Auto Ground Balance Numbers

[Chase Goldman]

Steve, hopefully can chime in to set the record straight. 

But I was similarly "conditioned" to be very mindful of GB on the Deus.   Whether or not you are in tracking GB, the "actual" ground phase reading is always there staring you in the face and if not in tracking I tend to "freak out" if the numbers get out of whack by more than 5 points even if I am not hearing anything adverse in the headphones as far as noise is concerned and am still hitting targets.  It was like I thought I was losing significant depth if the GB readings were not close (i.e., dead silence was not necessarily a good thing even if there were no targets to ping). 

I think I am starting to realize that, at least with the Equinox, ML is taking an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach to GB.  In that, ML emphasizes the signal-to-noise ratio aspect of a proper ground balance and if you are not hearing ground noise then no need to bother doing a GB, even if the AUTO GB would have generated a much higher number than "0".  i.e., If you are not hearing anything adverse, don't mess with the default.

[Steve Herschbach]

0 is just the default ground balance setting for Equinox like 90 is for Deus. In lower mineral ground it’s fine - the ground balance is pretty forgiving in low to moderate ground. In higher mineral ground you need to ground balance it. It does not hurt to ground balance if you wish UNLESS there is almost no ground mineralization. Then the ground balance has nothing to grab or track to, in which case the default is best. Ground balancing in salt environments can cause a loss of sensitivity to smaller gold and again, if there is no real mineral content to the sand, like in Florida, the ground balance may be unreliable.

I almost always hunt in high mineral ground therefore I almost always ground balance via the auto or ground grab pumping method. I rarely use tracking unless ground is extremely variable.

You can use your detector to experiment with test targets in your own ground to determine what works best for you.