Also a Ground Balance question please!

[IDXMonster]

It is just about the 11th Commandment on the CTX that unless you are at Hells doorstep, you are NOT to fart around with the Ground Balance function, it is to STAY in “Auto Tracking”. On the previous eTrac and Explorers, it is not even accessible! Now we have a different machine, and there are 3 ways to set the GB. My question is...why is it only recommended for Beach and Gold mode to have Auto Tracking on? It seems the general consensus and by instruction that you should perform the “bobbing GB until the machine settles on a number” or bob the coil and set the number yourself according to the volume produced by the coil as it approaches the ground. I furthermore see that default GB is 0. Really? If I am interpreting everything correctly on this machine, my soil is kinda warm! I did not know that to be honest, I always thought my soil in general was very tame. But the numbers I get when doing a “bobbing GB” are between 30 and 60. With Auto Tracking engaged(which may be part of my overall lack of finding much), unless my sensitivity is BELOW 18....its sparky between being a nuisance and being downright uninterpretable. I’m using all the “standard settings” here people! Steer me toward the promised land....PLEASE!
Again...I do like the machine(for some reason). After 9 years of detecting, thousands of hours hunting, thousands of coins and really tuning my skills....I can’t make this thing do sh*t! I’m torn between continuing on and getting the saddle on this horse straight or grabbing “Ol’ Reliable” and going and finding SOMETHING.
I know the content of my posts consists of a lot of “challenging questions” and that is meant to get people WHO KNOW to say, “Hey dumbo! This is what you’re doing wrong, here’s how to fix it!” I do appreciate the input so far and I apologize for not thanking everyone yet for their ideas. But you have to imagine how it might be perceived when I go from finding 100+ silver coins a year to not finding ONE in 70 hours of hunting! It ain’t good...so I need to figure out what my shortcomings are with this machine.
Back to the top...what’s wrong with “Auto Tracking” in turf?

 

[sube]

Tracking was meant for harsh ground same as ctx gold fields have harsh ground so tracking should be employed .If you ground balance and get 30 to 60 as a # then it's likely mild ground . The ctx uses auto ground balance not tracking for mild ground the machine changes the sensitivity as the ground becomes more mild or harsh the nox does the same but does not change the sensitivity #s they are fixed to what you set it at when ground becomes harsh the nox gets chatty time to lower sensitivity .

Since it's a high gain detector it's likely to be more chatty then the ctx the sense #s at 18 are about the same as the ctx at 20 different # scale .With the nox set at 0 the machine still is compensating for changing ground conditions same as the ctx using muti -frequency as part of the ground balancing scheme the only difference is the #s stay the same where you set them with the nox .

Now if the nox becomes chatty then it may be time to change ground balance . As far as tracking being engaged if the ground is mild then there is nothing for the nox to track so 0 would be a better choice unless the machine becomes chatty then I would ground balance . sube

 

[bootyhoundpa]

Well,misery loves company.... coming from a sov gt bbs machine I can relate..... the gt is so smooth and quiet doesn’t miss too much either it does suffer a little bit from masking but also is not ground balanceable in disc mode........ speaking of the 800.. if the machine is too “sparky (and I’ve been there) it’s about useless... I call it suffering from TMI (too much information)...I’ve tried the ground balancing too and was shocked when it went into the high 60s in the farm fields..... I’ve used the prospecting mode in freshwater while micro jewelry hunting which auto ground balances and still dig quite a few hot rocks which in that type of hunting I don’t mind cause a frisky set up is a necessity... would be nice if you had a test garden to work through this issue... my last time out before fields got planted was the most confident I’ve felt with the 800.. real question is , what is the main nuisance targets where you are hunting?is it iron or non ferrous aluminum or is it cinders or is it a combination of all the above? Sometimes switching from 50 tone to 5 or visa versa can help... sweep speed is probably a factor too.. I’ve found single shotgun bee-bees which sounded pretty good but when farm field hunting such a small target is a waist of time whereas in freshwater such a small target is actually somewhat encouraging ... I’ve found that when you think your getting closer too the best setting only make one adjustment at a time .. I’m learning just like you and wish I could offer more but I’ve gotta a lot of learning to do too....

 

[laplander]

As far as the ctx there are several instances where gb is very helpful. My thoughts on straying from default {0} with the Equinox, after a lot of playing around is I don't do it. My soil varies from red clay to deep black with coal mines in the area so the black sand is really tough. The numbers your are seeing are very similar to my experiences and I think we have a tendency to over think it sometimes.
Do you think there are more silver coins on your sites, I have rehunted some sites and found zilch then the next one was like no one hunted there before, no rhyme nor reason just moved on. The ctx on a clean yard is a tough act to follow
JMO
HH Jeff

 

[jmaclen]

Sube and laplander are right on target with their comments. You can test if your ground is highly or moderately mineralized. If you are in Park 1 default and you press the horseshoe button, sweep the coil and hear lots of static type targets that read -9 to -6 and 4 to 5 depth arrows you may need to do the Auto Ground Balance procedure due to tiny particles of natural iron in your soil. The Auto Ground balance procedure is easy (takes me less than 10 seconds). Otherwise, I can't think of any reason why you would want to put your Equinox in tracking ground balance. Since the Equinox is a multi frequency transmit and multi frequency receive detector it has built in receive signal audio processing that takes care of the ground balance in most moderate to mild soil. It automatically does this in Park1, Park2, Field1 and Field2 using the multi frequency setting. If you go to single frequencies in those modes it defaults to the 0 ground balance setting unless you do the Auto ground grab.

Here, for example is part of Minelab's description of Park 1 from the manual: Park 1 Multi-IQ processes a lower frequency weighting of the multi-frequency signal, as well as using algorithms that maximise ground balancing for soil, to achieve the best signal to noise ratio. Hence Park 1 is most suited for general detecting and coin hunting.

So, unless you have high mineralization, there is no need to override the ground balancing process that is already built into each of the multi frequency Park and Field detecting modes in order to optimize the signal processing taking place automatically.

Personally, I have never used tracking ground balance and I have used both Gold modes extensively for gold prospecting in really bad Montana, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico dirt. To me, tracking ground balance is a last resort feature that I would only use if I absolutely had to in the gold fields or if I was in Beach 2 wet sand/surf detecting.


Jeff

 

[markinswpa]

Kevin, Did not read the other comments but one thing I have learned is to leave ground tracking off in Park 1 & 2. And although the manual recommends to go with a default of 0 unless in nasty ground, I bump for a ground balance and it seems to make the site come alive. And yes I have tried 0 gb and gone over it again after. Good luck Mark

 

[dewcon4414]

Here we go........ its like the HEADLIGHT thing ....... in beach at least .... lets reduce the power, reduce the sensitivity, have a salt setting... AND run tracking. All these reduce the amount of material the machine has to process...... and hopefully open up a target line..... BUT often at reduced depth as well so the machine can SEE those targets clearly.

 

[Daniel Tn]

First, I would like to say that I am in no way affiliated with what I am about to recommend, but I would seriously recommend Andy's new book on the Equinox. Read it over pretty good. I have used the Nox since it came out last year and have many hours on mine. I also have watched just about every YouTube video out there about it, am on about every Minelab forum there is, and own the books/guides currently on the market for the Equinox. Andy's is by far the best one out so far. He covers a lot of ground in it, including the ground balance issue. He even notes that it is one of the hot button topics on many forums and social media about whether to do it or not. I agree with his answer...nobody can tell you the correct answer to that question. Only you can determine what is best for where you hunt.

What I can tell you, is to not put too much stock in your GB numbers. Just because so and so GB's at 50 and you do too, does not mean your soil is the same as theirs. This is something I ran across early on when comparing notes with people across the country. The GB range has been relatively the same all across the board...and that includes mild ground to red hot ground where VLFs cannot see a coin at 5 inches deep without IDing it as iron. Even my ground has the same ground balance number range as yours...and I have areas where I can literally cover a coin or Civil War bullet with loose dirt and get some machines to not pick it up.

My advice is to simply check it for yourself. It takes all of like 3 seconds to give it a go. I can say that in every case I have experimented and tried it...I have ALWAYS had the best result with doing an auto grab ground balance vs the default 0 mode. I do not run tracking ON though.

In this area, a CTX and eTrac would always want to run single digit numbers for sensitivity. The highest I ever saw the suggested setting was in the low teens.

My order of operation is....turn the machine on, perform a noise cancel, and then auto grab GB. Off and running. One big thing I will also share...and this will be an unpopular opinion from me. I personally feel the wireless headphones are junk. If you ever go to a set of wired headphones for it...some of the aftermarket ones...you will note the differences right away. A big key part of that is going to be the audio itself...the nuances. This is a side story, so bare with me. I had hunted all summer long last yr in the water. Ring hunting. I had a pair of the underwater phones for the Nox...Tony's phones. Anyway, when relic season came, I didn't think anything of it. The only reason I had the wired headphones in the first place was because of the underwater hunting. To me, headphones are headphones. I couldn't wait to get untethered and be wire free. While hunting one of my farm fields, I was out there getting signals here and there, but they were scratchy sounding...not pure sounding to my ears. I was passing them up, and only digging what I thought sounded good. I was having trouble pinpointing...was always off by just enough that the objects were in my sidewall. This was something I had never had an issue with in the water. In some ways, it was sort of a blessing....but I had stopped for a drink break and in the process, my wireless headphones came unpaired from the detector. I for the life of me couldn't figure out how to pair them back together. So I go to the truck, in which I so happened to have the waterproof wired phones in there. I plugged them in and went back to hunting....and that field came to life. Some of those targets I had previously gotten and passed up (I could tell by where I had moved dirt with my boot) now sounded awesome...and I began digging Civil War bullets, J hooks, button backs, buttons, camp lead, etc. I had to rehunt the entire area I had just previously hunted. Not only that, but my pinpointing was spot on now too. I played around some after I got home and realized....I just don't like the wireless headphones at all. I've used the wired ones ever since.

I wasn't an expert on the FBS machines though....although I have owned all of them from the Explorer XS to the CTX. I think I bounced back and forth between the eTrac and CTX the longest of any of them. I could dig coins with them and have dug many silver coins with them, even though old coins are not my favorite thing to hunt for. On occasion I would get the bug for silver or old indians and I have some local places where I could dig them. One home site stands out in particular....it was my wife's grandparents house and has been vacant since they passed away back in like 2008. I hunt it a lot...with every machine I've had that was deemed a coin machine. I had hit it with a bunch of coils on the eTrac and CTX too. Like I said...not an expert on them but I could get those easy silver coins with it...as this site nothing was deep due to the ground having a rocky matrix to it. This was the 1st place I went to with the Equinox and I even did a video on it there. I ended up digging 2 or 3 silver dimes and several wheat cents and some clad coins too....some of them were barely 3 inches deep but in trash and iron. Even still...the Nox had an 11 inch coil vs the others that had much smaller coils, as well as the 11 inch offerings. The 2nd place I went to was a local picnic grove and same thing there. The catch there is...the ground is bad and a CTX and eTrac ID would start to be really spattery and inconsistent on coins past 4-5 inches deep. If they were deeper than 5 inches...you weren't digging them unless you went after every single tone. That, in some ways was how I used the CTX. I ran it in combined mode and set my FE line really super low, and just dug everything. There wasn't any stand out coin signals on them for sure. I go in there with the Nox...and only cherry picked the 25-30 signals. Came out of there with a handful of wheats, several silver rosies, and a couple mercs. All of them were between 6 and 8 inches deep. I've not been back there with the larger coil either. I like both platforms, but the Equinox fits me best I think...as a triple use machine (relics, freshwater jewelry, and coins).

 

[Ted S]

Very interesting insight! Thank you very much! Ted

 

[IDXMonster]

Tracking was meant for harsh ground same as ctx gold fields have harsh ground so tracking should be employed .If you ground balance and get 30 to 60 as a # then it's likely mild ground . The ctx uses auto ground balance not tracking for mild ground the machine changes the sensitivity as the ground becomes more mild or harsh the nox does the same but does not change the sensitivity #s they are fixed to what you set it at when ground becomes harsh the nox gets chatty time to lower sensitivity .

Since it's a high gain detector it's likely to be more chatty then the ctx the sense #s at 18 are about the same as the ctx at 20 different # scale .With the nox set at 0 the machine still is compensating for changing ground conditions same as the ctx using muti -frequency as part of the ground balancing scheme the only difference is the #s stay the same where you set them with the nox .

Now if the nox becomes chatty then it may be time to change ground balance . As far as tracking being engaged if the ground is mild then there is nothing for the nox to track so 0 would be a better choice unless the machine becomes chatty then I would ground balance . sube

Sube...I am having difficulty processing the first paragraph. “The CTX uses Auto Ground Balance not tracking for mild ground”....on that machine, you can Enable Ground Balance and perform what is referred to as an Auto Ground Balance...pumping the coil and the machine will set the Ground Balance value, and it will not move from that value until another Auto Ground Balance is performed, just like with the Equinox. Or...you can UNCHECK the “Enable Ground Balance” box and that will let it track automatically...which is what Minelab recommends for nearly ALL soil with the CTX. This goes directly against your statement. Please clarify if this is what you meant.
You also say in paragraph 2....”With the Nox set at 0 the machine is still compensating for changing ground conditions...” If it were set at zero, this would be through the process in which the user manually inputs that number, and it would stay there,no? The only way the machine would “compensate” for changing ground conditions would be if it were put into Auto Tracking, which by definition is exactly what that function does...changes the Ground Balance on the fly by “tracking the ground”.

I’ve always been taught that having a “spot on” or slightly positive Ground Balance will give the most stable performance at the expense of slightly reduced depth. A slightly negative Ground Balance will give greater depth, but at the expense of noisier operation. If you try to “offset” the Ground Balance too negatively, the high noise level from mineral and such might negatively affect the ability to find deeper targets as the deep weak signal will get lost in the noise clutter. I am ASSUMING that with the Equinox, it is recommended that Auto Tracking not be used for park and field hunting because with its speed, deeper targets would be “tracked out” too easily.

Thanks to everyone so far in helping me to understand what I’m dealing with here clearly...

 

[Jason in Enid]

I’ve always been taught that having a “spot on” or slightly positive Ground Balance will give the most stable performance at the expense of slightly reduced depth. A slightly negative Ground Balance will give greater depth, but at the expense of noisier operation. If you try to “offset” the Ground Balance too negatively, the high noise level from mineral and such might negatively affect the ability to find deeper targets as the deep weak signal will get lost in the noise clutter. I am ASSUMING that with the Equinox, it is recommended that Auto Tracking not be used for park and field hunting because with its speed, deeper targets would be “tracked out” too easily.

Thanks to everyone so far in helping me to understand what I’m dealing with here clearly...

The highlighted part, OLD SCHOOL. Thats single freq machine stuff. Minelab's multi-freq tech reacts to the ground completely different. Your statement about ground tracking on the EQX is correct.

 

[IDXMonster]

As far as the ctx there are several instances where gb is very helpful. My thoughts on straying from default {0} with the Equinox, after a lot of playing around is I don't do it. My soil varies from red clay to deep black with coal mines in the area so the black sand is really tough. The numbers your are seeing are very similar to my experiences and I think we have a tendency to over think it sometimes.
Do you think there are more silver coins on your sites, I have rehunted some sites and found zilch then the next one was like no one hunted there before, no rhyme nor reason just moved on. The ctx on a clean yard is a tough act to follow
JMO
HH Jeff

It’s hard to say what’s where Jeff, you know how it is. One day...BOOM BABY!! Next day...WTH?? I’ve hunted all my areas extensively, if I happen to run across a 7” wheat with the Equinox I just chalk that up to not sweeping it before. The CTX and 17” coil will SPANK a coin like that, right? So I’m really putting the 800 through the wringer trying to scare up its first silver coin from places I’m sure they are NOT. This isn’t the way to learn it, or even LIKE it....but I do actually like it. I’ll set up on 0 for the GB and go from there....thanks!

 

[laplander]

Dan I couldn't agree with you more about the audio, the 08 module with my favorite headphones. It was frustrating at first with the adaptors and compatibility issues but that's al sorted out in my mind.
HH Jeff

 

[IDXMonster]

I’ve always been taught that having a “spot on” or slightly positive Ground Balance will give the most stable performance at the expense of slightly reduced depth. A slightly negative Ground Balance will give greater depth, but at the expense of noisier operation. If you try to “offset” the Ground Balance too negatively, the high noise level from mineral and such might negatively affect the ability to find deeper targets as the deep weak signal will get lost in the noise clutter. I am ASSUMING that with the Equinox, it is recommended that Auto Tracking not be used for park and field hunting because with its speed, deeper targets would be “tracked out” too easily.

Thanks to everyone so far in helping me to understand what I’m dealing with here clearly...

The highlighted part, OLD SCHOOL. Thats single freq machine stuff. Minelab's multi-freq tech reacts to the ground completely different. Your statement about ground tracking on the EQX is correct.

Thanks Jason. Yes,I had my IDX at heart with that statement about GB positive/negative. I was more thinking that if someone put the EQ into a single freq, this may come into play. When I got the the Explorer and saw there was NO provision for balancing manually I was a bit put off. Then instantly finding older and deeper coins made it all good again.

 

[jmaclen]

IDXMonster,
I am still trying to wrap my thick skull around Multi IQ. Sube explained it really well but I will try again too.

None of us know how many or exactly what receive signal frequencies are being used in say Park 1. Several people outside of Minelab have been able to basically determine the transmit frequencies.
We have to assume there are at least two simultaneous receive signals and each of those two have their own optimum ground balance point. Assuming that those frequencies are not the same, their optimum ground balance values will not be the same either. When Minelab says that it is not necessary to ground balance on most moderate to mild soil in the Park and Field modes they are saying that they have built into the receive signal components and software the ability to constantly adjust and average the two or more ground balance values into one that is somewhere between 0 and +99 along with software that constantly maximizes the signal to noise ratio so that ground noise is minimized. Even when I do a quick Auto Ground Balance/Ground Grab according to Minelab the exact value that shows up on the screen is not absolute. It will still be automatically minutely adjusted while I keep detecting. So a form of tracking is already built in to the Nox without having to use the tracking ground balance function.

So, I know even less about what is going on during the tracking ground balance function on the Nox 800 and 600. What I do know as a gold prospector is that when I am in an area with really small detectable gold like the tip of a ball point pen, or really deep but still detectable larger gold, the most sensitive form of ground balance is the auto or manual ground balance. If I use tracking ground balance I will potentially miss many of those small gold targets which will be masked by the tracking process trying to ground balance over small hot rocks and magnetite particles. I know this from testing and from experience. In different detecting environments with much larger targets, that masking effect should not be as bad.

So, I doubt you are missing anything major target wise by using tracking ground balance (Equinox style whatever that is?) in turf areas that have moderate to mild mineralization. I know I have used detectors that ONLY have tracking ground balance like my former Gold Monster 1000 and my MX5. Those are single frequency detectors and like others have said they operate differently. To me that has been my biggest hurdle with the Equinox. Most of the major functions of the Nox Multi IQ system just don't work the same way as single frequency detectors and I have had to study a lot just to kind of understand what is going on..........

Jeff

 

[sube]

Yeah I reread that IDX and did not make any since to me either I will try again .lol
Let's start with the ground balance features of both detectors.

CTX

Auto ground balance automatically changes ground balance to chancing conditions on the fly (GB DISABLED)
The machine is tracking the ground .
Fixed GB the machine is not changing the ground balance the ground balance is fixed (GB ENABLED) This is a option
for when auto-ground balance can't handle the ground mineralization .

NOX

Factory default set to 0
Manual ground balance sets the nox to the ground # you receive from manually ground balancing there by changing the fixed value from 0 to the # you got from doing manual ground balance .
Auto-ground balancing sets the ground balance to the soil you balanced on with tracking engaged it changes the ground balance on the fly

So this is the ground balancing scheme of the two detectors now looking at the ctx the default is ground balance disabled so it tracks the ground and you only use a fixed GB when auto-ground balancing can't ground balance on the fly anymore .

Now the NOX says to use a fixed GB for factory default 0 or your manual ground balance # and if that can't handle the ground you should go to auto- ground balancing and tracking .seems strange that this is the opposite of the ctx and explorer line where tracking is the default for these detectors (so what is the default for these 0) The NOX says to run tracking on harsh soil and run fixed GB on mild soil?. The CTX says to run auto-ground balance on mild soil and fixed GB on harsh soil ?
Seems to me that there's more going on with the NOX than we know .

There must be some kind of ground balancing scheme going on with the NOX set to a fixed GB there by compensating for changing ground conditions Or maybe it's not fixed at all where as the ground balancing scheme could be any # and still preform .Or it has to do with the detector being able to run in single frequency when switching from muti to single there by keeping the ground # the same .This would allow going back and forth using the user button to change frequency but still work because the ground balance is good for the two . sube