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Gold Monster Iron Signals Problem


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I was once detecting on the side of a road while waiting for JW to pick me up, I figured while waiting I may as well swing my detector, we were in a prospecting area but realistically the side of the road the chances of there being a nugget were probably pretty slim, I was using my Equinox at the time, I had a 15 /16 ID, certainly not expecting it to be gold and if I was just chasing gold I may not have dug it as the likelihood of a nugget big enough to give that ID is a very rare find in NZ, also the location it was right next to the highway is the most unlikely place to find a nugget.  I'd been doing a lot of coin hunting and 16 can be our old silver threepence coins so I dug it up hoping I'd find an old silver on the side of the road, turned out to be a 1.2 gram nugget.

If I was relying on discrimination and only looking for gold and with my uneducated guess of the likelihood of it gold being very slim I would have passed on those numbers as it not being a nugget.  I learnt a lesson on that day and it's paid off for me again in the future with an even bigger nugget.  I've had experiences the other way where nuggets come up only as iron on the GM, not until I've dug them and had them in my digs pile of soil did their gold probability improve to the point I was hoping they were a nugget.

If in a high trash area you just have to rely on educated guesses with the discrimination, so the better you understand how it works through experience on many targets in the wild the better, just know if using it you will be missing gold.

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well the area i have been working is fairly low on trash so I will probably dig most targets until I get a better idea of whats going on. Thanks for all the advise. I will post my finds if any planning on going back Wednesday. 

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It has been said already, but the GM iron meter was never designed to ID deeper targets (mineralized ground produces large +X signal just as iron does-gold will hide in it). However, for surface targets <=1 inch it works fairly well (discretion is advised however). Advice: slow steady swings with no change of coil height (+X signal from ground will otherwise pass through filter more easily if coil height changes during swinging). This will maximize discrimination efficiency. Keeping that in mind, the iron meter can be a life saver in trashy areas for fast shallow gold where no PI will produce.

GC

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Gold VLF detectors use the All metall mode for searching. As the main search mode because it is the deepest mod ..in various mineralized terains...
and the Discrimination mode there is almost a "bonus "for faster recognition of a larger signal, whether it is an iron or a non-ferrous target ...
...
From my point of view .. / quite simple / Discrimination in a large number of gold detectors is mostly used to identify iron as a possible target ,, but not ... for example, very small gold nuggets in the depths .... where a large role is also played by mineralization, which can move such signals easily to a high or low / depending on the type of mineralization / iron zone ..

Of course, when gold is bigger and also at a shallower depth, the Discrimination Mod will work with sufficient precision.

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On 2/1/2022 at 4:04 AM, EL NINO77 said:

Gold VLF detectors use the All metal mode for searching. As the main search mode because it is the deepest mod ..in various mineralized terrains...
and the Discrimination mode there is almost a "bonus "for faster recognition of a larger signal, whether it is an iron or a non-ferrous target ...

That used to be the case until this Equinox 800 came out.  Seems they decided to add the IRON REJECT to the standard Turn on and Go mode in Gold #1 and Gold #2.  So now I instruct my customers to turn the IRON Reject OFF so it accepts all targets.  You'd think they would have it the Prospecting Modes wide open and you push the Horseshoe as an added feature.  At least that detector is a killer VLF gold machine.

Yes I agree when wide open (all boxes accepted on NOX) and no Iron Rejection, the VLF detectors have best depth and most sensitivity.  Also, I think the digital identification is more accurate on the NOX when operated in true All Metal.

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Gerry ,, you're right ...
 
For all detectors (including Equinox) that have pseudo-static mode work * / pseudo Allmetal / ...where All Metal channel is it is directly connected and controlled by Discrimination .. it is necessary for prospecting and searching .... to "fully open" up Discrimination ... to All -metal mode could work in the full zone of ferrous and non-ferrous VDI .

 Because in the case of closed discrimination  i at 0 .. if the target is not currently in the non-ferrous zone ... then you will not receive a signal from the channel Allmetal .. - often there can be small deep targets with ID in the ferous zone VDI ...so such a signal ... you can easily pass...

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I have never liked discrimination on when gold prospecting, however on a very rare occasion when ground balancing in extreme soil conditions with my OLD Garrets ADS deepseeker  I found that setting the ground balance as close as I could, I use the TR discrimination knob to set the ground balance with it. This allowed me to pick up some small nuggets that others had missed about the ½ gram mark and smaller. Now a day I think this is the effect the Hi - Low signal that iron uses. 

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  • 1 month later...

I’m new to the monster (thanks Gerry)😎 so correct me if I’m wrong, but I “think” I’m “hearing” a difference in crispness of tone between different types of targets. It could be that this is just a remnant of memory from my time using the Explorer but gold seems to have a cleaner (crispy) sound as opposed to the “growling” that ferrous signals seem to have at the beginning and end of the tone…it could have to do with the size of target too. I haven’t tested this thought yet because I’m only slightly over a week deep into the monster…Lots to learn

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21 hours ago, Tom T said:

I’m new to the monster (thanks Gerry)😎 so correct me if I’m wrong, but I “think” I’m “hearing” a difference in crispness of tone between different types of targets. It could be that this is just a remnant of memory from my time using the Explorer but gold seems to have a cleaner (crispy) sound as opposed to the “growling” that ferrous signals seem to have at the beginning and end of the tone…it could have to do with the size of target too. I haven’t tested this thought yet because I’m only slightly over a week deep into the monster…Lots to learn

Welcome to DP Tom and hoping your new GM-1000 is as productive as you can make it.

As for different pitches of the tone on the Monster and between it being iron and nonferrous.  Yes some iron targets can give a scratchy or shorter chirpy sounds, but please do not rely on that 100% as you'll get bitten.  I've had found tell me they can hear the difference of lead and gold.  I call BS.  I have folks who think they can hear the difference of bullet casings and gold, again I call BS.  With a detector like the Monster and so many other gold machines, you should not rely on what your ear hears as much when it comes to IDing targets and trying to differentiate the difference.  

Now I will give an example of how my ear can help me ID some gold from other undesired targets.  Say a particular site has small half grain of rice nuggets across a bedrock shelf or bottom of a gully and all these nuggets are about the same size.  Lets also say a rabbit hunter was in there with a 22 rifle and there are casings scattered on the same area.  At that time an experienced ear might hear the signal strength and width of the half grain rice gold nugget vs the .22 shell casing as they are different in size and density.  Now if there happens to be a 1 gram nugget mixed in with the smaller nuggets and .22 casings...and you still tried to use the signal strength/width strategy, you'll miss the 1 grammer.

Above is a prime example of the Equinox 800's identification capabilities as it will easily read and give different ID #'s of the small 1/2 grain rice nuggets vs the .22 casing.  So with the NOX, I get the same signal with/strength and also VDI #'s.  But as mentioned by others....when in doubt-check it out.

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Hey Machineman,

You didn’t mention which coil you were using for the test - The larger one in Auto 2 will punch the deepest on the GM, yet it is also very sensitive on small stuff.  Which coil were you using, both?

I switched to the larger coil for soils and only used the small one when directly on bedrock or in tight places.

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