Question about ground balance and tracking

[Bob in Oregon]

Hi all,
The past couple of outings, I’ve been detecting in a 100+ year old large public park using the stock V.4 hot program without making any setting adjustments. While detecting numerous randomly located areas, the mineralization bar on the right goes up from 4-5 to almost the top of the bar, hovers there a bit fluctuating slightly over a small area roughly 50 to 100 sq ft. and then as quickly goes back down to 4-5. The upper left ground mineralization index number generally fluctuates between 82 and 87 in most areas of the park.
I’ve found a number of coins (nothing older than the late 70’s), caps, pulls and some trash but, nothing below 6 inches or so. I’m guessing that other detectorists have likely struggled with depth and maybe missed deeper coins in a number of areas within this park getting through the mineralization.
The program is fairly chatty, almost bordering on distracting but I seem to be getting used to it and I’ve heard a couple of what sounded like ever so slight, very faint lifted signals without a TID number and the right tip of the horseshoe going black. I’ve dug them only to find nothing in the hole........
I’ve read Andy’s chapter on ground balancing but I’m left wondering if the GB tracking feature would be better suited for my conditions instead of the pre-set 90 and also what “ground notching” is, what benefit it might have in this situation and, how someone might experiment with this feature to best set it up properly for their specific area without unduly compromising the depth potential of the machine.
Thanks for your help and patience with the newbie questions.

Best,
Bob

 

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[vferrari]

Bob,

Great questions.

First let me clear up some misconceptions. The mineralization bargraph indeed is telling you something about the general mineralization of the ground where you are detecting. What you are describing sounds like medium to high mineralization. Note that is separate but related to the ground conductivity/phase reading (the number reflects the ground phase vs. neutral ground which is typically in the high 80's hence the 90 default setting). The ground conductivity reading does not directly reflect mineralization but mineralization can affect the local ground conductivity reading if that makes sense. In other words, if someone said their ground conductivity reading was 85, there is no way you could tell in the absence of any other data whether that area is mineralized. Hence, the mineralization bargraph. Mineralization can affect the ground reading up or down and can also result in highly variable ground conductivity/phase readings as you run the coil over highly mineralized patches of ground as you observed using the mineralization bargraph or indicate hot rocks which can actually make the detector sound off like you are over a target.

How to attack this site:

Ground Balance: Under these conditions, it definitely benefits you to attempt to match the ground conductivity/phase reading by either manually adjusting the ground balance setting to match the ground balance reading within +/- 3 points or by setting ground balance to tracking to let it happen automatically, especially if the ground conductivity reading is varies as you traverse the site. If you set the ground balance to a number slightly higher than the actual ground reading, the detector will be less noisy but you will also lose some depth (nless it is less than 5 points high). Similarly, if you set the ground balance to a number less than the actual ground balance reading, then the detector will be more chatty, but it will also run "hotter" which may give you some marginal detection depth increase as long as you can pick up the faint targets amongst the increased noise.

Ground Notch: This experting setting can help to reduce chattiness due to ground feedback. Some recommend just notching the entire ground balance range, others say just notch within a few clicks of the average reading because they believe notching the entire range adversely affects detection depth. I would just experiment with it to see if it makes a difference in your situation. It can also be used to help silence, to a certain extent, those pesky hot rocks.

Tx Power: If your site is highly mineralized, make sure TX Power (expert setting under Sensitivity) is NO HIGHER than TX 2 and if that bargraph is really peaking out at max mineralization, try TX = 1. The higher transmit powers tend to scatter the transmit signal through the mineralization akin to high beams in fog so in high mineralization you may actually get better performance if you lower the Tx POWER. If you are running one of the white HF coils, then TX power is fixed at 2 so you just have to go with that.

Try Deus Fast or Deep: It is a known fact, though not documented in writing, that the Deep Program and the Hot Program use older versions of the Deus signal processing filters (i.e., Ver 2 and Ver 3.2 signal processing). The newest signal processing filters (i.e., V4) reside with the Basic/Deus Fast/Dry Beach/G-Maxx/GM Power/Pitch programs. To ensure I am using the latest V4 signal processing filters, I use Deus Fast as the basis for all my custom programs. So give that program a whirl to see if it makes a difference on your site. Or try the Deep program, since it has different filters than either Fast or Hot.

Give Gold Field a test run: Gold Field is a special Deus All Metal program that uses pitch audio vice tones. Any target hit will result in a pitch whose intensity and frequency increases the closer the coil is to the target (like a pinpointer) or if the target is large and/or shallow. The Target ID will show on the display to allow you to ID the target, but you won't be able to ID the target by audio alone like you can with the Tone Programs above. You can add some Iron Rejection (IAR) which is analogous, but different, than discrimination and can also adjust the reactivity. I think the key to this program, though, is that you can also put in a threshhold hum. This is the key to the program's depth capability, because you can sometimes make dig decision just based on disturbances in the threshhold even if you don't get a pitch audio tone or target ID. Again, experiment with this to see if it helps in your mineralized grounds.

Frequency: Typically the low frequencies tend to give better depth for high conductors in general and penetrate further into the ground. However, I have found that even though metal detectors obey the laws of physics, the electromagnetic equations that define the physics of how metal detectors work are filled with many variables, therefore, there are no absolutes in metal detecting. Point is, if you are searching in 4, 8, or 12 khz, Try 18 khz. You might lose some depth on some of the deep high conductors, but the higher frequencies work better for mid-conductors so you might have some better luck on hitting small gold jewelry if you change up the frequency. This is true for the HF coil too. In fact, if you can afford to do it, time-wise, you should hit a site with one frequency and then hit it again with a different frequency (1/2 or 2x times the frequency you initially searched with) because different types of targets may become "visible" at the alternate frequency. So if you hit the site at 12 khz, try hitting it at 4 khz. If you hit it at 8 khz, hit it again at 18 khz. The DEUS gives you the ability to search the site like you are hitting it with 4 different detectors using a single coil based on your 4 operating frequency options or more if you consider the HF coil frequency options.


HTH and HH

 

[Bob in Oregon]

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation !
I’ve been reading as much as I can from prior posts and watching video tutorials to get up to speed with the Deus and the terminology of VLF machines. What I kind of grasped prior to posting was that ground notching is essentially cutting out or omitting part of how much the detector reacts to or see’s the ground. A few posts that I read related that some users were notching the ground phase somewhere between 65 up to and including 90. This was confusing to me and seemed from my very limited experience and knowledge of its workings somehow counter intuitive on the surface since the factory pre-set is 90. I then wondered if the user was then in effect “overly” balancing for a condition that doesn’t exist and possibly limiting/canceling out deeper targets the machine might have otherwise seen. Put another way, it would be somewhat akin to putting on sunglasses in a room that is already dark....
I’m also interested in learning more about the effects to ground balancing that dry/wet soil has on the machine in mineralized areas and signal conductivity since I reside on the wet side of our state and there is a preponderance of mineralized ground besides being at the beach........
Thank you so much for the information about the program filters, recommendations for a basis to start a program and about going back through the areas you have already detected again using different frequencies ! The knowledge you shared is gold in itself.
My only experience with detectors comes from my time with the older Minelab pulse machines we used in gold mining and though somewhat similar in function seems vastly different in operation to the Deus...so I apologize for the rookie questions and wish to offer how much I appreciate all the education and benefit of your experience you are giving me.

Best,
Bob

 

[RustyGold]

Great post. Thank you guys.

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

I have been all over Portland/Vancouver with my new Deus that past few weeks. Our soil has particularly nasty volcanic black sand, stuff that sticks to a magnet. This black sand makes rusty nails and iron even more of a pain to deal with and messes with target ID of coins.

The black sand is much worse in some areas than others, example...mouth of the Clackamas river that swimming beach on the north side has so much black sand it was undetectable with a Minelab Explorer even using the 8 inch coil. Get the coil anywhere near the beach sand and it squealed like a stuck pig.

So far Deus depth on high conductive coins in our soil with an ID that's jumping +-2 numbers about 5 inches. Nickels much better. Plenty of deeper high conductive targets but the Deus won't even guess at an ID you just get --. In our local soil for deep coins I'm thinking about digging only high tone signals (I'm using full tones) that ID as -- using the lack of an ID as a depth meter. Speaking of which so far the Deus depth meter seems useless to me.

This is not a swipe at the Deus, at the same sites using a Minelab Se Pro and I'm the Yoda Jedi master of that machine it has the same problem. Washington Park, Portland, Or near the statue that whole acre or so area is infested with black sand and rusty nails. The Se Pro at my normal settings very unstable, very difficult to get any depth, I got so irritated one day I set the Se Pro to max sensitivity and it was going nuts, but in the 30 minutes or so I was able to handle swinging it that out of control I dug several wheat cents around 6-7 inches which for an Se Pro in normal soil is nothing, it took that extreme to punch through. The good news is that's an extreme site, other areas around Portland/Vancouver are not nearly that bad.

Depth on mid conductive targets I'm doing much better with the Deus. Have dug a number of mid conductive targets with the Deus that were rock solid at depths that would have been iffy on the Se Pro. Dug my first of buckle last night. Deus is also MUCH better in heavy iron and trash. I'm currently detecting lets call it site A, medium to heavy iron, only moderate trash. I'm relic hunting there but on the look out for coins. I tested my Se Pro in the heavy iron, FAIL! So many iron bits it didn't hit a single target in 300 yards. Took the Deus in there and it hit many targets.

Last night dug my first masked target with the Deus. Even at reactivity 3 the target was masked by a nearby trash target except for from one angle, that was the deep small brass buckle. 9 inch HF coil at 14.4 kHz. The previous hunt I got a couple deep bullets, a deep iron ring, the Deus is definitely starting to speak to me.

IMPORTANT: The #1 major issue I "had" been having with the Deus related to high conductive coins I finally crushed last night. Crown caps e.g. rusty bottle caps, on the Deus they span almost the entire range of high conductive coins. You can't notch them out, I tried the whole silencer stuff FAIL. Without a solution to this basically you tire of digging bottle caps and just stop digging any high conductive targets. Yesterday I read about another technique for crown caps, that is to watch the mineralization bar graph, over a rusty crown cap it will max out or at least go very high. Coins other targets really don't do that. With the coil left of the target I was getting around 3-4 bars, ditto right of the target, over the crown cap whammo max bars. I used this last night and dug only one crown cap the entire hunt yet I dug many high conductive targets that were not crown caps, win!

GB - I have been using tracking with good results. Occasionally going back to manual GB just for testing purposes. Tracking seems more chatty, but there are times where tracking is more stable vs manual GB so go figure, might be an EMI thing. I'm running full tones, -6.4 disc so wide open, last few hunts using the HF round 9 inch coil mostly either 14.4 kHz or 54 kHz. I'm going to run the 11 inch LF coil tonight for a change of pace at site A. Sens had been leaving it at 90 but ran 96 for a while last night.

 

[vferrari]

Regarding the statement that the depth meter, XP states that the horseshoe meter is unreliable if disc is set less than 5.

 

[gene the machine]

Charles, I usually use 12K for most detecting and have an identical program next to it in 4K. when you get a nice sounding high tone just switch to 4K and if the TID stays up it's iron, if it drops its diggable. give it a try. it works very well to ID those pesky caps.

I have been all over Portland/Vancouver with my new Deus that past few weeks. Our soil has particularly nasty volcanic black sand, stuff that sticks to a magnet. This black sand makes rusty nails and iron even more of a pain to deal with and messes with target ID of coins.

The black sand is much worse in some areas than others, example...mouth of the Clackamas river that swimming beach on the north side has so much black sand it was undetectable with a Minelab Explorer even using the 8 inch coil. Get the coil anywhere near the beach sand and it squealed like a stuck pig.

So far Deus depth on high conductive coins in our soil with an ID that's jumping +-2 numbers about 5 inches. Nickels much better. Plenty of deeper high conductive targets but the Deus won't even guess at an ID you just get --. In our local soil for deep coins I'm thinking about digging only high tone signals (I'm using full tones) that ID as -- using the lack of an ID as a depth meter. Speaking of which so far the Deus depth meter seems useless to me.

This is not a swipe at the Deus, at the same sites using a Minelab Se Pro and I'm the Yoda Jedi master of that machine it has the same problem. Washington Park, Portland, Or near the statue that whole acre or so area is infested with black sand and rusty nails. The Se Pro at my normal settings very unstable, very difficult to get any depth, I got so irritated one day I set the Se Pro to max sensitivity and it was going nuts, but in the 30 minutes or so I was able to handle swinging it that out of control I dug several wheat cents around 6-7 inches which for an Se Pro in normal soil is nothing, it took that extreme to punch through. The good news is that's an extreme site, other areas around Portland/Vancouver are not nearly that bad.

Depth on mid conductive targets I'm doing much better with the Deus. Have dug a number of mid conductive targets with the Deus that were rock solid at depths that would have been iffy on the Se Pro. Dug my first of buckle last night. Deus is also MUCH better in heavy iron and trash. I'm currently detecting lets call it site A, medium to heavy iron, only moderate trash. I'm relic hunting there but on the look out for coins. I tested my Se Pro in the heavy iron, FAIL! So many iron bits it didn't hit a single target in 300 yards. Took the Deus in there and it hit many targets.

Last night dug my first masked target with the Deus. Even at reactivity 3 the target was masked by a nearby trash target except for from one angle, that was the deep small brass buckle. 9 inch HF coil at 14.4 kHz. The previous hunt I got a couple deep bullets, a deep iron ring, the Deus is definitely starting to speak to me.

IMPORTANT: The #1 major issue I "had" been having with the Deus related to high conductive coins I finally crushed last night. Crown caps e.g. rusty bottle caps, on the Deus they span almost the entire range of high conductive coins. You can't notch them out, I tried the whole silencer stuff FAIL. Without a solution to this basically you tire of digging bottle caps and just stop digging any high conductive targets. Yesterday I read about another technique for crown caps, that is to watch the mineralization bar graph, over a rusty crown cap it will max out or at least go very high. Coins other targets really don't do that. With the coil left of the target I was getting around 3-4 bars, ditto right of the target, over the crown cap whammo max bars. I used this last night and dug only one crown cap the entire hunt yet I dug many high conductive targets that were not crown caps, win!

GB - I have been using tracking with good results. Occasionally going back to manual GB just for testing purposes. Tracking seems more chatty, but there are times where tracking is more stable vs manual GB so go figure, might be an EMI thing. I'm running full tones, -6.4 disc so wide open, last few hunts using the HF round 9 inch coil mostly either 14.4 kHz or 54 kHz. I'm going to run the 11 inch LF coil tonight for a change of pace at site A. Sens had been leaving it at 90 but ran 96 for a while last night.

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

Regarding the statement that the depth meter, XP states that the horseshoe meter is unreliable if disc is set less than 5.

I ran my disc at 10 for three hunts, it wasn't any better. To me the lack of an ID -- is more of an indicator of depth on the Deus. But target size is key, I'm lifting my coil to test for if a small to tiny near surface target is trying to fake me out as being deeper, just as I have done with my other brand machines this is not a ding against the Deus. Minelab Explorer Se Pro depth meter is FAR superior in accuracy on coin targets dime to quarter in size, within its range of up to 8-9 inches.

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

Gene I will give that a try thanks.

 

[Bob in Oregon]

Charles, I usually use 12K for most detecting and have an identical program next to it in 4K. when you get a nice sounding high tone just switch to 4K and if the TID stays up it's iron, if it drops its diggable. give it a try. it works very well to ID those pesky caps.

Great tip Gene !
Have you used this in the stock V4 hot program ?
Thanks,
Bob

 

[tnsharpshooter]

Hi all,
The past couple of outings, I’ve been detecting in a 100+ year old large public park using the stock V.4 hot program without making any setting adjustments. While detecting numerous randomly located areas, the mineralization bar on the right goes up from 4-5 to almost the top of the bar, hovers there a bit fluctuating slightly over a small area roughly 50 to 100 sq ft. and then as quickly goes back down to 4-5. The upper left ground mineralization index number generally fluctuates between 82 and 87 in most areas of the park.
I’ve found a number of coins (nothing older than the late 70’s), caps, pulls and some trash but, nothing below 6 inches or so. I’m guessing that other detectorists have likely struggled with depth and maybe missed deeper coins in a number of areas within this park getting through the mineralization.
The program is fairly chatty, almost bordering on distracting but I seem to be getting used to it and I’ve heard a couple of what sounded like ever so slight, very faint lifted signals without a TID number and the right tip of the horseshoe going black. I’ve dug them only to find nothing in the hole........
I’ve read Andy’s chapter on ground balancing but I’m left wondering if the GB tracking feature would be better suited for my conditions instead of the pre-set 90 and also what “ground notching” is, what benefit it might have in this situation and, how someone might experiment with this feature to best set it up properly for their specific area without unduly compromising the depth potential of the machine.
Thanks for your help and patience with the newbie questions.

Best,
Bob

I read your posts.
I have a question.
When you referred to your mineralization index meter readings in your what was it 5 different sites.
Are your comments you supplied based on sweeping the detector, or bobbing the coil of the detector while monitoring mineralization index meter.

If you were monitoring by sweeping,,this is no good.

Instead bob your coil,over clean ground and watch meter.
Usually if ground is getting pretty high in mineralization in just a couple pumps of coil you will see 3/4 scale in meter or higher.
Try to Bob coil 4 times though and read meter.

Next, if you see 3/4 scale or more,,,silencer -1 mandatory for depth. I recommend you go to 18khz and stay there too. Tx power =2. Sens 88-93
Reactivity levels to be used and be successful are 2.5, 3 and yes even 4.
The lower reactivity settings just will not let targets through, will chop the daylights out of them, make you think iron.

Watch and listen for targets trying to tone in just a smidge above iron tone.
Will take some practice,,a lot of targets you hit, at first hearing you may think iron.
There is some latitude of nuance here for you to master.

As far as ground balance.
I would recommend tracking while in a site,,,if not too much iron and monitor phase reading to see how the ground changes.
If the ground don't change much I. e. 3 points,,go manual gB,,but again while hunting keep monitoring group phase.

If you do opt to stay with tracking, gotta watch Deus in iron,,it will track out,and a lot of times track to 60s phase reading, and the detector will get very unstable.

In bad ground,,to get targets at even 7" might be real,good.

Also, I recommend you do a fresh bury say a dime and experiement.
Try depth of 6" first, then 7", then 8".
Play with your settings.
And the gent above mentioned the different filtering with the different programs.
Good time here to experiement.

Horseshoe is a guide.
With audio resp some to level 5.
If you see a sliver and get a weaker nonferrous tone,,either the target is real small and shallow, coin sized and deeper, or monster sized and real deep.
But soil minerals can affect how it will be scaled for depth. Reactivity setting too.
And your freshly buried should,give you a guide here.

Hunting bad soil, ain't easy.
But depending on what detectors have been in your sites, and the skill level of operators,,you break the code with Deus here you could be very successful.

Btw, actual ground phase readings provided by Deus,,this info DOESN'T tell a person the mineral levels of soil.
Only the ground minerlization index meter does this.

 

[Bob in Oregon]

I have been all over Portland/Vancouver with my new Deus that past few weeks. Our soil has particularly nasty volcanic black sand, stuff that sticks to a magnet. This black sand makes rusty nails and iron even more of a pain to deal with and messes with target ID of coins.

The black sand is much worse in some areas than others, example...mouth of the Clackamas river that swimming beach on the north side has so much black sand it was undetectable with a Minelab Explorer even using the 8 inch coil. Get the coil anywhere near the beach sand and it squealed like a stuck pig.

So far Deus depth on high conductive coins in our soil with an ID that's jumping +-2 numbers about 5 inches. Nickels much better. Plenty of deeper high conductive targets but the Deus won't even guess at an ID you just get --. In our local soil for deep coins I'm thinking about digging only high tone signals (I'm using full tones) that ID as -- using the lack of an ID as a depth meter. Speaking of which so far the Deus depth meter seems useless to me.

This is not a swipe at the Deus, at the same sites using a Minelab Se Pro and I'm the Yoda Jedi master of that machine it has the same problem. Washington Park, Portland, Or near the statue that whole acre or so area is infested with black sand and rusty nails. The Se Pro at my normal settings very unstable, very difficult to get any depth, I got so irritated one day I set the Se Pro to max sensitivity and it was going nuts, but in the 30 minutes or so I was able to handle swinging it that out of control I dug several wheat cents around 6-7 inches which for an Se Pro in normal soil is nothing, it took that extreme to punch through. The good news is that's an extreme site, other areas around Portland/Vancouver are not nearly that bad.

Depth on mid conductive targets I'm doing much better with the Deus. Have dug a number of mid conductive targets with the Deus that were rock solid at depths that would have been iffy on the Se Pro. Dug my first of buckle last night. Deus is also MUCH better in heavy iron and trash. I'm currently detecting lets call it site A, medium to heavy iron, only moderate trash. I'm relic hunting there but on the look out for coins. I tested my Se Pro in the heavy iron, FAIL! So many iron bits it didn't hit a single target in 300 yards. Took the Deus in there and it hit many targets.

Last night dug my first masked target with the Deus. Even at reactivity 3 the target was masked by a nearby trash target except for from one angle, that was the deep small brass buckle. 9 inch HF coil at 14.4 kHz. The previous hunt I got a couple deep bullets, a deep iron ring, the Deus is definitely starting to speak to me.

IMPORTANT: The #1 major issue I "had" been having with the Deus related to high conductive coins I finally crushed last night. Crown caps e.g. rusty bottle caps, on the Deus they span almost the entire range of high conductive coins. You can't notch them out, I tried the whole silencer stuff FAIL. Without a solution to this basically you tire of digging bottle caps and just stop digging any high conductive targets. Yesterday I read about another technique for crown caps, that is to watch the mineralization bar graph, over a rusty crown cap it will max out or at least go very high. Coins other targets really don't do that. With the coil left of the target I was getting around 3-4 bars, ditto right of the target, over the crown cap whammo max bars. I used this last night and dug only one crown cap the entire hunt yet I dug many high conductive targets that were not crown caps, win!

GB - I have been using tracking with good results. Occasionally going back to manual GB just for testing purposes. Tracking seems more chatty, but there are times where tracking is more stable vs manual GB so go figure, might be an EMI thing. I'm running full tones, -6.4 disc so wide open, last few hunts using the HF round 9 inch coil mostly either 14.4 kHz or 54 kHz. I'm going to run the 11 inch LF coil tonight for a change of pace at site A. Sens had been leaving it at 90 but ran 96 for a while last night.

Charles,
I couldn't agree more with your assessment of Portland’s abundance of black sand (iron magnetite). Particularly on the hills such as Washington Park, Mt.Tabor et al: and all the valley rivers. The reality is the entire Cascade and Coast ranges are loaded with it. When I was actively placer mining, wash ups filled numerous totes with it and separating gold from it could take hrs on a large wheel......thanks for the heads up tip about watching the mineralization bar when questioning whether it’s a cap or not, that’s a back saver there !!!

Vferrari,
The suggestion you made about the Goldfield program piqued my interest.... particularly about the low threshold hum and listening for the faint disturbances to it.... reminiscent of the pulse machine days.
Along with the purchase of the two Deus machines with 11” LF coils, I also purchased the 9x5 elliptical HF coil, I’m thinking it’s time to maybe run it through the parks along along with trying out your program suggestions and the other great tips offered regarding switching frequencies and better ID’ing of caps.
I’ve been going at this kind of slowly trying to become more familiar with the machine and 11” LF coil first and trying to learn all its functions and training my ear/brain to what I’m hearing before switching things around randomly and somewhat willy nilly without a respectable grasp of understanding what the heck I’m doing
More questions will certainly follow, thanks fellas !!
Best,
Bob

 

[vferrari]

Charles,
I couldn't agree more with your assessment of Portland’s abundance of black sand (iron magnetite). Particularly on the hills such as Washington Park, Mt.Tabor et al: and all the valley rivers. The reality is the entire Cascade and Coast ranges are loaded with it. When I was actively placer mining, wash ups filled numerous totes with it and separating gold from it could take hrs on a large wheel......thanks for the heads up tip about watching the mineralization bar when questioning whether it’s a cap or not, that’s a back saver there !!!

Vferrari,
The suggestion you made about the Goldfield program piqued my interest.... particularly about the low threshold hum and listening for the faint disturbances to it.... reminiscent of the pulse machine days.
Along with the purchase of the two Deus machines with 11” LF coils, I also purchased the 9x5 elliptical HF coil, I’m thinking it’s time to maybe run it through the parks along along with trying out your program suggestions and the other great tips offered regarding switching frequencies and better ID’ing of caps.
I’ve been going at this kind of slowly trying to become more familiar with the machine and 11” LF coil first and trying to learn all its functions and training my ear/brain to what I’m hearing before switching things around randomly and somewhat willy nilly without a respectable grasp of understanding what the heck I’m doing
More questions will certainly follow, thanks fellas !!
Best,
Bob

Bob,

Absolutely, good approach. Train your ear and brain to the tone modes before you switch it around because you don't want to mess with your learning curve. Once you gain confidence in what you are hearing after many hours of swinging in the tone modes, then it makes sense to branch out and try the GF mode since it is indeed like using a completely different machine.

 

[vferrari]

I ran my disc at 10 for three hunts, it wasn't any better. To me the lack of an ID -- is more of an indicator of depth on the Deus. But target size is key, I'm lifting my coil to test for if a small to tiny near surface target is trying to fake me out as being deeper, just as I have done with my other brand machines this is not a ding against the Deus. Minelab Explorer Se Pro depth meter is FAR superior in accuracy on coin targets dime to quarter in size, within its range of up to 8-9 inches.

Charles - you are correct that if the tone sounds good but no ID, it is a good chance that it is a deep keeper target. They say the tone doesn't generally lie on the Deus. Also, agree that disc or not, the depth meter is not very accurate because it is calibrated for a coin sized object and many other variables can make it inaccurate. As far as the horseshoe is concerned, I think having disc applies just makes the ferrous/noferrous indicator (left/right side "fill" graph of the horseshoe) more accurate rather than the actual depth indication. I really don't pay too much attention to it regardless and use my handheld MI6 pinpointer to get a bead on whether I am about to dig a deep or shallow target. Sometimes, I switch to my custom Gold Field program on the fly when I get a target hit in tone mode and use GF as a more sophisticated pinpoint mode because I can get the pitch tone to give me a better idea if I am scanning a large or small target (or deep) target while relying on the target ID to tell me what I am scanning. Of course the target ID part will not work on a deep target (just like in tone mode) but you can still zero in better on the target nevertheless.

 

[Bob in Oregon]

I read your posts.
I have a question.
When you referred to your mineralization index meter readings in your what was it 5 different sites.
Are your comments you supplied based on sweeping the detector, or bobbing the coil of the detector while monitoring mineralization index meter.

If you were monitoring by sweeping,,this is no good.

Instead bob your coil,over clean ground and watch meter.
Usually if ground is getting pretty high in mineralization in just a couple pumps of coil you will see 3/4 scale in meter or higher.
Try to Bob coil 4 times though and read meter.

Next, if you see 3/4 scale or more,,,silencer -1 mandatory for depth. I recommend you go to 18khz and stay there too. Tx power =2. Sens 88-93
Reactivity levels to be used and be successful are 2.5, 3 and yes even 4.
The lower reactivity settings just will not let targets through, will chop the daylights out of them, make you think iron.

Watch and listen for targets trying to tone in just a smidge above iron tone.
Will take some practice,,a lot of targets you hit, at first hearing you may think iron.
There is some latitude of nuance here for you to master.

As far as ground balance.
I would recommend tracking while in a site,,,if not too much iron and monitor phase reading to see how the ground changes.
If the ground don't change much I. e. 3 points,,go manual gB,,but again while hunting keep monitoring group phase.

If you do opt to stay with tracking, gotta watch Deus in iron,,it will track out,and a lot of times track to 60s phase reading, and the detector will get very unstable.

In bad ground,,to get targets at even 7" might be real,good.

Also, I recommend you do a fresh bury say a dime and experiement.
Try depth of 6" first, then 7", then 8".
Play with your settings.
And the gent above mentioned the different filtering with the different programs.
Good time here to experiement.

Horseshoe is a guide.
With audio resp some to level 5.
If you see a sliver and get a weaker nonferrous tone,,either the target is real small and shallow, coin sized and deeper, or monster sized and real deep.
But soil minerals can affect how it will be scaled for depth. Reactivity setting too.
And your freshly buried should,give you a guide here.

Hunting bad soil, ain't easy.
But depending on what detectors have been in your sites, and the skill level of operators,,you break the code with Deus here you could be very successful.

Btw, actual ground phase readings provided by Deus,,this info DOESN'T tell a person the mineral levels of soil.
Only the ground minerlization index meter does this.

Hello Tnsharpshooter,
In response to your question, I started the machine, held the coil out about waist level for a minute or so and the switched to the stock hot program without making any adjustments to it. After running maybe 5-10 minutes, detecting with the mineralization bar hovering in the 4-5 range..... I happened to look down at the remote while sweeping and noticed the vertical mineralization bar going up to near the top.....hovering/fluctuating slightly for a few moments and then coming back down to the 4-5 bars while moving over an adjacent area of ground. The mineralization generally hovers in most areas I’ve detected around 4-5 bars except for these randomly located areas.
Thanks so much for the suggestions !
Best,
Bob

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

and training my ear/brain to what I’m hearing Bob

On that note one gotcha I missed at first is ID normalization ON changes the ID for all the lower frequencies to match the highest frequency on the 11 inch LF coil. The issue being the higher the frequency the more all targets are squeezed higher up the ID scale 0-99. Several experienced Deus guys on the forum recommended turning that off.

Gotcha #2 that was tripping me up is every time you change the reactivity it changes the silencer all by itself. So just a couple things to watch out for. Normalization does not work on the HF coils, I re-ran all my air test samples and printed out a field guide what common coin and trash targets ID as on all three frequencies of my 9 inch round HF coil. 14.4, 28.8, and 54 kHz.

Here's my test at 54 kHz on small gold.



Here's some Washington gold! I talked to the claim owners earlier this week, its nice and cool over there now vs 110 freaking degrees last month. I'll be heading back over soon, have the elliptical HF coil on order.

 

[tnsharpshooter]

Hello Tnsharpshooter,
In response to your question, I started the machine, held the coil out about waist level for a minute or so and the switched to the stock hot program without making any adjustments to it. After running maybe 5-10 minutes, detecting with the mineralization bar hovering in the 4-5 range..... I happened to look down at the remote while sweeping and noticed the vertical mineralization bar going up to near the top.....hovering/fluctuating slightly for a few moments and then coming back down to the 4-5 bars while moving over an adjacent area of ground. The mineralization generally hovers in most areas I’ve detected around 4-5 bars except for these randomly located areas.
Thanks so much for the suggestions !
Best,
Bob

You are welcome Bob.

The mineral meter I call it.
While sweeping it can move around, read high(er) some times.
What can cause this?

Doesn't really matter.
I read some where a while back some folks thought they could watch the meter,,if it spiked this meant iron.
Is this true

Don't think so.

Just the other day, I was using HF elliptical coil,,mineral meter spiked alright, tone of target was trying to trend towards iron,,,persons just by listening and "maybe watching mineralization index meter" may have thought iron or nail.

The target was a nonferrous target,,,no iron noted anywhere near target.

Now I'm not saying meter won't spike while sweeping iron,,just if meter peaks or reads high(er) inconclusive that target is ferrous.

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

Sometimes, I switch to my custom Gold Field program on the fly when I get a target hit in tone mode and use GF as a more sophisticated pinpoint mode because I can get the pitch tone to give me a better idea if I am scanning a large or small target (or deep) target

Thanks vferrari I'll be giving that a try, Bob take note of the above. Coming from the Se Pro I have been blind to target size on the Deus, assuming that's a trade off for the high degree of target separation the Deus has so not a ding against the Deus. I dug a couple deep'ish iron targets I never would have dug on the Se Pro it would have told me larger (2-3 inch) iron.

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

You are welcome Bob.

The mineral meter I call it.
While sweeping it can move around, read high(er) some times.
What can cause this?

Doesn't really matter.
I read some where a while back some folks thought they could watch the meter,,if it spiked this meant iron.
Is this true

Don't think so.

Just the other day, I was using HF elliptical coil,,mineral meter spiked alright, tone of target was trying to trend towards iron,,,persons just by listening and "maybe watching mineralization index meter" may have thought iron or nail.

The target was a nonferrous target,,,no iron noted anywhere near target.

Now I'm not saying meter won't spike while sweeping iron,,just if meter peaks or reads high(er) inconclusive that target is ferrous.

I used the mineralization meter extensively yesterday in my attempt to avoid digging crown caps after reading it will spike over a cap. I tell you I was ready to cuss this trick for not working like the silencer FAIL trick. But dang if it didn't work quite well. I dug a bunch of targets I thought may have been a crown cap but the meter wasn't spiking on, none were caps. Then found a couple that pegged the meter, moved the coil off target it dropped back down, back over the target it pegged again, dug it to confirm and yep crown cap. Now that's more shallow targets right on deeper targets below the crown cap zone I'd probably dig regardless. Also have to consider co-located targets coin/iron mixing together, again there I'd let depth be the guide to dig/not dig. I have dug silver fused to iron. Once depth is below the modern trash layer I'll dig some pretty god awful signals.

 

[vferrari]

I read your posts.
I have a question.
When you referred to your mineralization index meter readings in your what was it 5 different sites.
Are your comments you supplied based on sweeping the detector, or bobbing the coil of the detector while monitoring mineralization index meter.

If you were monitoring by sweeping,,this is no good.

Instead bob your coil,over clean ground and watch meter.
Usually if ground is getting pretty high in mineralization in just a couple pumps of coil you will see 3/4 scale in meter or higher.
Try to Bob coil 4 times though and read meter.

Next, if you see 3/4 scale or more,,,silencer -1 mandatory for depth. I recommend you go to 18khz and stay there too. Tx power =2. Sens 88-93
Reactivity levels to be used and be successful are 2.5, 3 and yes even 4.
The lower reactivity settings just will not let targets through, will chop the daylights out of them, make you think iron.

Watch and listen for targets trying to tone in just a smidge above iron tone.
Will take some practice,,a lot of targets you hit, at first hearing you may think iron.
There is some latitude of nuance here for you to master.

As far as ground balance.
I would recommend tracking while in a site,,,if not too much iron and monitor phase reading to see how the ground changes.
If the ground don't change much I. e. 3 points,,go manual gB,,but again while hunting keep monitoring group phase.

If you do opt to stay with tracking, gotta watch Deus in iron,,it will track out,and a lot of times track to 60s phase reading, and the detector will get very unstable.

In bad ground,,to get targets at even 7" might be real,good.

Also, I recommend you do a fresh bury say a dime and experiement.
Try depth of 6" first, then 7", then 8".
Play with your settings.
And the gent above mentioned the different filtering with the different programs.
Good time here to experiement.

Horseshoe is a guide.
With audio resp some to level 5.
If you see a sliver and get a weaker nonferrous tone,,either the target is real small and shallow, coin sized and deeper, or monster sized and real deep.
But soil minerals can affect how it will be scaled for depth. Reactivity setting too.
And your freshly buried should,give you a guide here.

Hunting bad soil, ain't easy.
But depending on what detectors have been in your sites, and the skill level of operators,,you break the code with Deus here you could be very successful.

Btw, actual ground phase readings provided by Deus,,this info DOESN'T tell a person the mineral levels of soil.
Only the ground minerlization index meter does this.

Agree with most of what you say above TN and a lot of it mirrors what I said in my post except the admonition to bob or pump the coil to determine mineralization. I disagree that you have to bob or pump the coil to ascertain an accurate mineralization bargraph reading. I hunt frequently in central Virginia, in highly mineralized red clay, and simply sweeping the coil across the field gives you a pretty good indication of the mineralization index. You don't need to bob or pump to know that the bargraph is accurately reflecting the degree of mineralization, this is backed up by the fact that when I shift to a non-plowed, wooded area a the same site, where the mineralization is typically lower or even non-existent. While it may be possible to get a localized mineralization reading by bobbing or pumping the coil where you are standing, I do not recommend doing this because mineralization typically varies significantly over just a few meters of ground and walking and sweeping gives you more of a feel of the "average" mineralization of the site you are searching. We may be talking past each other because of differences in the terminology used, but I stand by my position that sweeping the coil is sufficient for mineralization determination and is probably better than just pumping it in one spot. I apologize if I am misinterpreting what you are saying.