I read what he wrote and in my opinion he does not know what he is talking about....ground balance and discrimination are not the same thing nor do they do the same thing.....a ground balance number of 90 does not discriminate a non ferrous target that is 90....unless you also set your discrimination up to or at 90....forget you read what he wrote (including the part about how frequencies work) and you will be fine.
Not sure I know who you are referring to by "he", Ted, but I personally know Steve who wrote response 13 in the thread linked by Skiron , and in my opinion he sure DOES know what he is talking about and has forgotten more about detectors and detecting than I'll ever know. That is why he runs one of the most successful, respected, and informative detecting and prospecting websites in the world.
Don't mistake misinterpretation by those reading what he is saying with a lack of knowlege on HIS part.
Without extensively elaborating or re-iterating Steve's points, let me just say this.
First of all, regarding ground balance, Steve was not saying ground balancing is the same as discrimination, he was saying that ground balance is a type of cancellation filter like discrimination. Discrimination attempts to identify ferrous (or other undesirable target ID's in the case of non-ferrous discrimination notch filter's which should not be confused with the pure audio notch that Deus uses) and filter those signals out so they are: 1) not identified to the detectorist in tone or visual ID and/or 2) prevent the iron signal from overly interfering with the ID of nearby non-ferrous targets. Deus does this VERY effectively and is the reason why Deus is killer and perhaps the best detector to use in thick iron conditions.
Similarly, a properly ground balanced machine filters out any interfering ground feedback signal that may otherwise prevent you from detecting legitimate targets.
And as with any filter, it is possible to overdo things so if you apply too much discrimination or over compensate for the ground response you will start to lose detection depth or just filter out desirable targets outright. At this point this is where the similarity between ground balance and discrimination ends. They are filtering out two different things.
Now to get to Skiron's question, the ground response for highly mineralized dirt actually falls at the BOTTOM part of the ferrous range and a salt ground response indeed hovers in the small gold range.
However, the ground balance setting numbers for either dry soil or salt beach ground settings on Deus have very little correspondence to target IDs. Just as Ted said. GB 90 does not filter out targets that ring up as 90. They are just numbers that are used for reference for the purpose of enabling the user to appropriately set the ground balance against a measured ground reference reading. On Deus the salt balance numbers just happen to be lower numbers than the dry ground balance numbers but these numbers have nothing to do with target ID. XP could have just as easily set it up that the salt balance numbers were higher than the dry ground balance numbers. They don't really mean anthing other than providing a reference for the user to match readings. In fact, you can't even infer the degree of mineralization from the GB number. You need to use the separate mineralization bargraph provided on the Deus controller to ascertain that information
Regarding salt balancing - if you are properly balanced for salt, you will tend to have less sensitivity to very tiny gold, that is just the physics of induction balance metal detecting. But people are not typically prospecting for micro gold on a beach. That tradeoff is the price for obtaining vlf detector stability (i.e., reduced chattiness) on a salt sand beach (especially with a less stable, non-simultaneous multi frequency vlf detector like the Deus vs. a multi frequency vlf detector like an Equinox or Excalibur which can use the multifrequency feature to obtain a more effective salt balance, especially in variable salt concentration conditions like surf). Yes you may filter out some gold earring backs or small studs but you should still be able to hear shallower larger/more massive gold targets like rings though at limited depths in the wet salt sand which is likely not even possible if you use dry soil balancing settings.
Finally, what Steve is saying about frequency is dead on. Higher operating frequencies result in higher ground response (i.e., ground noise) especially in salt conditions. This runs counter to the fact that higher frequencies can better detect smaller targets like small jewelry. That is why if your primary target of interest is small mid-to-low conductive jewelry like gold or platinum, then using 18 khz or higher makes sense in the dry sand where there is practicalky zero ground response. However, in the wet salt sand, it is better to reduce the chattiness associated with the salt ground response. So, if you are properly salt balanced but still experiencing chattiness in wet salt sand, try lowering your Deus frequency to lower the chattiness, if necessary. Successful detecting has a lot to do with setting up your machine to best manage these tradeoffs.
As I said before, if you want to use the most capable vlf induction balance detector on a wet salt beach, multifrequency machines like Equinox are the way to go. If you want extreme depth at the beach but with little to no ferrous discrimination, get a Pulse Induction machine which detects metallic targets using a different principle than VLF induction balance machines that is not affected by the ground signal at all but gives you very little target information or ferrous discrimination other than a rough high or low conductor audio signal.
HTH.
Even if my ground was soft with a ground phase reading let's say 88...does this means that by GB manually at 88, I will also eliminate coins that read at the same 88?
