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ATX Ground Tracking Question


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Steve and forum members,

The ATX has 4 ground tracking settings, off, slow, medium, fast.  The manual describes this as a continuous slow tracking of ground mineralization.  It explains how to change settings, but really doesn't explain what it is doing and how to decide what setting to use and when to use.  Is this auto ground balance, or something different?  What is the significance of the slow, med, fast settings?  Thanks for any info you can provide.

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Ok, I am going to get to the bottom of this one. A couple people have noted on the internet that the ground tracking did not really seem to be doing much. I usually do not use tracking but the one time I turned it on it also seemed like not much was happening. I will give it go tomorrow and find out for sure what is going on and report back.

I can tell you what the intent would be. In extremely variable ground ground tracking could be preferable to constantly having to manually ground balance the detector every few feet. A PI is very forgiving so we are talking really variable ground. I really have not run into something like that myself except in cobble piles made up of all sorts of different rocks. Tracking smooths everything out but also takes the edge off nugget responses. The faster the tracking, the more the nugget responses attenuate and possibly even are lost in extreme cases being treated as ground noise.

The newer generation Minelabs also let you choose tracking speeds but nearly everyone runs in fixed (no tracking) for the reasons noted above. I am pretty doubtful many people would ever need to use tracking on the ATX but you have me curious now.

From manual page 17 at http://www.garrett.com/hobbysite/hbby-manuals/1534000_atx_manual_rev_a.pdf

Ground Track

When switched on, Ground Track provides slow, continuous tracking to ground mineralization. The ATX has four Ground Track settings: OFF, SLOW, MEDIUM, and FAST, with OFF being the factory default setting.

To change the Ground Track setting:

• Press and release the SHIFT button to access Secondary controls.

• Repeatedly press the GND TRACK button to step through the four settings (see illustration below). OFF is indicated by LED 1, SLOW is indicated by LED 5, MEDIUM by LED 9, and FAST by LED 13.

• Press and release SHIFT button again to exit Secondary adjustments.

• The green LED will blink during operation when Ground Track is on.

Note: Ground Track may reduce detection depth due to slowly tracking to a target, especially with repeated swings over the target. Therefore, Ground Track should only be used when changing ground mineralization requires frequent re-ground balancing.

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Well, that was interesting. I just played around with my ATX and a couple hot rocks, one a mild negative rock and the other a strong positive when ATX ground balanced to my ground. I put the ATX in FAST (LED 13) tracking and worked the strong positive rock. It seemed like nothing was happening but over the course a several minutes I could tell the rock was getting tracked out. I removed the rock, and the balance point had indeed changed as now the ground balance was off for the ground itself. I went at it again, and using the milder negative rock again it took minutes to see the tracking occur. I also tried the SLOW (LED 5) setting and it was so slow I just got bored and quit.

The bottom line is that in my opinion the tracking is so incredibly slow I am not sure it serves any purpose. Garrett has said that the fast tracking on the ATX is about the same as the slow tracking on the Infinium. So they dialed the ATX back, but it sure looks to me that they went too far. It tracks so slowly it would not really help at all in variable ground. It looks to me like it is pretty safe to use though in that it might help keep the ground balance tuned just right as you go with incremental tracking but with about zero risk of tracking out a real target.

I would be interested in hearing if anyone has an ATX that seems to track more effectively.

As I noted I generally never use tracking anyway but if I did use it I would want it to be more aggressive than what I am seeing on the ATX. I can see why some people think it is doing nothing because it is so slow.

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Is this something garrett could "reprogram" ?

I am sure it could be done but it is a non-issue for me personally. I never use tracking on my Minelab and can't imagine ever using it on the ATX. I will ask the good folks at Garrett if there is something I am missing though just to be sure.

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