Ground Balance Secrets?

[TheCaribbeanDigger]

Was doing searches on the web for tips and stuff on the ATP . I came across some other forums and I had to just quote this that some guy posted:

"Ground balance hot spot for deep silver is 72...That's right I said hot spot... the ground balance even in bad dirt can be manipulated without falsing to really lite up high conductor's Low conductor's stay hot anywhere on the Ground Balance.. "

And this also:

"Whats weird is you can run the G.B. around on the At and not get falsing...I can balance in at a grab at say 88 and run the G.B down to 70 manually and it works great and really gets deeeep..

Pinpoint is worthless like that because the G.B. is so far off it wont report the target in pinpoint from the ground signal tuning it out but the depth meter works all the time anyway so you can tell it's shallow or deep on the fly....

Do some airtest with a dime on your's and let me know where your's start's to gain some considerable depth ... "

I found it really interesting! Could this be true?

 

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[fella]

A lot of users drop their GB 5-20 points after doing a manual GB. I dunno how effective it really is, but I usually drop mine 5. If it's dropped to far, pinpointing becomes completely useless!

This line however…"Do some airtest with a dime on your's and let me know where your's start's to gain some considerable depth … "
If one is doing air test, the GB doesn't make any difference because…THERE'S NO GROUND!

 

[TheCaribbeanDigger]

"A lot of users drop their GB 5-20 points after doing a manual GB. I dunno how effective it really is, but I usually drop mine 5. If it's dropped to far, pinpointing becomes completely useless!"

So it is true...gotta try it then. A good test is to detect a small area first with neutral balance then try it dropping numbers on the gb until something different happens!

 

[steve1357]

"A lot of users drop their GB 5-20 points after doing a manual GB. I dunno how effective it really is, but I usually drop mine 5. If it's dropped to far, pinpointing becomes completely useless!"

So it is true...gotta try it then. A good test is to detect a small area first with neutral balance then try it dropping numbers on the gb until something different happens!

It's true.

Even my Fishers get more depth if you run the ground balance out of whack, I've tried it. And as they said, the pinpointing is squealing at you since you are not balanced.

To pinpoint, you might try setting your coil on the ground away from the target, then press pinpoint and move towards target.

 

[signal_line]

I would caution people about adjusting the ground balance. If you are in bad ground the GB must be more exact. There are conditions where if you get the balance wrong you will miss targets. If you think about it for a minute, it goes totally against what the manufacturer has designed--ground balance is supposed to be set where it balances. Otherwise they would have made it differently. I realize some conditions the Auto balance is not going to work perfectly and you can always bury a target and find the best response with the manual adjust. But just changing it because someone tells you to do it is not very good logic.

 

[steve1357]

A lot of users drop their GB 5-20 points after doing a manual GB. I dunno how effective it really is, but I usually drop mine 5. If it's dropped to far, pinpointing becomes completely useless!

This line however…"Do some airtest with a dime on your's and let me know where your's start's to gain some considerable depth … "
If one is doing air test, the GB doesn't make any difference because…THERE'S NO GROUND!

Agreed. I think default ground balance on Fisher is like 80 or 82, I've never seen ground hotter than 60 around here.

I'll assume the default ground balance is high so it does well in air tests.

 

[Kodiak43351]

I drop mine around 5 most of the time but I will try it in my test garden and see if the sounds get better when dropping more.

 

[fella]

I seem to remember a Youtube vid of Ed Huffman of Treasure Mountain Metal Detectors Specializing All Brands showing the increased depth by lowering the GB. I can't seem to dig it back up though!

 

[TheCaribbeanDigger]

Yeah me too. I have been looking on youtube but still nothing. Any one else?

 

[signal_line]

I read somewhere, think it was in the AT Gold manual that being off by two points in bad ground can have a bad effect and be less sensitive even lose small targets. The Ground Balance Window goes as much as 6 points either way but the instructions say to use as little as possible. There is some info in the nugget hunting books. They say if you do it wrong you will lose the small targets.

 

[RobRieman]

The whole idea is too balance out the ground to make it neutral so you can pick the targets out of the ground mineralization and not have them masked by it. I would think you may be able to pick up some depth in the larger targets but would begin to loose the smaller stuff. And it would have to effect the VDI and pin pointing to a pretty high degree if you push it too far. It would be a neat test to try with a target that's been in the ground a long time. Easy enough to do and you could make your own mind up whether it's fact or fiction.

 

[signal_line]

If you want to know how wrong this thread is, read the AT Gold manual. It says exact ground balance gives best depth. Also says in bad ground 1 or 2 points off will cause serious problems. There's more, go read it on the Garrett website.

This is a problem with this forum. I constantly see misinformation being pushed. They want you to fail.

 

[fella]

If you want to know how wrong this thread is, read the AT Gold manual. It says exact ground balance gives best depth. Also says in bad ground 1 or 2 points off will cause serious problems. There's more, go read it on the Garrett website.

This is a problem with this forum. I constantly see misinformation being pushed. They want you to fail.

Oh boy! Well you are right about one thing!…."constantly see misinformation being pushed"!

I just read the manual. Nowhere did I see where it said "says in bad ground 1 or 2 points off will cause serious problems".

However, page 18, paragraph 2 states... "you may want to use the Manual Ground Balance function to ground balance slightly positive to enhance detection of small targets or balance slightly negative to reduce detection of "hot rocks," terra cotta and clay bricks." AND I REPEAT…"you may want to use the Manual Ground Balance function to ground balance slightly positive to enhance detection of small targets or balance slightly negative to reduce detection of "hot rocks," terra cotta and clay bricks."

That's a direct copy from the manual!

 

[RobRieman]

Hmmm.... Sounds like two different manuals....
The mystery continues....

 

[fella]

lol

 

[TheCaribbeanDigger]

Video on ground balancing your machine:


Video on ground balancing on salt water conditions:


After much research on gb the ATP I can say is that you could go a few clicks up or down depending on ground conditions. I'd say no more than 10 clicks up or down. Simply a matter of what is the necesity of what type of soil/ground conditions you encounter. To me there's no magic or hot spot for ground balancing your machine regarding a certain target! Well thats my opinion based on my searches and expirience!

 

[gleaner1]

Always gb accurately according to directions in your owner's manual.

 

[bzbadger]

Guys I've been manually balancing mine for a long time and yes it does work. I taught several.other AT users how to do it without causing a loss in depth or pinpoint. Oh and by the way nope sorry there is nothing in the manual saying 1-2points and its messed up yada yada because the manual and garretts own videos tell you to GB say at the beach and if you get chatter after Auto GB then manually drop it down till the chatter fades away so no idea what that 1-2 points stuff is. Drop it 5 to 10 or more depending on the soil, i dont go past 20 also for the record and this is from Garrett techs when u first turn your machine on turn sensitivity down to half, auto GB then turn sensitivity back up to where u want..reason is that at the high sensitivity when I grab it sets it at the highest possible level to FIND the mineralization. I have used this technique since I was told and I was able to find lead shot size of a pea 16"s down with my 5x8 coil 2 bars below max sensitivity, not too shabby and pulled a dime over a foot deep in wet sand which everyone knows the AT stresses at the beach.

Sent from my RM-820_nam_att_100 using Tapatalk

 

[mikecar007]

Thanks for the info bzbadger, I'll be trying this tonight.

 

[oakhunter27]

Guys I've been manually balancing mine for a long time and yes it does work. I taught several.other AT users how to do it without causing a loss in depth or pinpoint. Oh and by the way nope sorry there is nothing in the manual saying 1-2points and its messed up yada yada because the manual and garretts own videos tell you to GB say at the beach and if you get chatter after Auto GB then manually drop it down till the chatter fades away so no idea what that 1-2 points stuff is. Drop it 5 to 10 or more depending on the soil, i dont go past 20 also for the record and this is from Garrett techs when u first turn your machine on turn sensitivity down to half, auto GB then turn sensitivity back up to where u want..reason is that at the high sensitivity when I grab it sets it at the highest possible level to FIND the mineralization. I have used this technique since I was told and I was able to find lead shot size of a pea 16"s down with my 5x8 coil 2 bars below max sensitivity, not too shabby and pulled a dime over a foot deep in wet sand which everyone knows the AT stresses at the beach.

Sent from my RM-820_nam_att_100 using Tapatalk

Thanks for the info I've been ground balancing maximum sensitivity

Sent from my SCH-S738C using TreasureNet in the middle of a field somewhere