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A Question About GPZ Audio Response


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Jason, I have always appreciated the way you approach your detecting, dredging and prospecting...ever since you were on another forum. I agree with most of what you say which is part of why I asked the question in the first place. I hear some amazing sounds from the GPZ...(not so much from the GPX), and that got my curiosity going to research it a little..which is how I came across that MineLab quote. I don't think it was a misquote by ML either. 

The place I have been detecting is the closest to where I live (it's still a 285 mile round trip), and is loaded with shrapnel from a large number of AR-15 enthusiasts who, over the last five years, have decided that this detecting area is a fabulous shooting range - I don't think they have any idea there is also gold in the hillsides. The amount of weird metal particles strewn around is beyond awesome. As a result, I have been paying extremely careful attention to the varieties of sound the Zed produces. 

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The way a signal sounds can have a lot to do with were the GB position ends up relative to the ground your working and the Gold mode and Ground Mode you are working in. A signal response in High Yield Difficult can sound a lot different in High Yield normal or any of the General modes.

Generally smaller targets go High/Low in High Yield and bigger more solid bits go Low/High. Shallow Steel objects will often go Low/High but will be a tight signal response due to distance from the coil. This all changes around somewhat if the timings are changed. Quiet often you can also receive a confused signal or as a friend of mine likes to describe them, a turkey gobble signal (maybe even Waltzing Matilda ? ), this is where both channels respond equally and try to cancel each other out a little like noise cancelling does.

JP

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Thank you JP, it makes sense as your posts usually do. But, in the future, I will be listening hard for the Waltzing Matilda sound because whatever makes that sound is gonna be ground-breaking. 

Thanks for all the replies, it's why I dare to come here with my questions, even the dumb ones. And just to be clear for any newcomers reading this, I have been detecting for over twenty-five years. I am curious and asking questions is vital to learning.

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Sorry Flak I think I inadvertently implied you were a new guy. My second response was just addressed to the ether - anyone in general interested in reading or discussing it as I think it's an interesting topic. I know you've been swinging a coil since before I even knew what one was. ? I think your questions are good questions. And detecting in a field of AR bullets, casings, and fragments can definitely make one start asking a lot of questions, man been there.

 

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Hi again Jason...no, I didn't think you were implying anything. I have talked to you and seen your YouTube's where you specifically address newcomers trying to help them with what you have experienced first-hand the hard way and knew you were putting your findings out there for them. I admire your willingness to help.

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Jasong - Got a link to your youtube channel?  I am interested in learning and hearing more about your 80% techniques and methods used.  I am usually the pick a spot and grid guy so I find your method interesting and sound.  Definitely would like to know more.

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AFON: I haven't addressed the 80% thing directly on my channel (USMiner), it was just some numbers I was randomly using or guessing at roughly to demonstrate a different way of looking at prospecting, and that there are cases where it pays to not dig it all. I'll grid and dig everything just like everyone else when the situation calls for it though. 

The way I look at it is kinda like the progression a lot of us went through when we first started running a sluice. At first we try to meticulously save every color, with tweezers if needed, maybe feed a little recirculator with a spoon for fear of one tiny speck going out the other end. And eventually you get to the point cleaning out your dredge 5 years later where you are tossing 100 colors out your pan back into the river because the time to clean them up is better spent doing something more productive. Of course it's not really exactly the same since you might miss a lunker somewhere when it comes to detecting nuggets, but it's a risk I am willing to take especially since I do eventually end up back gridding when times are lean.

For the same reason, I probably spend more time wandering around looking for specific types of dirt or specific geology or topography, or just for signs of old timers than I do swinging a coil when I'm prospecting, even if there is no trash around. Which is kinda taking the "don't dig everything" philosophy to the extreme and not even detecting at all now. Because while gold can certainly be anywhere, it seems to me that 80% of the time (random guess again) the better patches are somewhere close to an area that "looks right" to me so I just scout for them and pass over huge tracts of land that previously I would have spent weeks detecting. I probably miss a lot of 1 off nuggets or small patches, but I'm cool with that. Doesn't hurt that I actually like exploring and hitting rocks with hammers more than swinging a heavy coil all day too. :tongue:

That said, there does seem to be a point where someone just starting should dig everything no matter what, for a time. That's the only way to figure out what "looks right" in terms of what produces nuggets when they reach the point where it pays to stop digging everything and start covering more ground later.

*PS, if trying this approach I find it essential to keep all your tracks recorded on a GPS and a main database of them on Google Earth or similar. I recently lost a card that held a ton of my old tracks from 2008 to 2015 and it really made things difficult in places I had left incomplete to revisit later. Think of exploration like macro gridding. Find a place you are interested in with good geology then systematically cover it, maybe an area 25 miles square, the same way you'd cover a patch 100 meters square. Keeping GPS tracks is essential in my book. When you find a productive area you can also use your tracks to make sure you've not missed any tiny washes or other productive zones that are easy to miss on the ground.

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9 hours ago, jasong said:

That said, there does seem to be a point where someone just starting should dig everything no matter what, for a time. That's the only way to figure out what "looks right" in terms of what produces nuggets when they reach the point where it pays to stop digging everything and start covering more ground later.

*PS, if trying this approach I find it essential to keep all your tracks recorded on a GPS and a main database of them on Google Earth or similar. I recently lost a card that held a ton of my old tracks from 2008 to 2015 and it really made things difficult in places I had left incomplete to revisit later. Think of exploration like macro gridding. Find a place you are interested in with good geology then systematically cover it, maybe an area 25 miles square, the same way you'd cover a patch 100 meters square. Keeping GPS tracks is essential in my book. When you find a productive area you can also use your tracks to make sure you've not missed any tiny washes or other productive zones that are easy to miss on the ground.

Jason - I agree with you on both topics (dig everything and the gps).  My first couple years were hard.  I had no mentor and no knowledge of how to find gold.  So I dug everything .... when I put my coil on the ground.  And sometimes that just meant finding areas where the bullets were less likely to be, or where the overburden wasn't 3 feet deep.  And I would make sure to go to many different areas and study what the ground looked like on the various club claims.  Eventually, clues on geology and topography began to show themselves.  I started going away from club claims and finding more and more gold.  But still with a lot of dry spells in between.  So my third year or so I decided to start sharing information with a couple new friends and I learned new techniques I wasn't using in regards to getting more out of known gold washes, and I learned different styles of detecting, where you don't necessarily cover every inch of the wash because you're not really sure if there were gold nuggets there.  You are doing quick scanning and cherry picking.  At this point, the information was very useful to me as I had found gold and understood geology a little better.  Whereas if I had done this in the first place, I think don't think it would have been as helpful.  I now see the benefit of being able to quick scan washes and to be able to switch gears once gold is found. 

But the GPS is a much underutilized too.  I also store ALL tracks.  And being able to set up a game plan is a huge benefit that really keeps you focused when in the field.  I hit washes that you can see on google earth, but are out of sight when just walking around on treks.

Andyy

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14 hours ago, jasong said:

AFON: I haven't addressed the 80% thing directly on my channel (USMiner), it was just some numbers I was randomly using or guessing at roughly to demonstrate a different way of looking at prospecting, and that there are cases where it pays to not dig it all. I'll grid and dig everything just like everyone else when the situation calls for it though. 

The way I look at it is kinda like the progression a lot of us went through when we first started running a sluice. At first we try to meticulously save every color, with tweezers if needed, maybe feed a little recirculator with a spoon for fear of one tiny speck going out the other end. And eventually you get to the point cleaning out your dredge 5 years later where you are tossing 100 colors out your pan back into the river because the time to clean them up is better spent doing something more productive. Of course it's not really exactly the same since you might miss a lunker somewhere when it comes to detecting nuggets, but it's a risk I am willing to take especially since I do eventually end up back gridding when times are lean.

For the same reason, I probably spend more time wandering around looking for specific types of dirt or specific geology or topography, or just for signs of old timers than I do swinging a coil when I'm prospecting, even if there is no trash around. Which is kinda taking the "don't dig everything" philosophy to the extreme and not even detecting at all now. Because while gold can certainly be anywhere, it seems to me that 80% of the time (random guess again) the better patches are somewhere close to an area that "looks right" to me so I just scout for them and pass over huge tracts of land that previously I would have spent weeks detecting. I probably miss a lot of 1 off nuggets or small patches, but I'm cool with that. Doesn't hurt that I actually like exploring and hitting rocks with hammers more than swinging a heavy coil all day too. :tongue:

That said, there does seem to be a point where someone just starting should dig everything no matter what, for a time. That's the only way to figure out what "looks right" in terms of what produces nuggets when they reach the point where it pays to stop digging everything and start covering more ground later.

*PS, if trying this approach I find it essential to keep all your tracks recorded on a GPS and a main database of them on Google Earth or similar. I recently lost a card that held a ton of my old tracks from 2008 to 2015 and it really made things difficult in places I had left incomplete to revisit later. Think of exploration like macro gridding. Find a place you are interested in with good geology then systematically cover it, maybe an area 25 miles square, the same way you'd cover a patch 100 meters square. Keeping GPS tracks is essential in my book. When you find a productive area you can also use your tracks to make sure you've not missed any tiny washes or other productive zones that are easy to miss on the ground.

Thanks for the reply jasong.  I understand your sluice and pan analogy, I have been prospecting for 15 years and as a geologist it helps some out in the field looking for those areas that "talk" to you.  But I am 5 years in now on MDing only and with no discrimination I still mostly dig everything.  Some I do not.  But I found that when I would wander I would not find much of anything.  I need to slow down and grid and that is when I tend to find gold.  That is easier to do in your home area knowing you can keep going back though, not so good if you travel long distance to an area with limited time.  I'll have to think about this some, because I have a lot of areas on maps that I want to hit, and not enough time to hike them out, let alone detect them out with my current methods.  The only thing that I do like this is that if I am not finding what I want in the first 2-3 hours, I move on.

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On ‎5‎/‎5‎/‎2019 at 6:47 PM, flakmagnet said:

"For example, the audio response for small gold will be a low-pitched tone followed by a high-pitched tone. A ferrous signal such as a bottle cap will produce a high-pitched tone followed by a low-pitched one, enabling the user to discriminate the ferrous target."

Have you GPZ owners found that smaller gold does indeed signal with "a low-pitched tone followed by a high-pitched tone?"

 

Getting back to your original question ... in Normal Mode (with HY or General), I disagree with the above statement for the GPZ.  I consider myself an expert in the small gold arena .. LOL.  Never ... never.... never... has any of my small gold registered low/high in the above settings.

When it wavers, I know it is wire, like Jason said.  But I dig it.

When it goes low high, I know it is a cold rock or a iron.  But I dig it.

Note that I said "I know" but I still follow by "I dig it".  Because, I found a big piece of gold that was hiding under a larger cold/hot rock.  So I remind myself of that find any time I come across that sound that "I know" is iron or a hot rock.

Andyy

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