ground balance confusion?

[willie7018]

hello everyone, i'm new to this board and fairly new to the hobby and really new to this computer thing so please bear with me.i just bought a used musketeer with manual ground adjust and i'm not sure if it's working the way it's supposed to.is there a threshold tone that i should be hearing when i lower the coil to the ground? also i had to set the sensitivity down to 3/4 because it made more noises than r2d2! any input would be greatly appreciated

 

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[Charlie P. (NY)]

Nope. It's silent. You may hear a background "hum", but that's not a threshold. Things to remember: more sensitivity will not give you better depth. Get a good headset. The Musky talks and you need a good headset to hear what she's trying to tell you. I have a pair of Black Widows.

Here's what I do. Put the coil on the ground. Adjust the sensitivity so that you get no "pips" just sitting still. Then lift the coil just over the ground. Set the ground balance but lifting the coil 6" or so sharply. You want to be just below the setting where it "beeps" as you lift the coil swiftly. Rebalance about evert 15 or 20 minutes (conditions change). I also carry a nickel and I set the discrimination as low as that produces a good "beep" in both directions. If you get a lot of falses turn the sensitivity back 1/8 turn and rebalance. The good news is that it only takes about 10 or 15 seconds to do a manual ground balance.

 

[willie7018]

thanks charlie for your advice.i will be sure to give it another try tomorrow.where can i buy a set of black widow headphones?

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

http://www.dixie-metal-detectors.com/

http://www.upstatedetectors.com/

Be warned, they are not cheap. They block out most ambient sound (you could use them for shooting muffs), for better or worse. I've had people shouting at me that I never heard until they tapped me on the back and scared the snot out of me. They can also be painfully loud unless you have the sound limiter circuit on. I marked mine with a white tape arrow so I don't accidently flick the toggle switch off unnoticed when handling them. An aluminum bottle cap will deafen you painfully if you have the volume up without the sound limiter engaged.

I've heard good things about the Killer B's, too.

 

[willie7018]

thanks again charlie.i've used my musketeer twice since you told me how to set the ground balance and i found 14 pennies( 1-52 wheatback) and 2 nickels.nothing impressive but theres always tomorrow and i think i'm hooked!