Nox Gold Prospecting - Ground Balance

[Condor]

Based on my recent experience with micro placer gold, I have a question about Ground Balance.  I know Steve has at various times, in previous posts, talked about ground balancing on Multi-Frequency machines, especially as it pertains to beach hunting.  I did not realize until today that Park 2 is a fixed ground balance.  I did not Ground Balance the machine at all in Park 2, but had used the manual ground balance in Gold 2 to start out, then expected the Tracking Ground Balance to take over.  I presume the Manual Ground Balance I did in Gold 2 carried over to Park 2 because it certainly handled some fairly hot ground with no problem.  However, I chased a few very faint targets and it seemed like the NOX was tracking them out.  I dug out the areas where I first heard the faint targets that NOX subsequently tracked out, and most of them turned out to be pockets of hot grey clay.  NOX was clearly doing its job and trying to ignore changing hot ground, but with a Fixed Ground Balance, it shouldn't have been able to do that. 

Perhaps it can be attributed to the PFM(pure f-ing magic) of Minelab's Multi filters, but if it's more easily explained inquiring minds would like to know.

[Steve Herschbach]

There are two levels of ground balance with Equinox. Multi-IQ just like other previous Minelab multifrequency options uses the multifrequency processing itself to remove most of the ground signal. For most normal ground you don’t need to ground balance. It was not until the CTX 3030 showed up that a ground balance was even added to the Minelab FBS units, and only then for use in extreme ground.

Multi-IQ is the same. Most normal ground (parks) does not need the actual ground balance, and it is preset as locked in all modes except Gold Mode (see below) which is preset for tracking. Further, ground balance is a local setting and does not carry over between modes.

That might explain why the hot rocks you encountered in Gold Mode were ignored in Park - different ground balance settings?

Minelab Equinox Factory Presets

[LuckyLundy]

Condor,

Keep swing’n that NOX, I’m interested and glad you are too with your post and finds.

Rick