Equinox Ground Balance Settings

[Valens Legacy]

I my area where mineralization is so different from one end of a field to the other end, I simply GB 3 or 4 times before getting to the end.

I noticed that when I do that I find more things to dig than when not doing it.

I can run the sense higher, with less noise, and better targets are found.

Good luck.

[longbow62]

Chase I always get consistent GB numbers in the areas I hunt. If I go to a certain park and GB in PARK1 the GB number is always really close every time I hunt. Same with Park2. If I go to the mildest ground I hunt which is almost pure sand and GB in Park1 and Park2 the numbers are always lower in the sand than in red clay that's in the Park. I think there is a correlation between low numbers being low mineralized ground and higher numbers being higher mineralized. How else could you explain getting greater depth in the sand vs. red clay?

If ground tracking is on and you are swinging over a iron rich area I have seen the GB number go up way higher than what I initially GB'ed to. Maybe that's a good thing? Not sure, but if I re-GB right there where I noticed it drops back down close to where it was initially.  I saw on a video early on after the Nox introduction with a guy in the UK doing a Nox school.  He was telling the students to leave tracking off, and not to use it.  I have noticed also if you swing over a target numerous times it changes the GB and it's not super fast at dropping back down although it eventually will.  I thought ground tracking was only really recommended for prospecting. I do not trust ground tracking when I can just do a auto GB when I think I need to.

[Chase Goldman]

19 minutes ago, longbow62 said:

Chase I always get consistent GB numbers in the areas I hunt. If I go to a certain park and GB in PARK1 the GB number is always really close every time I hunt. Same with Park2. If I go to the mildest ground I hunt which is almost pure sand and GB in Park1 and Park2 the numbers are always lower in the sand than in red clay that's in the Park. I think there is a correlation between low numbers being low mineralized ground and higher numbers being higher mineralized. How else could you explain getting greater depth in the sand vs. red clay?

If ground tracking is on and you are swinging over a iron rich area I have seen the GB number go up way higher than what I initially GB'ed to. Maybe that's a good thing? Not sure, but if I re-GB right there where I noticed it drops back down close to where it was initially.  I saw on a video early on after the Nox introduction with a guy in the UK doing a Nox school.  He was telling the students to leave tracking off, and not to use it.  I have noticed also if you swing over a target numerous times it changes the GB and it's not super fast at dropping back down although it eventually will.  I thought ground tracking was only really recommended for prospecting. I do not trust ground tracking when I can just do a auto GB when I think I need to.

That’s good info.  No right or wrong answers here.  It is a personal choice and people should use what they trust.  Ironically, prospectors distrust tracking as potentially desensitizing the detector on micro bits that straddle the ferrous/non-ferrous breakpoint.  Just asking to get a sense of peoples experiences with the various ground balance options.  Thanks for taking the time to articulate it.  And to clarify, regarding GB number correlation to degree of mineralization, I agree in a general relative sense the higher numbers may correlate to higher mineralization but I have seen a lot of exceptions to that correlation as well.  The only way to know for sure the degree of mineralization is to use a mineralization meter (found on some FT, Nokta, and XP detectors) or Steve H.’s quick and literally dirty method of dragging a permanent magnet through the soil of the site you are detecting and looking for particulate iron/iron oxide clinging to the magnet.  

Anyway, it is a best practice to keep the detector balanced however you choose to do so.  I can think of no compelling reason to steer you away from frequent auto balancing to tracking GB.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond.

[mh9162013]

5 hours ago, longbow62 said:

. I do not trust ground tracking when I can just do a auto GB when I think I need to.

But how can you always be sure when you need to adjust your GB or not?

I've never used the tracking GB on the Equinox 600, but on my next hunt, I will. The reason is because I think my soil conditions change even if it's not obvious.

If I'm hunting a curb strip, then cross the street to hunt a grassy field at my local park, I'll know to adjust my GB or deal with the consequences, w/e they might be. But when moving from one part of a grassy field to another, there's no obvious way (short of digging targets and noticing a pattern b/w VDIs and targets) to know that your ground conditions could be changing in a way to alter your VDIs. And if there is a way, I don't what it is.

I've noticed in yards and in parks that a given area might look the same on the surface, but the soil profile is changing depending on where you are. For example, the amount of milder brown/black soil above my mineralized clay lay gets thicker or thinner as you move across a yard or field at a park. Or, older soil is replaced with fill dirt. It's these changing underground conditions (even though the surface seems unchanged) that I think the tracking GB might be helpful for me. We shall see.

[Chase Goldman]

18 minutes ago, mh9162013 said:

But how can you always be sure when you need to adjust your GB or not?

Simple, if you are hearing ground noise then you should rebalance.

 

[mh9162013]

6 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

Simple, if you are hearing ground noise then you should rebalance.

What do you mean, ground noise? Like iron grunts? I normally hunt in Park 1 or 2, so those are discriminated out.

I thought ground conditions could change such that there's no noticeable change in the sounds you're hearing. Except the tones and VDIs will start corresponding to targets of different conductivity levels. 

So in one section of a field, copper pennies might ring up as a 22, but in another part of the field, the same pennies might ring up as a 24. However, reground balancing could avoid this shift in VDIs (or tones, depending on how your tones "bins" are set up).

Or am I missing something?

Another issue with reground balancing is many places I hunt are so trashy, finding a clear spot in the ground is difficult. I can't just stop a hunt and reground balance. It might take several minutes of walking around to find a spot that's trash free to reground balance...and this location could be far away from the place I was originally hunting at.

[Chase Goldman]

On Equinox ground noise manifests as continuous or machine gun hits in the -9 to -7 range.  When ferrous is discriminated out, it might not be noticeable though you might experience some slight depth loss but target IDs should not be affected.

[mh9162013]

7 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

On Equinox ground noise manifests as continuous or machine gun hits in the -9 to -7 range.  When ferrous is discriminated out, it might not be noticeable though you might experience some slight depth loss but target IDs should not be affected.

Hold up. I must be confused or missing something here.

If my Equinox 600 is not ground balanced properly, my target IDs should still be unchanged?

I've noticed that the same type of coin will read differently depending on the soil conditions with respect to mineralization and moisture levels (conductivity?).

Sometimes, a copper penny is 20. But other times, I've had a copper penny ring up as high as the mid 20s. I assumed this variation was, at least in part, due to diffferences in how my machine was ground balanced for given soil conditions. Then there's the fact that without proper ground balancing, my MIQ machines have had a habit of chasing ghost signals deep in my clay soil after a recent rain...

[F350Platinum]

A good trick for me is to clear a small area of all targets, big enough for the coil with some space around it. I ground balance in that spot. Useful when there is iron everywhere.