dominant- so I went. The place I decided to go was a knob with old channel gravel on it and surrounded by lightning scared timber (my idiot nature is the strongest of all). There was so much energy and lightning noise in the atmosphere that I simply couldn't get the Z to calm down enough to be usable. I tuned and re-tuned then manually tuned and that helped some. I then tried every ground balance ritual prescribed by the gurus and that helped a little. I then tried "high audio smoothing" and "difficult ground type" and "general. It worked! Not only did it work but it worked well. I kept turning up the sensitivity until it got noisy again and was able to run it between 15 and 19.  I started finding small nuggets one after another,12+ total. I started digging the trash out of my way and the first piece of trash was a 2 dwt nugget (1.85 after cleaning). It was deep enough to demonstrate I hadn't tuned out all of the depth capabilities of the Z. The storm was getting VERY close so I repented my sins, hiked back to the Jeep and left.

 

 PART 2

 

  I returned the next chance I got and did some experimenting. I set the Z up as I normally would and had to turn the sensitivity down below 10 to get a tolerably smooth operation and covered a small area. I had one faint target. I then tried my "lightning settings" over the same area. THE FAINT TARGET WAS NOW A GOOD SIGNAL and there was another target that was missed all together. Both were small nuggets. I repeated this experiment both ways, several times, lightning settings first then normal settings first. I left the detector in the lightning settings for the rest of the day and totaled 15 very small nuggets- about 2.5 dwt total. Until I find a deep nugget in place I can't make a good judgment on loss of depth- If any.

 

  Where I was working is close to town and has been thoroughly beat with about every detector invented.

 

   Try it and see if it works for you.

 

 

[Sourdough Scott]

I'll try that. I also tempted the lighting gods in those storms. But I tried the Bogenes setup. The ground was saturated wet from the rains. I cranked up the sensitivity all the way. Then dropped the threshold a few clicks below audible. When the ground got a little noisier, I would go into low smoothing. If no noise, then smoothing off. Seemed to work for me. I pulled about 2 dwt of small pieces in a heavily worked patch. I feel the less you try to run like a 5000 and make the 7000 work with your ground and atmospheric conditions. Even if running it outside your comfort zone. Not over thinking it. The more successful you can be.

[strick]

I'm gonna write that down on my 3x5 card and call it my "High Sierra settings". Too bad the Zed wont let you save settings like the CTX then you could just toggle back and forth between your saved settings. Hopefully heading to your neck of the woods in the next week or two.

 

strick

[beatup]

A nice pair of tips and great info from both of you guys, thanks for sharing.

[Sourdough Scott]

When I find useful information on here, like from Klunker above. I do a screenshot with my smartphone. That way I can refer to it in the field if needed. I guess a modern 3x5 card.

[klunker]

  A 3X5 card I understand (3 words less than 5 letters each). Screenshot? Smart phone? Maybe you could program my coffee maker! Didn't get out at all this weekend to experiment with depth vs. quiet operation. I hate it when I'm being responsible.

[Steve Herschbach]

Great thread guys - thanks!