Covering Ground Vs Going For Depth

[mn90403]

My recent discussions and readings with some of you here on the forum and some not here has been a focus on 'hot settings' vs 'conservative' settings of the GPZ 14".  As a user I have to satisfy myself with a 'discussion' of taking a conservative setting(sensitivity 6,7,8) and increasing the volume of the deep, weak signal vs finding with a hot setting(sensitivity 15+) trying to hear the deep signal among the chatter.  One school of thought is that the conservative settings will sense deeper because you are not 'exciting' the first 10" of ground as much as you do with the hot settings.  The hot settings are said to find more shallow, small gold but miss deeper targets depending on the ground.  (It always depends on something, doesn't it?  haha)

Now JP comes along and tells us with the GPZ we are swinging 'double cones' that should be controlled correctly with the swing in order to get the deep targets we have been missing.  This seems to require a bit slower speed because the brains of the GPZ can't keep up with the ground if you go too fast.  I'll have to remember this for the 19" when it comes.

Jason reminds me of beach detecting and my early days of hunting in the desert.  Go fast and find the good stuff!  You can find more good stuff if you don't spend time digging everything and you let your machine discriminate.  In the desert you can discriminate with speed because the small stuff will be ignored.  You can also discriminate with depth. (Give a surface scrape and if it is still there dig!)  Another beach analogy works here when you find a couple of good rings in an area you need to slow down because you might be in a 'pocket' which would be similar to a patch.  Pockets are produced by water, waves, tide and wind.  Patches are produced by geologies outside of this discussion.

My experiences of large and deep objects so far with the GPZ suggests that it 'sees' well beyond its coil size.  When I bring the coil near a can it senses it many inches (if not feet) before I get there.  When I swing my pick over or near it as in an air test I know the direction of the target. (I haven't experimented with pinpointing and sensitivity yet.)  Large targets (not gold yet) that I have dug are not only heard under the coil but off to the side.  I think this has helped me to find gold under bushes I did not find with the GPX.

I'm enjoying this thread and thought I would include some non-professional user observations.

Mitchel

[Norvic]

MN, You will not have to concern yourself to much with swinging the 19 slowly, I doubt it could be swung any other way. Be a wee hard and tiring to stop the momentum of a fast swing. My time with the 19, firstly in my hot 14 settings for ziltch then switching to JPs conservative settings over the same ground was a eye opener for me. So much so that once (if) I get back to using the 14 I`ll be back to conservative settings for a bit for sure. So many different factors influence our chances of success, even when we are swinging over gold. Which we are every time we swing...........

[jasong]

58 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

I suspect also you are talking much larger deep nuggets than I would be thinking about - mine measured in multiple grams and yours in multiple ounces.

This here is a good point, semantically speaking since we have both US and AUS prospectors here. I see some really astounding stuff coming from Australia that may be average finds for some over there but would be bigger than anything I could ever reasonably expect to find here in the US.

I guess to me anything under 1 gram is "small", 1-10 grams is medium, and 10+ grams are big nuggets...I've dug somewhere around 2500 nuggets since I started detecting and the biggest I've ever found is 1.17 ounces, which incidentally didn't happen until last year.

1 hour ago, Flyrock said:

We ended up with 63 Oz, they 32 Oz.

For a second point of reference from over here in the US, I spent 9 months living full time in the field in 2015. My total take with a detector was a little over 17 ounces, plus some high quartz specis, that was my 5th (and final) year doing it more or less full time. In Australia I think that'd be kinda average (or even subpar?) results - but over here it's hard to even convince people it's real without being a big name in prospecting.  Still, it's not enough to support me, but that's why I am so rigorous about efficiency and maximizing production with my technique.

[Steve Herschbach]

There are no settings per se that everyone should be using. It is dependent on the ground and the gold. That is why the adjustments exist. Experimentation on found targets with varied settings should be just part of the routine. What is working for me running a Z14 coil in mild ground on smaller gold is unlikely to work well for somebody in Oz in bad ground on different gold.

I swear I am no authority on how to get optimum performance anyway. I just get close, that's all. I rely more on sheer hours and patience than anything - I am the blind squirrel detectorist.

[Norvic]

Your not wrong, Steve, I thought with hot settings that I found so successful on the 14, they`d work on the 19 for me. It was mostly so with the PIs and the VLFs (when going up in coil size) but ZVT in particular the 19 is different (for me). This has got me thinking it is not only due to ZVT but the 19 has more advanced windings then the 14.

What has really stuck for me is two things JP has spoken of, ZVT works better in low noise, and upping the volume control on the Z is akin to upping the sensitivity.(exact words I am not quoting just my interpretation) You up the volume, you drop the threshold to suit but your not gaining anything but noise which may not be a good objective with ZVT, same with sensitivity. But as you point out Steve that is why there are adjustments to cater for the individual.

[PeterInSa]

Re (  I have friends who detect in exactly the opposite manner, they range out covering huge areas, moving quickly.)  To me this was the way in the 80's and 90"s. 2 of my friends always came up with big nuggets, because they covered so much ground and had fast swings, with the easy gold/big nuggets found, I think its the slow method now that gets results.

[Au4Gold2]

When your hunting tailings, you have no choice but going slow, very slow and digging it all. I don't know many place up here in the Sierras where you can swing at a moderate speed and cover a lot of ground. The terrain makes it not possible. But out in the open, America's south west or Australia....covering ground would be the way to go, especially in low trash areas...

[Steve Herschbach]

A modified version of the original post has been posted on Minelab's Treasure Talk blog.