Fisher F19 Ground Balance Question

[Rick N. MI]

My ground is very mild and my Tesoro's gain quite a bit more depth with a negative ground balance.

I just bought an F19. I can't test it right now because it's winter in northern MI. My question is, has anyone ground balanced the F19 with a negative ground balance and gained more depth . A lot detectors negative ground balance doesn't help. I'll find out in the spring but would like to know now. 

[phrunt]

Seeing nobody has answered I read about this some time ago with the GBP, I was unable to find any noticeable difference in depth or sensitivity, like anything with detectors results may vary, I’d be interested to hear if you can find it beneficial.

[Rick N. MI]

Thank you, I'll let you know if I see any difference. My ground is very mild. Some detectors can be made hot with a neg ground balance.

[Steve Herschbach]

I define positive ground balance as the detector producing a slight sound when the coil goes to the ground. I define negative ground balance as the threshold going away, being suppressed, as the coil goes to the ground. There are almost no cases where a negative ground balance is going to help. In fact it can suppress the faintest signals if they occur while the coil motion is even slightly downward or ground rising under the coil. I always did a ground grab with any FT 19kHz machine, then manually bumped the balance one notch positive. This can easily be tested with any tiny target in the soil. A slight positive balance will preload the audio and often help the signal. Negative balance, just the opposite.

I have heard about machines that people claim do better with a negative ground balance, but I suspect perception is more at work than verifiable proof. In the end it's not really an ask the question sort of thing. It's go find a target in your ground (when you can) and test it both ways and see what works better for you. But me, I never, ever ground balance negative, but do very often go just a touch positive.

[Rick N. MI]

On a Tesoro it makes it hot and go deeper.

[Steve Herschbach]

That's been said but it was never true of any Tesoro I owned. I would say that any detector that performs better by being improperly ground balanced is defective or was not engineered properly. It flies in the face of what a ground balance control is meant to do and how it functions.

[Rick N. MI]

Good point. It has to be the very mild ground I have. Monte started it, calling Tesoro's power balancing. I see a difference in my mild ground.

[phrunt]

All this has inspired me to dig one of my GBP's out for another play.  It's the only detector I was lucky enough to get a Nel Snake and Sharpshooter for before they become worth their weight in gold, I've also got my favourite single frequency VLF coil the Detech Ultimate for it.  Makes it a pretty impressive rig with those coils so it's worth trying out the two clicks positive ground balance on some little nuggets.

[Rick N. MI]

I call it negative ground balance when I raise the coil off the ground and it makes a sound. When I lower the coil to the ground it makes a sound and I loose performance. Most detectors it doesn't work. Analog detectors work best. I have 2 detector that it works.

[EL NINO77]

On 1/9/2024 at 9:44 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

That's been said but it was never true of any Tesoro I owned. I would say that any detector that performs better by being improperly ground balanced is defective or was not engineered properly. It flies in the face of what a ground balance control is meant to do and how it functions.

It's like Steve says...if the detector and coil are properly calibrated, you should expect the best results in the field with the correct ground balance.-and the deep signals on all metal will not be washed out..sometimes fine tuning/early is it. .retuning the gb detector/ to + enables a better response of the detector to very weak signals.
But it's not a rule...

As for the F19, which is very similar to my tek G2.. I found out that the correct ground balance of the G2 on the field ... has a good effect on the discrimination of iron ... especially in wet terrain.. it is very visible..

If you want to increase the sensitivity of All metal, or the volume of weak signals, I would recommend a mod for powering the detector using a battery from the classic 9 volts to around 12-14 max volts... because the audio of the detector is powered directly from the battery and the volume of the detector is directly proportional to the voltage battery...
You won't get a greater depth of detection with the discrimination mode, but such a mode will really strengthen weak signals in detection... and also significantly strengthen the signal when working on all metal...

Another good advice for the F19 is ... if you want better detection results, use a different coil ... for better separation of the nel snake coil ... and for greater depth ... 13" ultimate  coil... the detection results on these coils are really visibly...