Iron Bias

[Chase Goldman]

Iron Bias Strategies for Relic Hunting - My Take

After 30 hours of Equinox relic hunting this past week I developed a hunt mode strategy involving iron bias (some of this is written up in my Culpeper thread but I am addressing mainly only the iron bias strategy here):

In a nutshell, Iron Bias is another imperfect tool in the detecting toolkit that is Equinox.  I don't say imperfect because it does not work well or to be derogatory, I merely mean that there are trade-offs which is essentially what metal detecting is all about.  Managing trade-offs.  Lower iron bias to zero and you are in "what you hear is what you get" with respect to the tones, including iron falsing high tones on bent nails, nail heads, and large and/or round iron targets.  You can up the iron bias to reduce falsing, but I have been paying attention to some published test results that show that this lowers your ability to unmask non-ferrous hiding amongst the iron.

For hunting in open fields where the occasional small and big iron would be encountered I used the Field 2 default settings across the board except that I increased Iron Bias to 6 (similar to beach mode) to mitigate falsing on small nails, bent nails, and nail heads.  It wasn't fool proof but it did cut down on falsing and I felt that chances were low that I would encounter and pass over a masked target.

When I was in an area of thick iron, I used field 2 with iron bias at 0.  Took the brain damage of constant falsing but used other tools such as two-way hits, 90 degree turns, and pinpointer to interrogate the high tones and make a dig decision.  After awhile I also incorporated Gold Mode 2 into my thick iron, high mineralized soil strategy because I could get a better bead on target size due to the VCO audio and could make an educated as to whether I was swinging over large farm iron (plow blade, horseshoe).  Bolts, nuts, and other types of round iron were still a problem.   Not sure you can do much about that even with iron bias.  Since I was getting a better bead on the size/depth of the target with Gold 2, I kept iron bias at the default of 6 tp mitigate falsing but would switch to field 2 0 bias (which I kept in my User Profile slot for quick recall) for big iron targets to see if anything was getting masked and still found some non ferrous hiding in the iron.  Ran out of time to see how it would do with a lower iron bias setting so more to come on that when I get a chance to swing the Equinox in Culpeper again (soon). 

In summary mineralized soil relic hunting:  In the field with widely spaced iron targets and small probability of masking, I liked running Field 2 with defaults and iron bias at 6 to minimize falsing and would call up Filed 2, 0 iron bias from my user profile on select iron targets to see if any non-ferrous was hiding.  In thick iron areas (high mineralization), I liked the one-two punch combo of Gold 2 mode with Iron Bias 6 and Recovery 6 or 7 and switching in Field 2 with Iron Bias 0 and Recovery 7 for large iron target interrogation for masking.  

[Nuke em]

Unfortunately i need depth more than speed . Except on parts of the beaches where there are a load of nails all over the place . Will play with that setting when out next .

[Chase Goldman]

10 minutes ago, Nuke em said:

Unfortunately i need depth more than speed . Except on parts of the beaches where there are a load of nails all over the place . Will play with that setting when out next .

Nuke you should run tests to convince yourself and not take my word for it, but you really don't have to make that trade with this machine, quite honestly.  I recommend using the defaults on recovery and iron bias based on my personal experience, but you have to convince yourself of that.  And I emphasize again, that iron bias has no effect on depth but does affect ability to unmask (separation).  Still haven't sussed it all out yet, though, with respect to "optimal" iron bias settings, if there is such a thing.  And recovery has little if any affect on depth.  It really just affects signal to noise ratio.  If you want a higher signal to noise ration, then go with the higher speed.

[Nuke em]

1 minute ago, Chase Goldman said:

Nuke you should run tests to convince yourself and not take my word for it, but you really don't have to make that trade with this machine, quite honestly.  I recommend using the defaults on recovery and iron bias based on my personal experience, but you have to convince yourself of that.

I cannot get depth with the presets on my beaches . Reactivity has to be low at 2 or 3 for depth . I will play with the Bias setting next time out .

[MarXthespot]

5 minutes ago, Nuke em said:

Reactivity has to be low

Does Reactivity mean the same thing as the Sensitivity setting? or are we talking about recovery speed?

[EL NINO77]

5 of my detectors out of the total 7 allow the iron bias setting ... from the beginning - in a moderately pure terrain, you can use the iron bias midrange to work quite well, and after a while you start using lower values ...- you have to get used to it. ...
 

[Chase Goldman]

8 minutes ago, Nuke em said:

I cannot get depth with the presets on my beaches . Reactivity has to be low at 2 or 3 for depth . I will play with the Bias setting next time out .

I did not realize you were running recovery so low for depth - first you mentioned your recovery settings in the thread.  Good thing ML saw fit to provide those low settings, you are one of the first I have seen where it has markedly increased depth performance, so glad that is working for you.  Check out various iron bias settings and see what that does, too.  HH.

[Chase Goldman]

5 minutes ago, MarXthespot said:

Does Reactivity mean the same thing as the Sensitivity setting? or are we talking about recovery speed?

Reactivity is an XP Term and the term ML was originally using as a synonym for Recovery Speed which is the more commonly used term.

[EL NINO77]

Nuke em, Recovery speed is deep and mineral, and separator filter - in low mineralization like mine, I can use RecS 1.2, medium coins and big coins, 3-4 on smaller coins .... You use in your terrain Rec.S-which gives you the strongest signal and is still well ID ...
 

[Cabin Fever]

I first started running my Equinox on 0 Iron Bias but have lately been floating in the 2-3 range.. A couple of the parks I have hunted had some tiny, almost wire size nails in them that were falsing and giving some pretty good dig signals.. That slight bump in Iron Bias has seem to clean those up without affecting my unmasking abilities around the bigger nails..

Recovery Speed does affect depth.. The higher speeds are still deep though..  I float between 4-7 depending on site and trash conditions.. I’m really starting to get a feel for the Detector and I can sense when It’s getting sluggish and adjust accordingly.. You need to run full tones including iron for this though..  Most of my time is spent in 5-6 but I drop to 4 in cleaner areas where I know the deep coins reside and ramp up to as high as 7 in parking strips or around picnic tables for example..

still very early in the learning curve so this could all change, but that’s where I am at this time and doing well..

Bryan