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Revisiting Steve's Insanely Hot Settings


Condor

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I've been running Steve' s insanely hot settings non-stop for the past month.  I got my first ferrite very recently and have done daily start-up ground balancing, but keep it under the 10 second rule per JP.  My perception is the detector takes a few hrs to settle in.  At start-up in the morning she's pretty jittery but settles down after some run time.  Today I got into a field of strewn volcanics and it was a mess.   Those hot settings really light up the volcanics and my only solution was to remove self from affected area.  I ran into a guy running a GPX 4800 and he had also surrendered to the overload from the same volcanics.  Conversely, I covered some nearby shallow gullies and tiny nuggets were lit up like surface trash.  I got 7 nuggets that totaled 2.8 grams and everyone of them sounded off like a booming piece of trash.  The deepest target I dug was maybe 8 inches but sounded like bullet frag on the surface. 

Today I chased one seam of red clay for a good long while, but when I switched to "difficult" it disappeared while still running a Sensitivity of 20.  

Granted, I'm running some fairly quiet ground in SW AZ, so I have the advantage of letting the detector settle down before it drives me crazy with its antics.  I also have the advantage of detecting 3 or 4 hrs a day for at least 5 days a week, so we are mutually getting used to each other.   

I don't think you can go out for a weekend in variable ground and expect these settings to work for you.  Your hearing and sanity will give out long before the detector settles in and your brain settles in to the nuances of this kind of detecting.  I was detecting with a fellow 7K user a couple weeks ago and he was running Sens 10 and still finding sub-gram nuggets and covering twice the ground.

It's working for me so I'm sticking with it.  As Nevada Chris says "your mileage may vary". 

 

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Condor,

 

Each day when you start, do you want to keep the settings from the previous trip?  If you do stay under the 10 seconds.

 

I have not timed the startup sequence at power on with the ferrite to know how long it takes of holding the button in but I would want to exceed 10 seconds when I start the day in a new location.

 

Mitchel

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My impression from JP's previous comments on stored "Ground Balance" was, after 10 seconds you're clearing your stored data and starting a new string.  That is not necessarily a bad thing as Nevada Chris pointed out.  If you have changed locations and general ground conditions you may well benefit from clearing the stored data.  I'm no authority here, I only know what's working for me in my little corner of the world. 

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I'm somewhat convinced if you have gold in an area you will be able to find it with various settings from 5-20 on the sensitivity.  I was working under some high power lines and had to go way down on everything but I was still finding trash, bullets, staples and wire.  If there had been gold there I would have found it.

 

Gold first ... settings next.  As your friend did at 10.

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I'm sorry I missed answering part of your question.  Yes, I want to keep my data from a previous trip because my ground in in Yuma by the Sea stays fairly equal.  I don't think my ground "reactivity" changes that much in my local area, so I'm happy with keeping the previous data and settings, and letting the data build with whatever new location I'm in.   

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What I have noticed with the Zed is that where she purrs, she purrs, don't mess with it. When she starts to play up, put the Ferrite on the ground and go over it (no button presses) and I can bet my fishing rod collection that it'll be responding to the ferrite. I'll be honest and say I don't really pay attention whether I'm holding the button in for 6, 9 or 15 seconds - my main concern is to minimize any response to the ferrite and surrounding ground. If it doesn't work the first time, then do it again. Then it really purrs nicely. 

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Regarding the insanely hot settings, I've always been a preacher of good headphones which allow you hear a very faint changes in the threshold, so setting your detector super smooth was always the way to go. But a few years ago when the old spots were drying out to the GPX5000, I starting to push things a little and backing off the stabilizer (higher numbers) to try and tweak a little more performance to squeeze out some nuggies out of flogged ground. Then the SDC came out with a slightly jittery response and after some time adjusting to it, I found I was getting used to a more jittery threshold - still wish it had a stabilizer control though for those bad emi days!

 

So, these two experiences have conditioned me to handle a slightly more erratic threshold than I used to run, but I still can't handle a lot of noise, especially when wearing headphones. It may be okay for about an hour or two, but after that I find my ears fatigue, and my concentration suffers - I really think I start ignoring certain signals which I should be digging. So yeah, everyone is different, and if you aren't comfortable, then back things off until you are. 

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