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Quick Iron Balance Test


F350Platinum

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3 hours ago, BchPatrol said:

I would prefer to know that I'm after a stake while digging it. It's a bit of a bummer to start digging for a 25 and see a damn stake come out of the 3d scoop.

I guess now I'll have to keep track of exactly how my tent stakes go but for me they make themselves relatively hard to hear because of their shape.  There must be a reject algorithm in the machine or in my brain that I sometimes override because I want to dig a target.  I won't leave it even if I know it is a stake because where there are stakes there is gold!  haha  It takes a fair amount of wave energy and time to collect stakes and wash them up the hill.

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Thanks all for making this thread a great one. 👍 It was the first time I tested anything and is an encouragement to do more. I am only into a year of detecting seriously and will definitely ask a dumb question now and again. It's a rite of passage. 😀 The only dumb question to me is one that gets asked more than once.

Last time I was on the beach I ran Park 1 on the dry high beach and Beach 1 from high tide all the way to the water. From what I have digested here these are the "deepest" modes. I had to re-ground balance every time I started hearing constant iron tones and noise cancel when the cell phones started showing up but the detector ran quiet even at a sensitivity of 23. I was digging targets sometimes over a foot deep, it got tiring but the beach had been replenished.

Stakes were all -5 with IB at F2=3 (600 max) I am always in all metal everywhere I go. I dug a few of them but only when isolated, they tend to run in packs. They're definitely zinc plated or galvanized iron. The best part was that with that iron balance setting bottle caps were a 12-15 with an iron tone. I dug a few just to be sure, and again when isolated. I'm sure that a gold ring wouldn't give me an iron tone at all, but the only one I've found so far was a solid 1.

It was the bracelet that really got me, and illustrated the difference with iron balance settings. The most questionable were the ones that made it all iron which would have been a "swing and a miss". 

I agree with everyone that says one shouldn't sweat the small stuff, but my wife likes diamonds, so I do try to maximize my chance of finding 'em, the most common would probably be a stud earring.

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44 minutes ago, F350Platinum said:

I had to re-ground balance every time I started hearing constant iron tones and noise cancel when the cell phones started showing up but the detector ran quiet even at a sensitivity of 23.

Run the machine in auto tracking GB at a salt beach. If emi, or excessive chatter starts ,use frequency selector and let the machine run where it wants to.  I actually do this in front of a different hotel now every time

 

47 minutes ago, F350Platinum said:

It was the bracelet that really got me, and illustrated the difference with iron balance settings. The most questionable were the ones that made it all iron which would have been a "swing and a miss". 

If it is one tip I want to pass along after all my years it would be:  Nothing  identifies correctly in black sand and salt water. That is why it is so important to think nonferrous and ferrous.    

 

 

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7 hours ago, BchPatrol said:

I use a 15" Coiltek and I'll keep all of that in mind. I'm not sure about running at 23 though as stability starts to suffer around 20. 

You have to watch trade offs with big coils in salt conditions. If your difference is more than two sensitivity level positions it is probably not worth swinging the bigger coil.  That said I would not worry if the difference was running at 22 compared to 24 with the 11" coil. However if I was at 20 with the large coil and I could do 22 sensitivity with the 11", the 11" would be my choice for depth.  

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