Anyone Use Volcanic Mode On The Aq?

[bklein]

Just curious if anyone has been using the Volcanic mode on the AQ. To even have it had to be worth it to someone…

[bklein]

No replies so I’ll add some content…

I tried the AQ with my bucket of “black sand” from upper Newport.  It detects my gold ring no problem, really strong with the Bigfoot coil and any run mode. The volcanic mode seems worse depth of all. Then I tried some gold nuggets I had found at a Havasu Goldseekers dig. It only sees them if they are on the surface. No superior mode here either - just doesn’t work. Here’s a photo of the gold and my bucket.  All of this seems to contradict what Alexandre was suggesting in his comments here. I wonder if they just gave up on volcanic mode and focused on the others.

[Steve Herschbach]

That's not how it works. Volcanic mode is for ground so bad the other modes fail and by definition that ground is the ground where that setting outperforms the other settings. In other words, your test bucket is not bad enough to need volcanic mode. In ground where it is not called for you lose depth, not gain it, which is why almost nobody uses it.

I have run into very few people who understand how the timings work on detectors like a GPX 5000. People get it backwards and think settings for bad ground are more powerful when in reality it is the exact opposite. As the ground conditions get worse, each timing is progessively less powerful but works better in bad ground than the more powerful modes due to blowback. It's a balancing act, and timings are nothing more than base sensitivity levels. You reduce sensitivty to handle worsening ground condition - increasing sensitivity as ground worsens is counterproductive. As ground gets milder, increase sensitivity, as it worsens, reduce sensitivity. Less is more in bad ground.

In general you use the most powerful mode you can until it is counterproductive. How do you know? In field testing on your ground. That is why people using canned settings provided by people in totally different locations is a complete joke. You have to learn what the settings do and learn to adjust them for your circumstances, and that means doing it yourself on your ground.

This is a GPX 5000 timing chart but the rationale for how to tune it in lower right is just as true with the Impulse or any other PI detector, and applies to pulse delay, etc. In a nutshell bad ground calls for turning down the power, in good ground turn it up.

[bklein]

Hi Steve, in your post regarding using your AQ for prospecting you got frustrated and didn’t try Volcanic mode. Did you later or just box the AQ up and sell it?

Do all detectors favor a ring vs a nugget or in my case nuggets of similar or higher weight?