Question about reducing ground balance for silver

[Toothpick]

I read in John-Edmontons' past post about AT Pro tips that about taking off 10 to 20 points of the GB to make the ATP hotter on silver.

Can anyone one comment on this?


Do you loose depth?

Is only down side loosing gold sens?

It sounds like a no brainer in certain areas I hunt.

Thanks

 

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[Calabash Digger]

I heard that too but I talked to the people at garrett and they said the machine would run at its best at the preset 90. I ran mine there the whole time I had it and scored some killer finds including a couple silver coins.that ground balance issue is over complicated in my opinion . you can knock items out if you balance it wrong if its stable at 90 leave it imo. I dont even ground balance my new deus it says in the manual not to if the ground is not highly mineralized btw the people at garret said they didnt know if lowering it would help on silver I personally think its good on silver set up from the factory setting.

 

[rick67]

It does make it more sensitive however it will start chattering in most areas I hunt. So never experimented much with it.

 

[John-Edmonton]

If you lower the ground balance numbers, you make your unit more sensitive to higher conductors, such as silver. The opposite is also true......raise the numbers a few numbers, and the lower conductors become more sensitive. However, it may in some cases, depending on the characteristics of your soil matrix, make the detector even more unstable, so you have to look at the whole picture. To get the best depth........read my article below:

* With the AT Pro, learn and hunt in Pro mode. It is deeper then standard mode. With the AT Gold, the all metal mode is deeper then Disc 1 or Disc 2.


* Has a place been hunted out? Go back and try again after a good rain soaking. Moist wet soil gives better sensitivity and greater depth readings for targets.


* If you get a nice high aHow To Get Maximum Depth + Performance Out Of Your AT Series ( Pro & Gold)
udio and a VDI in the 70's or 80's, dig it.


* The larger the coil the deeper it goes. However, too many targets under a large coil can mask a good target. If you get a slight good audio using the large coil, lift it up 2-3 inches and center the coil where the good audio was. Often times the good target will be much clearer.


* Get a coil cover and scrub the ground. Some people scan the ground inches above it...."DON'T" You can gain a couple of inches scrubbing, which is significant.


* Don't swing too fast! Just because it has a very fast "recovery speed"......doesn't mean it can always pick out that one good silver coin amongst several pieces of junk. The electronics still need to process lots of information.


"SWING TOO FAST, YOU WILL COME IN LAST"


* Swinging too fast can make you a sloppy hunter. You also risk eventually cracking/breaking your coil and elephant ears from the constant banging on trees, playground equipment or concrete.


* If you are getting lots of EMI or increased mineralization which is causing erratic audio, try adjusting your discrimination first, before lowering the sensitivity. This sometimes lets the machine run smoother without losing any depth.


* If you get mixture of audio signals, scan the target from different directions. Sometimes a good target is beside or partially underneath a good target. The AT Series has a unique ability to pick out those good targets amongst the trash. Going at the target from different directions allows the AT Pro to perform even better!


* Ground balance your machine occasionally. Temperature can change, and directly affect the settings. Hunting in shade vs. sun can vary. "a 14 degree difference on a lawn area to a 35 degree difference on a parking lot." But, the mineralization can also change between areas....so again...ground balance periodically.


* To increase the depth/sensitivity to silver targets, lower the ground balanced numbers a few points


* If you are hunting an area that is absolutely covered with nails, try ground balancing out a nail until it is nothing but a small amount of static. Now....all the copper & silver targets will give a loud audio response....BUT the target ID will be off.
*Bottle cap? Stomp hard on the target. Often times, an old bottles cap's halo will break, and the reading will change from a good coin sounding target to a bottle cap or junk.
Don't forget to use the iron audio feature if searching for coins or silver.
* Build a test garden...use good & bad targets at different depths. You will soon discover that deep silver targets beyond depths of 8 or more inches begin to not sound off as a high pitch or that the VDI numbers remain in the 80's. That is very good information to know. My rule of thumb states if it's deep....it's old. Dig it! It costs you nothing.

My Videos - Detecting, Water land & Snow, Coin Ring Crafting & Shotgun Shell Ring Crafting

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8CORF4dsmopibINy0fWzGA

 

[Toothpick]

Thanks everyone for your input

 

[John-Edmonton]

Thanks everyone for your input

Good luck with your detecting. Hope you get lots of great treasures!

 

[MackDog]

Want deep silver look at the bigger Nel coils they are awesome

 

[Opie]

John as usual gives some "Great" advise. I'd just like to add that running the machine too hot on the sensitivity can also work against you and has a direct correlation to the ground balance settings. Some think maxing the sens out gives the best result and this is not true. At some point the basic understanding of the machine really turns into a basic understanding of the science behind the machine. Good Luck!!

 

[signal_line]

If you go the Garrett website and click on the Sport Division, then Warranty/Support then Owners Manuals, then look at the AT Gold manual (This info in NOT in the AT Pro manual), there is some info in the Ground Balance section and in the Advanced Tips and Techniques.

 

[Normsel]

Don't over complicate detecting... You will find more by not trying to chase the optimum setting.. I have tried many settings on my V3i that the so called guru's say are the ultimate settings and tried every setting different guys say work best on the ATP and I never found them to be enough better than a tweaked setting from the manf. I will put myself up against anyone with an ATP.. The more you hunt the more you find...

Messing with ground balance on the ATP is like turning iron audio to 0 and hunting for silver...

You can do what you want with a test garden but no matter what you do you will never get the soil as compacted or the same as virgin hunt.

 

[signal_line]

Yeah, I don't think people realize ground balancing is really important especially in mineralized ground. There is an old nugget hunting book that has skyrocketed in price called Zip Zip The Advanced Course has some good info in it. Maybe you can borrow a copy from someone.