Ground balance.

[tennessee digger]

I hunt a lot of small demolition/construction sites in my area. Usually they are littered with trash because most were where old houses had been. It is almost impossible to ground balance as there are no trash free areas at these places. I have been using a zero ground balance but I feel that I'm losing depth. I would appreciate any feedback that anybody may have and does anybody else have the same problem? Thanks.

 

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[vferrari]

You are probably not losing as much depth as you might think because Multi IQ can compensate pretty well for a less than optimal ground balance because the multifrequency interpolation can readily separate a target signal from the ground phase signal. It is not as good as a precise GB and continuous tracking, but it compensates pretty well up to a point. As long as the ground is just trashy and not heavily mineralized, you should be ok. The way you can tell if you are losing a lot of depth by keeping GB set at 0 is to put the Equinox in AM mode (using the horseshoe button). If you are a getting a lot of ground feedback noise as manifested by a lot of -9, -8, -7 TIDs and ferrous grunts, then you should try to find a place to GB.

Besides, if you really can't find a coil-sized spot where you can pump your coil, a precise ground balance is probably not going to matter much as far as depth is concerned, quite frankly. In junk that thick, getting significant depth is pipe dream because of all the junk target signals that interfere with penetration of the transmit field much more than ground feedback noise.

If the trash is mostly modern mid-conductors like aluminum, you can try tracking GB and see how that does. I would not recommend tracking if you have a lot of ferrous junk, though.

HTH

 

[Jason in Enid]

Do you NEED ground balance at other clean sites in your area? If you dont need it there, you most likely dont need it at the house sites. I've never heard of Tennessee as being a place with high levels of ground minerals.

 

[tennessee digger]

Jason, there are many areas in southern middle Tennessee that are red clay, iron ore infested. I always ground balance at places where I can because my machine seems to do better that way.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Jason, there are many areas in southern middle Tennessee that are red clay, iron ore infested. I always ground balance at places where I can because my machine seems to do better that way.

Then I would recommend finding a place nearby that isn't loaded with trash. Do a ground balance in each of the modes you will use, but don't turn on tracking. Just do a "ground grab". Those GB settings will be retained until you change them, so you can go back to the trashy site and know that you have a better GB setting.

 

[tennessee digger]

That's a good idea, I'll try it. Thanks.