DDancer

Nice finds, the chevron stuff is on my bucket list, great to see you and your other can share the experience. Now can you share the gold? Hahh! Gonna have to get busy as the Miss's is cleaning the patch while your jawing with the guys *grin*. Luck and keep swinging.

Very nice find and the cleaning appears to have giving it some real character Good stuff.

The off side sound, a raise in threshold, is one thing I'm always paying attention to. Kind of a "look over hear" signal On PI's, as Norvic says, DD's give the best result *I'm opposite as I work with DD's rather than mono's*. The Zed is pretty responsive to on large targets. With VLF's DD and Concentric's work well for off side signals. The biggest factor I've found that affects off side signals is Threshold. Second factor is Volume. Low thresholds are noisy and a lot of people turn them up to quite things down... what gets missed are off side signals and deep signals. Proper volume allows recognition in the thresholds change in pitch. How far out the signal will be found is relative to the size of the coil and the targets size/response. No good way to go about figuring it out. Quite a few times I've been lead to good targets and bad. One bad target *funny now* was an off side signal around a dead tree. Turned out to be a few AA batteries some joker droped in the hollow of it. Nice thing is I checked the hollow before I knocked down the tree for a futile dig. Good target was a 10 gram bit of gold up the side of a gully about 12 inches. Another good one, VLF, was a silver flourin *about the size of a 50 cent piece* up under the edge of a sidewalk. Off side signals can be fun. Addendum : While poking about I saw an interesting video by Phase Technical on his GPZ7000 series video's. Part 3 at about 11 minutes show's him coming up on and getting an off side signal and his comments on it. I'd post a link but I'm betting it'd be wrong to do so.

Gold has a special ability to camouflage itself has always been my opinion even knowing the why's of it when it comes to discrimination and detection. Thanks for the link I'm pretty sure gold has a personality as well as it can be a love hate relationship tracking it down. Hahh!

Saw it but didn't really register it. Going to have to re-read it a couple of more times now

That warble signal has always been exciting to me I use DD's primarily with my GP and when I hear that noise I know I got a multi-grammer coming out of the hole. It is a bit funny seeing the nugget outta the hole in the video... been there done that. Hahh

Don't know if the SDC with a larger coil would be better however I caught wind that there maybe another SDC coming about. JP just posted a video about audio smoothing and dug a nice piece at depth. Not trash but it kind of took me back to this thread and concerns~ Check it out if you've not already. Trash or gold I don't think the Z will miss much of it. Its done well with all the practice pieces I've planted in the yard. I'll know more when I'm in the thick of it coming June.

Hehh good stuff Rob Always check the hole and the pile I imagine its getting a bit tough there with all the spring grass's coming up. While I was there in AZ earlier this year I was impressed by how much green is coming up from the wet winter.

Love the example you've given JP But I could not help laughing a good bit with the Later, Much Later and Much Much Later comments. I look at it as something I'll be doing shortly.

I use the Rattler headphone. Its always good to know if something is more interested in you than in what your doing. I don't know about bears but I've had plenty of other critters sneak up on me~ dogs, deer, wallaby's, humans~ that put a scare in me. I would think shoulder speakers in bear country would attract to much attention.

An informative read Thanks JP. In another thread there were questions about mode switching and whether GB info was stored for each mode during a session or if the GB info followed between modes. Those questions are laid to rest now I've also had to rethink my own practice a little in terms of how to check balancing. The coil bounce outlined makes sense to me so I'll just leave the quick track trigger alone. I'm curious, has anyone tried knocking on their neighbor by doing and EMI balance while your mates are nearby detecting? *grin* When I'm out and my mates come up on me out bush, head down and trotting my way, I'd have a bit of fun or just wake them up from their daze by lifting the detector~ point it at them~ and hit the emi balance. Great fun watching them start as their machine warbles like a mad dog at them. Hahh!

That's and interesting thing to kick out of a hole. What is your reference for dating it? Aside from the site.

I think it'd be grand to see what happens with this. Just saying. *irked* hrmhph.

Your finds and others are an inspiration Thanks!

Not that I've ever noticed. Only limiting factor that can happen with a coil cover is getting mineralized sands and dust in between the coil and the cover as it can cause falsing and chatter. An eighth of an inch or less between the coil and a target really is pretty negligible but Iike you I have seen others, in the field and on forums, who feel that a cover somehow impacts performance.

No spare parts here in the US either unless you want to buy a second Z and cannibalize it To expensive to experiment on as well. Reno Cris pulled a relevant statement out of one of my posts that pretty much sums up using AA's.... the Z will likely eat them like candy. As to using the AA holder of a CTX someone will have to confirm the pin out for power on that holder and if its true that it pins out for power differently than the LI battery pack then you'd have to modify the holder as well as install the regulator. Now make a measurement from the stock battery for power draw then calculate how many AA's it'll take to deliver the same battery depth for the Z. Course you don't have to use the stock LI battery, it'd be a bit of a pain adapting it, you can just be real careful with a bench power supply as well for the measurement. Note if the pin out for power is not different and the Z simply does not like the power input it probably has to do with a simple power test circuit in the Z that looks at the power source and says go or no go before allowing the detector to turn on. Me, I'm just going to buy the CTX Li battery with its warranty. Maybe I'll play with a power supply option after I get back from OZ this year.

Fast fine healing to ya jasong. You'll be back in the harness again before long

If what I just read is true and the pin out of the AA adapter is different than the LI battery for the GPZ then the GPZ lacks an internal regulator that the CTX has hence the AA does not work. I have various electronic devices that we install in aircraft that are set up with pin outs for different input voltages, ie 12vdc, 28vdc 400hz AC and so on. The GPZ just simply was not designed the same as the CTX for battery types. This is something ML either overlooked or decided not to incorporate~ the AA battery pack. LI's have a better performance over time than do NiMH or Alkaline and given how sensitive the GPZ is that may have been a factor to prevent complaints about lousy performance due to low batteries. A thought. addendum: Thinking on it a bit the relative sizes of the CTX and GPZ packs as well as overall time of use between recharges also suggests to me that the GPZ use's a lot more power compaired to the CTX. AA batteries were probalbly also ruled out because the GPZ would eat them like candy. For the same amount of punch in AA's I'd guess you'd need 16 for a GPZ to last a while.... its already heavy I don't think anyone would want a pack as big as the super size pack of AA's one gets for Xmas so the kids can play with their toys. Hahh!

Over voltage rate for the battery pack. Its a quick guess but the GPZ probably wont accept voltages much in excess of 7.2v and probably lacks a regulator to tame higher ratings. Cant run the detector hot is my guess without playing with it. Good to know. NiMH pack at 8 cells is around 9.2Vdc *1.2vdc cell* and alkaline boosts to 12Vdc *1.5vdc cell* assuming series configuration. Did not check the spec on the LI cells but I suspect its similar. Could you put a meter on it, the spare cell pack, Steve if you have the time? Possible solution is to add a small regulator to the CTX pack to limit the voltage. Well off to day dreaming.

There in is the problem. I don't do Facebook. No worries Steve, thanks.

Like you Steve I go after balancing before I start messing with my set up. For me its a habit I developed from the good old days of the 2100. Hahh! But then there was simplicity its self though I don't miss being bent over the box 20 times a day One has to be glad of the little green button later on. Still even in later models I periodically do a full rebalance during the day. Always keeps the detector from being to chatty for me. I don't expect that the loss of data is an issue with quick track in one location or in multiple modes. Or using it to test a bit of ground noise but it can soften a good target response. Rebalance after the test brings the target back up so no worries. In the other threads its been pointed out that a reset clears all information, quick track clears recent information and power cycling does not affect stored information. I imagine the last, power cycling, will cause some people problems as I've seen it way to often with mates just picking up their detector and going on without tuning and balancing. The GPZ wont like that I expect. JP has repeatedly made a good point about resetting when one thinks things are going pear shaped As do you.

Tried to play the video but it just shows the pause button and cycles...

Hehh hehh and I recall someone saying never balance over a target But I know I'd do it anyway just to see.... gpz has not tracked out yet. I don't know that the GB procedure locks in its settings for each particular ground mode. I am more inclined to believe it sets up current conditions for GB at power up and those settings are transferred between modes thru out the session. I have noted it does take a few seconds to stabilize between modes but after that there's no discernable difference in ground audio from mode to mode. As to the session I believe that would matter from location to location as the machine keeps the last settings it was in. Its been noted that powering off and on in one location typically does not require a rebalancing.

Cool observations jasong. Definite food for thought for me. I like the idea of using the quick track for a mode changer and I think it would be nice if one could set the user button up as quick track and leave mode setting to the trigger. Basically the ability to toggle quickly as you said.

Not emi related but it does answer a question in another post as well as tie two view points together. Thanks JP. *points that way : http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/827-minelab-video-gpz-7000-ground-type/?p=8270 *