Axiom, Outrageous Settings That Work In Black Sand

[Knomad]

Try THIS in Lake Tahoe STEVE.!

Below is a link I hope works to a admittedly low quality phone video I took at the worst black sand area I have ever seen.

NOTE - The Outrageous settings on the Axiom are - Salt Mode, Sensitivity at Minimum of 1, Threshold at -9 So NO Threshold, Auto ground balance off.

Machine would not ground balance in ANY mode or sensitivity on this ground and gave a Zero Zero balance number for both balance readouts, and no target could be heard over the very loud ground noise, SO I turned threshold OFF completely, and that helped BUT now still the ground was being detected as targets.!  SO I reduced the sensitivity until most of the ground was no longer detected, that turned out to be all the way down to 1, and still I had to lift the coil about two inches above the ground to eliminate most ground signalling, to test a target I put a dime down 3 inches and it Clearly and Repeatedly detected it, even buried.  Note it does have a different target sound than normal.

I did not try it deeper, but am sure it would work with the signal as strong as it was with the coil 2 inch above the ground, so actually a distance of 5 inches in this ridiculous ground.

Salt Mode, Sensitivity of 1, and NO Threshold - Went From Undetectable Ground to working well, Who in their right mind would even try such settings.!!  🙃

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/rVhX4avWLfiUBTrc9

[Steve Herschbach]

11 minutes ago, Knomad said:

Who in their right mind would even try such settings

Me for one. I was running a similar ultralow sensitivity while coin detecting in a park with the Axiom.

I would expect it would work better if you did not ground balance it into the 00 00 set point but would use the default GB setting instead, or do as I described in an earlier response to you and get it close without going over the edge. I honestly have not tried 00 00 however as I made an incorrect assumption the machine was crapped out with that indication, so worth a go both ways. But yeah, people for some reason think setting like 1 are put on detectors as placeholders that serve no purpose. If it was never supposed to be run on 1 it would not have that setting. A majority of detectorists (not saying you, just in general) do not seem to understand that the ground determines the gain settings. If you go too high in bad ground the blowback from the ground actually means LESS DEPTH. Reducing the sensitivity and other related settings to appropriate amounts gives BETTER DEPTH. It does not matter what the settings are per se, just that they are just below the tipping point into the blowback situation.

Good to hear it sounds like you are having fun!

[phrunt]

So, winding the detector back making it insensitive to the ground ended up paying off as it killed the ground response, it will kill smaller target responses too but probably good for coins and larger jewellery, this might be good advice for me on black sand beaches.

[DSMITH]

2 hours ago, Knomad said:

Try THIS in Lake Tahoe STEVE.!

Below is a link I hope works to a admittedly low quality phone video I took at the worst black sand area I have ever seen.

NOTE - The Outrageous settings on the Axiom are - Salt Mode, Sensitivity at Minimum of 1, Threshold at -9 So NO Threshold, Auto ground balance off.

Machine would not ground balance in ANY mode or sensitivity on this ground and gave a Zero Zero balance number for both balance readouts, and no target could be heard over the very loud ground noise, SO I turned threshold OFF completely, and that helped BUT now still the ground was being detected as targets.!  SO I reduced the sensitivity until most of the ground was no longer detected, that turned out to be all the way down to 1, and still I had to lift the coil about two inches above the ground to eliminate most ground signalling, to test a target I put a dime down 3 inches and it Clearly and Repeatedly detected it, even buried.  Note it does have a different target sound than normal.

I did not try it deeper, but am sure it would work with the signal as strong as it was with the coil 2 inch above the ground, so actually a distance of 5 inches in this ridiculous ground.

Salt Mode, Sensitivity of 1, and NO Threshold - Went From Undetectable Ground to working well, Who in their right mind would even try such settings.!!  🙃

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/rVhX4avWLfiUBTrc9

Great tip

[DSMITH]

2 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Me for one. I was running a similar ultralow sensitivity while coin detecting in a park with the Axiom.

I would expect it would work better if you did not ground balance it into the 00 00 set point but would use the default GB setting instead, or do as I described in an earlier response to you and get it close without going over the edge. I honestly have not tried 00 00 however as I made an incorrect assumption the machine was crapped out with that indication, so worth a go both ways. But yeah, people for some reason think setting like 1 are put on detectors as placeholders that serve no purpose. If it was never supposed to be run on 1 it would not have that setting. A majority of detectorists (not saying you, just in general) do not seem to understand that the ground determines the gain settings. If you go too high in bad ground the blowback from the ground actually means LESS DEPTH. Reducing the sensitivity and other related settings to appropriate amounts gives BETTER DEPTH. It does not matter what the settings are per se, just that they are just below the tipping point into the blowback situation.

Good to hear it sounds like you are having fun!

I have never understood peoples thinking on sensitivity settings, running maxed out on the sensitivity and then complaining that there is to much noise going on when if they would have just been willing to cut the sensitivity back a bit most likely it would have eliminated the ground response, I like to run my detectors pretty hot and do not mind a little bit of feed back from the ground, but there is a time to drop sensitivity and times you can run maxed out sensitivity, and most people want to run at full gain all the time, which a lot of times can not be done

[EL NINO77]

Setting the threshold determines the limit where the detector will not yet respond to the ground signal, but can already give an audio response to the reception of a signal that exceeds the limit... of the set threshold...
At a low set threshold, the detector will be slightly sensitive to the ground signal,,, and will be very stable. But to detect the target, you will need a stronger signal from the target....-so that this signal breaks through the low set threshold level....because like this the set detector is even slightly sensitive to very weak target signals...
It's something for something.. therefore, with a low set threshold, the detector may not detect very small and weak signals... but it will detect larger and stronger signals from targets...

On the contrary, if you increase the threshold, you increase the sensitivity of the detector to the ground signal... but at the same time the sensitivity of the detector to weak signals from the targets... but be careful... with a high threshold set, a strong ground signal can cross the threshold as a detected signal, what will happen like this a high-set threshold will make the detector unstable on the given terrain...

 

[Steve Herschbach]

In proper tuning technique we are not supposed to tune detectors to targets in the air. The main goal should be to tune the detector for stable operation against the ground. Only by getting properly tuned to the ground can you get the best performance. That may mean it does not detect as deep or as small of objects in the air - but we are not detecting in the air. Detectors can only do what they do and so you tune up for the ground, and then you get what you can get. If your detector is not up to the task, then get a different detector, but no tuning magic will give you air depth in the ground. In some places you will get half the depth or less of what air tests show, and in the rarest location, detectors will not work at all.

[Knomad]

I may not be making my main points clear with these posts about the Axiom and REALLY Bad Ground, so let me recap.

I understand about sensitivity level setting being low to be able to detect in bad ground, this is generic to ALL detectors, BUT what I am saying is By use of VERY low to No threshold with the Axiom you can often MAX OUT sensitivity in such ground and Regain the depth that is usually lost with a low sensitivity setting.!  AND not have the target blend into what would be so much noise that no target can be heard with higher sensitivity AND anywhere near normal threshold.

MAIN Point - in very bad ground, Try Zero Threshold and MAX sensitivity, There is something Unusual about the Threshold on the Axiom, It can literally act as a Noise Filter for targets, not just a threshold level, So much so that it can make UNDETECTABLE ground detectable, even when minimum sensitivity cannot.!

That last video was to show that even with minimum sensitivity, Undetectable Ground can be detectable with Threshold off, THEN try to increase sensitivity to see at what point the ground noise comes back with NO threshold.

[Knomad]

10 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Me for one. I was running a similar ultralow sensitivity while coin detecting in a park with the Axiom.

I would expect it would work better if you did not ground balance it into the 00 00 set point but would use the default GB setting instead, or do as I described in an earlier response to you and get it close without going over the edge. I honestly have not tried 00 00 however as I made an incorrect assumption the machine was crapped out with that indication, so worth a go both ways. But yeah, people for some reason think setting like 1 are put on detectors as placeholders that serve no purpose. If it was never supposed to be run on 1 it would not have that setting. A majority of detectorists (not saying you, just in general) do not seem to understand that the ground determines the gain settings. If you go too high in bad ground the blowback from the ground actually means LESS DEPTH. Reducing the sensitivity and other related settings to appropriate amounts gives BETTER DEPTH. It does not matter what the settings are per se, just that they are just below the tipping point into the blowback situation.

Good to hear it sounds like you are having fun!

[Knomad]

NOTE - I did not pick that 00 00 ground balance, it is what the machine apparently defaults to if it cannot ground balance even in manual ground balance mode.

I would like to see them add the ability to manually tweak the ground balance, at least a few numbers like some other machines.