Question For The GPZ Experts

[Jonathan Porter]

There’s good points in the all the replies here, here are few of things I’ve noticed over the years with GPZ.

Super D coils have a spacing between the receive windings which does cause a double blip of sorts, BUT that double blip often does not occur so much with non-ferrous targets unless right on the surface. So a clue no matter the speed of the sweep is to listen for the single more mellow high/low signal responses rather than the double blip signals. A brisk coil pace that is varied via good coil control is very helpful in this.

The width of a signal is relative to the depth of the signal plus size, so even a small tiny nugget will widen out the further from the coil it is (relative to max range of detection distance). If you were to look at the threshold as a single line with slight variations in the line (bumpy rather than perfectly flat) then a target signal is the change in the pitch and volume of that line as the coil receive gets disturbed by the target as it transitions through the zone. This is why its important to have a good range of controlled motion from the non-target stage leading into the target, peaking at the centre of the target (dead centre of the coil where both receive windings see the target equally) and then slowly returning back to threshold again after completing the tail out movement. A good ‘range of motion’ rule of thumb is the ‘tail out’ movement distance should be about double the distance of the ‘lead in’ movement distance to achieve the full gamut of target information possible.

Controlling the coil as carefully as possible (height, tilt, lift and tilt and speed) during this point is very important to manifest edge of detection signals properly. Varying the speed during this process is also very important for comparative purposes because a lot of targets are swing dependant, so long as a good rang of motion is maintained. 

A good operator soon becomes very proficient in controlling the coil so that the speed, range of motion relative to a suspect target, height of coil relative to localised saturation signal, controlled and even exposure of both receive windings relative to target, understanding the amount of passes that can be achieved before the Tracking G starts degrading target signal, all blend together to provide the best target signal information possible to help make a decision to dig or not.  

Hope this helps
JP

PS I’m not an Expert, ‘X’ is an unknown quantity and a spurt is a drip under pressure. 🤣

[zortan]

Thank you to all for your very understandable and descriptive posts.  Being able to differentiate the various signals has led to immediate success, I was spending to much time on bothersome trash signals, some signals are still iffy to me and I dig anyways but I’m getting much better at calling a target before digging.  These are my finds since I posted earlier in the week.

[flakmagnet]

Now we're going to be asking you what your methods are 
nice finds!

[Gold Catcher]

Very nice! My early GPZ days were much less successful. I think my first one I found was a sub 0.1g piece and it made me all excited 🙂 

[Gerry in Idaho]

Zortan,  Well that certainly was a pay off.

So, What Settings were you using?

How soon of did you decide if a sound was an actual target or just noise (how many times did you swing across it)?

Did you tilt your head left or right and was there a little skip in the step after the 1st nugget?

You are certainly on your way.  Congratulations and very nice gold.

[flakmagnet]

3 hours ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

So, What Settings were you using?

haha, see? Gerry wants to know what settings you're using.
No matter how experienced we are, we are always curious to know if certain settings we don't normally use, are working for others.

 

 

[zortan]

I think the settings I was using were pretty standard.

High Yield, Normal Ground, Sensitivity 10, Volume 8, Smoothing off, Threshold 27

I would just dig any target that gave a single rather than a double response.  I used to get disappointed when I would find shoe tacks but this trip was a little different.  I decided that if I was finding a shoe tack it probably would not come off from just walking and that whoever it was probably was working.  I began to ask myself what was this person doing here to make his shoes fall apart.  Why was he attracted to the area?  I knew I was onto something when I began to find the odd furniture nail (Held drywashers together back in the day).  When I began to think of everything as a clue the gold followed shortly thereafter.  

These old drywasher piles from 100+ years ago are almost impossible to find.  I only recognized my first one when I stopped to dig a target and noticed the subtle raise of the desert floor and a rather natural looking bit of larger rocks a little farther away (not natural mind you).  There would be no way to notice this from a car, you would have to be walking and observing.

For me it also helped to chastise myself as I was detecting along.  I began to think of my detector as nothing but a very expensive dousing rod set.  Everyone knows that dousing rods only work if you believe hard enough.  When I would feel a bad attitude coming I would talk aloud to myself telling myself that I'm not believing hard enough.  I know it sounds crazy but I would always slow back down and watch my coil control a little better.

I pounded the area to death and on the third day another detectorist wandered into my area.  He asked if I had any luck and I gave the standard response everyone gets...."nothing but bullets and a bad attitude", all the while smiling.  I guess he was having some problems finding an area and launched into a rant about how the area was hit too hard and that it was only good for drywashing anymore............he was standing 10 feet from where I found a 2 gram nugget.  I'm no Gerry or Lunk, I can still count on one hand how many multi-gram nuggets I've found, so please take what I say with a grain of salt, but, even with the GPZ 7000 you have to believe or it doesn't work.

[Gerry in Idaho]

Positive thinking is more important than most folks realize.  

When I am out in the middle of nowhere and talking to my detector, the gold gods and horny toads...I am at peace with my surroundings.  This is when my ears/eyes/senses are most alert and the little beauty nuggets decide its time to quit running from me and surrender.

If a prospector is worrying about what someone else is finding, or if there is even gold in the area, chances are they will walk over a soft sounding deep target.  If you get to a point that needing a drink of water or needing to take care of other business (where's the toilet paper), then most certainly take the break as needed.

As you say, "it is like your detector is a dowsing rod"

Self confidence and positive thinking should never be ignored.

 

[Gold Catcher]

I could not agree more Gerry, well said!