A Bit About Ground Adjustment & Meter Calibration

[Critterhunter]

I got a PM (name withheld) that brings up a few good points...

Hi Crittterhunter,

In one of your recent posts entitled, "Coil Design, Separation, Recovery Speed, Sweep Speed, Unmasking- What Are They?"

You asked a question to Nauti Neil, "Are you turning the Sovereign on with it's coil laying on that ground and then sweeping around for a few minutes so that it has time to adjust it's self to the ground conditions? "

I am thinking my answer is self explanatory but should I be placing the coil on the ground when starting my GT?

I always start my machine with the coil a foot or so off the ground. I guess (from what I am reading in your post) that the coil should be resting on the ground when I turn the machine on? I am just wondering what has been happening since I have been keeping the coil off the ground. Will I loose depth and miss targets since the GT has to compare these signals to the ground mineralization when first turned on? If this is the case, I have a lot of ground to re-cover and should be interesting to do so. Thanks in advance for your help.

P.S. I enjoyed your article that you wrote in the above subjects.

I have noticed that if I turn the GT on with the coil above the ground it takes several minutes for the ID to stabilize, and thats even if the machine was just on minutes before that...so it's not that the machine is just warming up. It doesn't matter, as the GT will stabilize and adjust to the ground minerals within minutes regardless of the coil being above the ground at start up or not. It's just when checking targets, turning it off for a minute, and then turning it back on to check the next one...that I have noticed if the coil is up in the air at power up it can throw things off for a bit.

A good thing to bring up a point on is that when the machine is first turned on and "cold" it may take 5 minutes or so for the ID to calibrate properly. For that reason don't tweak the meter until things have warmed up for 5 minutes or more or so. Chances are it will calibrate properly if you haven't bumped the adjustment pot since the last outing. I find that during the initial few minutes it may be off by 2 or 3 digits.

 

[Rick(ND)]

In most cases with the 180 I will check it with a new dime or quarter and it will be right on, but there is times when the control got bumped and maybe off slightly. The only time I notice it can change while in use is if in the sun light a lot and the meter get hot, then it will read a number or 2 higher, so when I notice a 181 number i know it is one number off and don't worry as the tones are still there and the same plus I dig weak signals that are deep at most any number. If it starts reading over 183 I will recalibrate for the reason of the nickles as too many trash items in that area and besides the tones I use the meter reading too.
Some say the Sovereign needs to stabilize 4 or 5 minutes before it will work properly, but myself haven't seen this as it seems the same when I turn it on or whether it is 10 minute later as it seems to work the same. Used to do a lot of signal comparison and carry 2 detectors with me and would have to turn one off while using the other, did this with the different model Sovereigns and found the GT is the most sensitive, the XS and XS2 the next a draw and the XS2a and the Elite not my favorite, but both a very good detector and will do the job, just to me the GT is more sensitive and may be harder for a beginner to understand and the XS with the older 8 inch coinsearch coil the easiest to use and it has the power too to get the deep one.