Jump to content

At Sea, Balance Or Not?


Xergix

Recommended Posts

Is it better to do manual balancing or autotracking in salt water? On dry sand I have not found great differences, but in sea water the doubt remains, it would seem that autotracking tends to eliminate weak signals, according to you which is the best solution?

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Here equinox 800  is used mainly in the sea and  it is proving superior to excalibur, we are trying to use it to its maximum performance, so we try to understand what is the best condition and the ground balance is one of these.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For what it is worth here is how I do it. I use both. My beach is mostly fairly uniform and when I am in that area I usually turn off the auto ground balancing just in case it starts to track out weak signals.

The ocean as the ultimate sorter and classifier makes these wonderful pockets of sand that are really mineralized and "usually" has many more targets. When I get in these areas I turn on the tracking.

 

Where I am on the far north coast of California there is abundant black sand. The less mineralized areas typically show ground balance numbers of 14, the high areas jump to 60 and more.

I can't prove the auto tracking tunes out the really faint signals because that's the nature of really weak signals, right?

I don't think you can go too far wrong running in auto ground balance it's what I usually do.

 

Cheers,

Tim

 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I hunt salt water, my Equinox is fully submerged 8 hours a day, on occasion 10 hrs if I'm doing well.  I prefer to do Manual GB, but not all folks know what they're doing & if you don't, Auto GB is ok.  Most my salt water hunts are on the Eastern side, so the black sands are not as strong as the Western beaches.

Keep us informed on what you find that works best for you.

MXJan19a.JPG

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice finds Jerry,  i know, in the sea there are the best surprises! 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I normally try to manually GB mid wet sand before getting in the water.   A lot depends on IF your beaches allow a GB .... sometimes mine wont and the machine will just grab a digit.... move a foot and it will change.   A few ways ive tried...... tracking can give you some sore of idea as to the digit you are working with.   There can be a pretty good swing of digits from DRY .... to WET to near the surf.   Near the surf i dont GB...... most of the black sand accumulates there... and there is water movement in the sand as the surf comes in.... which can really swing the GB and eliminate smaller gold.   Some just use default GB of 0..... and deal with the chatter from minerals.   There may be some advantage to this....... you cant tell when you are working in fluffy sand or near the hard pan out there just by the mineral chatter.   Some like to work with a really quiet machine too.  Tracking, higher recovery, lower sensitivity can do this....... but are you loosing deeper targets.... there is always a trade off.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The last day I hunted because of this thread, I switched between manual and auto GB. In manual I had it set at zero. EVERY target dug I went into each of the GB modes. I did not notice a depth increase over another mode. 

The only thing I noted was a little more stability [quiet running] in tracking GB with moving salt water up and down the beach. 

Dave

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/22/2019 at 7:59 PM, midalake said:

The only thing I noted was a little more stability [quiet running] in tracking GB with moving salt water up and down the beach.

Which is exactly why ML recommends using tracking GB in that particular situation (user guide p. 41)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It might also depend on how its tracking.   If its just tracking the minerals in the sand ....... OR if it also tracking the salt water.   Shallow water for the most part isnt an issue..... its a pretty forgiving GB.   But things change more for me the closer i get to the hard pan..... out chest deep.   But that areas can make most machines want to false a bit more..... the trick is getting it to smooth down a bit to catch weak targets..... with out over balancing loosing them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...