Hello From Oklahoma

[JCR]

Mongo,   For some odd reason Ground balancing seems to be troublesome to new detectorists, both understanding the concept & performing it with their machine. I know it was for me too.

The key is to be sure you are over clean ground & listen to the detector's response during AND after the actual GB procedure.   Often it takes several trys.  After a while you will know the expected number range & not have too much trouble.

As far as mineralized ground; try not to run the sensitivity too high. Less really is more when ground conditions get difficult because of mineralization OR trash density. Also be mindful that target IDs will not be as accurate or as deep. Learn to trust the audio as primary, TID is secondary by quite a bit. 

[GB_Amateur]

23 hours ago, Mongo said:

Yeah, I remembered today to do ground balance several times today. Anywhere from a 6 to an 87. I don’t know what those numbers even mean, but sure does seem like a big range. Go 100 miles any west direction and you run back into old fashioned dirt.

   Anybody have any tips on settings to help with mineralized ground?

The Equinox (both models) have ground tracking.  (Look in the User Manual/Guide.  It's on p. 41 of my copy.)  It works quite well from my limited experience.  Try that and see if it helps.  If it doesn't, then your problem isn't likely the ground balancing but something else.

[Mongo]

On 3/31/2022 at 8:39 AM, JCR said:

Mongo,   For some odd reason Ground balancing seems to be troublesome to new detectorists, both understanding the concept & performing it with their machine. I know it was for me too.

The key is to be sure you are over clean ground & listen to the detector's response during AND after the actual GB procedure.   Often it takes several trys.  After a while you will know the expected number range & not have too much trouble.

As far as mineralized ground; try not to run the sensitivity too high. Less really is more when ground conditions get difficult because of mineralization OR trash density. Also be mindful that target IDs will not be as accurate or as deep. Learn to trust the audio as primary, TID is secondary by quite a bit. 

You know, I hadn’t even thought of the sensitivity being an issue, I’ll be giving that a try tomorrow. I’ve been running all this first week running at 22 not realizing that this thick red clay and the trashy park areas might not be the best for that high sensitivity. Since the park I’m hunting in was built in ‘94 I doubt that losing depth will cost me finding any pre-statehood coins down deep. Thanks for the suggestions, very helpful. I got my machine a little over a week ago and have been out every day since. I have 2 qtrs, 4 dimes, 1 nickel, and 4 pennies. Only one of those is older than me, and I’m 58 ha! That one nickel may be the only one I ever find because those pull tabs are killing me! 

[Mongo]

On 3/31/2022 at 8:59 PM, GB_Amateur said:

The Equinox (both models) have ground tracking.  (Look in the User Manual/Guide.  It's on p. 41 of my copy.)  It works quite well from my limited experience.  Try that and see if it helps.  If it doesn't, then your problem isn't likely the ground balancing but something else.

Is that the continuous tracking option? Does that help with mineralization? I’ll have to give that a try as well, certainly can’t hurt. Thanks!

[rvpopeye]

Pull tabs plague us all to some extent sharing an ID with nickles and some gold.

Just keep on digging and listening and eventually you'll start to recognize how the sounds of the detector relate to the items you find , making it easier to decide to dig .  

 

 

[GB_Amateur]

12 hours ago, Mongo said:

Is that the continuous tracking option?

Yes.

12 hours ago, Mongo said:

Does that help with mineralization?

Yes, that's its entire purpose.  I think it was developed (a couple decades or more ago) by multiple people (??) including Dave Johnson, now at First Texas.  For ground with varying mineralization it is extremely useful, but works fine in non-variable ground.

I think it's difficult to over-emphasize the importance of reading and especially rereading the manual.  Did you look at it after I pointed out the page it was explained?

 

[Mongo]

13 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Yes.

Yes, that's its entire purpose.  I think it was developed (a couple decades or more ago) by multiple people (??) including Dave Johnson, now at First Texas.  For ground with varying mineralization it is extremely useful, but works fine in non-variable ground.

I think it's difficult to over-emphasize the importance of reading and especially rereading the manual.  Did you look at it after I pointed out the page it was explained?

 

Sure, I read it, along with other articles that recommended not running in that mode. The manual doesn’t explain WHAT gb is, just what tracking gb does. “When Tracking Ground balance is active, the detector continuously adjusts the Ground balance automatically….”  I get that, pretty much says it. But how does that affect the rest of the settings? And I still don’t know what gb even is. I’ll figure it out eventually

[F350Platinum]

4 hours ago, Mongo said:

Sure, I read it, along with other articles that recommended not running in that mode. The manual doesn’t explain WHAT gb is, just what tracking gb does. “When Tracking Ground balance is active, the detector continuously adjusts the Ground balance automatically….”  I get that, pretty much says it. But how does that affect the rest of the settings? And I still don’t know what gb even is. I’ll figure it out eventually

This may be an oversimplification, but Ground Balance is the ability to get the detector to accept and ignore whatever minerals and salt or any other detectable element in an area of ground that has no targets in it. It will then give you get a clearer ID of what is there when your coil passes over a real target.

You won't get an accurate GB if you're hearing an iron tone or a symphony of tones when you balance the machine, you should just hear the up and down tones, a buzz that goes high and low while pumping the coil. 🙂 When it stops you're there.

If you hold your detector off and parallel to the ground and you are still hearing stuff you didn't do a noise cancel. If you did a noise cancel and it didn't work, it is because you have strong EMI or you pointed it at your shovel  😀 you may have to switch to single frequency.

if you are holding  the coil stationary  just above the ground and it's going nuts after you got it quiet elsewhere you may be over a buried power line. You don't want to dig in that spot. 😬

Try and find a quiet area of ground, or at least clear the targets from one and then balance the detector over that spot, but be sure there's no underground power. You are only getting a general reading anyway if you're not tracking. It took me a while to get that, keep at it. 🙂 I'm pretty sure auto tracking eats more battery, generally not using it won't.

[Mongo]

1 hour ago, F350Platinum said:

This may be an oversimplification, but Ground Balance is the ability to get the detector to accept and ignore whatever minerals and salt or any other detectable element in an area of ground that has no targets in it. It will then give you get a clearer ID of what is there when your coil passes over a real target.

You won't get an accurate GB if you're hearing an iron tone or a symphony of tones when you balance the machine, you should just hear the up and down tones, a buzz that goes high and low while pumping the coil. 🙂 When it stops you're there.

If you hold your detector off and parallel to the ground and you are still hearing stuff you didn't do a noise cancel. If you did a noise cancel and it didn't work, it is because you have strong EMI or you pointed it at your shovel  😀 you may have to switch to single frequency.

if you are holding  the coil stationary  just above the ground and it's going nuts after you got it quiet elsewhere you may be over a buried power line. You don't want to dig in that spot. 😬

Try and find a quiet area of ground, or at least clear the targets from one and then balance the detector over that spot, but be sure there's no underground power. You are only getting a general reading anyway if you're not tracking. It took me a while to get that, keep at it. 🙂 I'm pretty sure auto tracking eats more battery, generally not using it won't.

Okay, now that is starting to make sense. So, ground balance is basically the processor in the control unit calculating how the ground at that particular spot affects the tones or tid. Kind of? Anyway, maybe I should follow GB advice and just run continuous tracking. I wish I could remember where I I read to avoid it, but I think where I’m hunting it might work. Not gonna hurt to try

[F350Platinum]

1 hour ago, Mongo said:

Okay, now that is starting to make sense. So, ground balance is basically the processor in the control unit calculating how the ground at that particular spot affects the tones or tid. Kind of? Anyway, maybe I should follow GB advice and just run continuous tracking. I wish I could remember where I I read to avoid it, but I think where I’m hunting it might work. Not gonna hurt to try

Yeah, but do what I suggested first. 🙂

The Equinox can go full auto tracking (the wavy line top right) of you let the button go while pumping the detector to get a good ground balance. Did that a lot myself🙄