Some Food For Thought..

[Chase Goldman]

5 hours ago, Jackpine said:

Regarding the sensitivity aspect for unmasking (not mentioned in the article) try this, run a threshold, notch out the predominate iron in a site and see just how much you are running in a null,  drop your sensitivity and note the difference.  It can be an eye opener.

Great tip, Tom.  I am going to have to try that.  I must admit, I do not "sift" (reduce sensitivity to umask non-ferrous in thick iron) as much as I should. 

Regarding iron bias, I try to avoid filtering that masks (even discrimination) because it ties up precious miliseconds of signal processing time, which effectively counters the recovery time advantage of this machine.  I like to hear what is in the ground and let the audio paint the picture in my brain.  In some cases, judicious use of disc helps to reduce signal blending and even down averaging and in "casual" coin shooting situations (i.e., a walk in the park) it's nice to give your brain and ears a break and let disc do its thing but, like you, I really have found no upside to invoking iron bias and, frankly, some significant downside as far as masking is concerned.

[Alluminati]

11 hours ago, Jackpine said:

That is a thoughtful well written article.  by SteveG ?

Large shallow iron I can deal with audibly.  It's the smaller deep iron falsing that is the bigger problem and IB really doesn't help there IMO.  The conductive part of the signal overpowers. True with every machine I have used.

Regarding the sensitivity aspect for unmasking (not mentioned in the article) try this, run a threshold, notch out the predominate iron in a site and see just how much you are running in a null,  drop your sensitivity and note the difference.  It can be an eye opener.

Tom

This is a great tip I am going to try too. I'm a huge sifter fan, but I'll admit I' haven't been dropping the sensitivity as low, for as long of time as I should be with the Equinox, still getting a feel for the machine.

This should give me an idea how low I need to go.

[Cal_Cobra]

I started to watch that video but the audio was so bad, I moved on.  I guess I should revisit it?

 

[Alluminati]

9 minutes ago, Cal_Cobra said:

I started to watch that video but the audio was so bad, I moved on.  I guess I should revisit it?

 

Ya the audio gets better for the most part.

These are three things that I took away from the video.

-At 23:00 it is interesting to hear him comment on a recovery speed of 1 and sweep speed. I have swung slow, but not Neil Jones slow lol. I'll have to try that some time.

-26:30 Is a good part to watch about Iron Bias. The instructor explains how a CTX-3030 will feel like a Iron Bias of 9, and why the Equinox is a brute while running Iron Bias of 0 in Park 2 for example.

A Iron Bias of 4 is recommended for new users.

-36:45 is a good refresher on Iron Falsing with a description of what types of targets will make this machine and others false.

[Jackpine]

6 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

Great tip, Tom.  I am going to have to try that.  I must admit, I do not "sift" (reduce sensitivity to umask non-ferrous in thick iron) as much as I should. 

Regarding iron bias, I try to avoid filtering that masks (even discrimination) because it ties up precious miliseconds of signal processing time, which effectively counters the recovery time advantage of this machine.  I like to hear what is in the ground and let the audio paint the picture in my brain.  In some cases, judicious use of disc helps to reduce signal blending and even down averaging and in "casual" coin shooting situations (i.e., a walk in the park) it's nice to give your brain and ears a break and let disc do its thing but, like you, I really have found no upside to invoking iron bias and, frankly, some significant downside as far as masking is concerned.

Somebody watching me hunt iron would shake their head as I constantly ride the sensitivity and recovery speed as I hear 

Quote

the audio paint the picture in my brain

I to  like to give the ears a break when after high conductors only.  I just can't force myself to use any disc, preferring to lower the volume and tone pitch on the foil and tab ranges instead. 

There are many ways to get the job done and we use what works for us

[flakmagnet]

Maybe it is my background of gold detecting, but I am used to listening to and digging signals that turn out to be iron or iron stone etc. So, I keep my iron bias low on the Equinox, swing slowly and dig almost everything. It works just fine with the GPZ and the EQ.

I do not mean to say I would do this in the kind of iron infested site some of you guys mention. It sounds like that does take another approach. fwiw.

[dewcon4414]

Tom, ive kind of done the same thing but without running a threshold.   I run AM..... with the volume down....... you will notice as the sensitive or IB is changed so do those iron tones.  Some of the iron maybe minerals.

[ColonelDan]

My first machine was a Jetco Mustang (1970) and yes, it made you dig it all.  Beep and dig...absolutely no discrimination capability.  It had one knob...on/off and volume.

[dewcon4414]

For me IB 6 is just to high for salt water hunting.   3 sometimes is to low so 4 seems to work in the Gulf for me.   What i have found is if you up the IB.... you can up the sensitivity.   SO the question would be ....... where is the advantage?   More sensitivity sometime equals more depth...... but more IB can also make you miss near targets if moving to fast.    It just doesnt get as good of a look at the target and gives a pretty quick response that can be missed.   Some of us move faster in the water than we really should.