Beginner tips / tricks / settings / recommendations for GT

[JimmyCT]

Well, I sealed a deal on my first Minelab detector - Sovereign GT! I found a website that never updated their pricing to the current $999.00 that everyone else is selling the GT for. I wrote the company and the owner wrote me back and honored the price listed on his website. Saved myself $200.00 bucks! I am happy. Anyways, it
Should be arriving in about a week. I am looking for some tips / tricks / things I should avoid, recommendations / settings for first starting out. (Things I should stick with until I have a certain number of hours under my belt ) things to expect / not expect in the field. Most of all -what have you learned (those that have considerable amounts of time in the field ) that you wish you knew when you first started out?

Besides the stock coil that comes with the unit, I would like to buy a smaller coil for trashy areas. I am looking at the Intruder S-5 by Sunray. Is this the only small coil offered for the GT? or are there other manufacturers out there that have small coils that will fit the GT? Very rarily will I ever hit a beach. Most of my hunting will be parks, homsteads and ghost towns / foundations.

As the proud new owner of a GT, I appreciate any and all help given. - Jim

 

[GunnarMN]

not that I am an expert , i just got a new GT, at 1st i was unable to pinpont with it , but after a bit its not so badd give it some time and praktice with dimes and nails and observe you WILL GET THE HANG OF IT just tonight i sent thru a high trash spot full of nails and not once was the GT wrong it will give unmistakable signals on good targets i like this machine better the more i use it its going to win the race, dont set your sens to high you will lose depth or at least get a choppy signal unless your ground is really clean put it at 12 noon or between 11 and 12 noon i hunt in disq dials all the way left dude its going to find you lots of goodies

 

[Rick(ND)]

Welcome to the wonderful world of the Sovereign, you may wonder why you bought it at first, but stick with it as it will get better as those that have will tell you.
Make it simple to begin with and get to know your tones is the first step so run it in auto sensitivity to begin with to make it easier to understand. Leave the disc and notch set all the way counter clockwise as it will still reject iron and the tones will be your ID and why it is important to learn the tones as which are the good one and which are not. I like the threshold as you can tell if you are swinging the coil too fast as a solid null mean you have to slow down as it should be changing from nulls to different tones. I also run mine in iron mask on, but you may want to go with it off to help with the smooth threshold, this is a toggle switch that says all metal/ iron mask off and iron mask on. Now there will be a toggle switch that says track/ lock/pinpoint and is only active when in all metal, so I leave mine in pinpoint so when I switch to all metal to pinpoint it will be in pinpoint.
Now the Sovereigns are a slower swinging detector than others, but it is because it sees everything and reports back to you what it is seeing, so if you go too fast you will not hear some of the things it sees. When you do get a tone you like you just swing the coil only over just that area and try to get the tone as solid as you can by just going over that Small area, it almost will look like you are wiggling the coil. If you go too far you will get any trash target next to it and be a different tone. It is not hard to use, but to begin with it maybe a little confusing and it will get better from use of it.
Pinpointing can be easy for some and hard for others as it uses a DD coil so it wont pinpoint in the center unless you do the 90 degree pinpoint which I explained to Gunnner in a post in the last day.
Over all once you get to know it you will be impressed as to what can still be found in place others considered worked out, to me it made many like virgin spots and didn't have to listen to all the new targets as others detectors got them and I was able to get the deeper and the ones close to trash they couldn't,

I would recommend a 180 meter and a S-1 pinpointing probe of Sun Ray to help find those deep targets that may disappear when you open up the hole.

Good luck and be sure to ask questions as you go as there is several of us that have been using the Sovereigns for over 10 years and you will see why we still do as we have learned them well.

Rick

 

[JimmyCT]

Thank you Rick and Gunnmar it is MUCH appreciated. Wow, no discrimination used? sounds to me like I will be getting plenty of exercise digging targets.

Rick, you make a quote of:
"I like the threshold as you can tell if you are swinging the coil too fast as a solid null mean you have to slow down as it should be changing from nulls to different tones."

Are you saying the nulls themselves (say iron for instance) will eventually turn into a tone if one goes slow enough?

Yes, a 180 meter is high on my priority list. Having some hearing loss, I definitely want to pick one of them up. I understand they stopped making them about a month or so ago. So I am sure with due deligence, I will eventually come across one. Do you know of anyone that has a 180 they would like to sell? I can pay directly by paypal. I do not have enough time and posts to create a listing in the for sale (WTB) section of the board. Thanks again for both of your tips and will keep you updated with my progress.

Right around 20 years ago or so, I remember minelab "being born" I decided to go with a different well known company brand detector "Top-of-line unit" Looking back on things, I should of went with the minelab.(back then, I didn't have too many patients to spend a whole lotta time learning - I wanted "instant on" detector and start swinging mentality - now, this has all changed) I have plans to go back to every spot I used with my other unit, and see what they give up. I have a good feeling I missed many things. From what people, like yourself are saying, these areas will be fresh with goodies. - Jim

 

[Jiminsandiego]

I've been using the GT for about 10 months now and have learned very much from this forum. I wish that I'd have gotten a meter right from the start as I believe it is necessary to master the target ID capabilities of this detector. Tones are great but I was struggling with "learning the tones". Now, with the meter, I feel that I really know how to use this detector much better. I think most people use full volume, no disc, no notch, threshold on, and the band in either 1 or 2. That basically leaves the sensitivity setting to deal with (when not using all metal). You can start out with auto and then try to improve performance by adjusting it along the dial. It seems to be easy to have the sensitivity set to high but that's where experience and experimenting will pay off. You might consider getting a spare battery pack that uses AA batteries in case the rechargeable one runs out in the field.I started out hip mounting and when I finally tried shaft mounting I hated it and went right back to hip mounting. I also quickly learned that a small amount of sand or dirt under the coil cover really hurts the performance.
Hope this helps some,
Jim

 

[Critterhunter]

KellyCo sells a 5" coil for it too that is cheaper than the S-5 new. I have an S-5 and got it used for $65. Post a WTB ad in the accesories section.

 

[JimmyCT]

Thank you for the tips Jim. Critterhunter, I would post in the accessories section but rules state I have to have 24 posts and be on the forum for 6 months in order to post for items. Is there any performance differences between the one sold through Kellyco and the S-5? Thanks - Jim

 

[old lobo]

GunnarMN, Rick(ND), and Jiminsandiego, all three of you were a big, big help to a person like me that has only used my GT once so far. Not having the sensivity to high, the pinpoint not working unless in all metal mode, a little sand under the coil cover causing falsing, were things I will remember when I go out to the beach for the second time tomorrow. I just got the hip mount pouch and will try it out tomorrow. Jim, does the GT work well in the dry sand or only in the wet sand? The reason I ask is because the GT does't air test well, and I don't know if it is because it needs moisture or what to get its depth.

 

[Rick(ND)]

The GT works excellent in dry ground, but too dry and I notice rusty bottle caps will start sounding good. The Sovereign has to have something to compare the signal too and why air test don't do as good as those targets that have been in the ground for a while as freshly buried targets also do not test well or freshly turned ground as there is air in with the target.
Many do not like the Sovereign when they first use them, but those that stay with them and learn them do good, so I tell everyone to stick with it and use it as you will learn each time out with it and soon you will see why many of us swear by the Sovereigns and find they are really easy to use.

 

[JimmyCT]

Thanks Rick for the insight. Interesting point you bring up about the detector needing something to compare the signal to. Not to start an argument, but I never could understand why air tests were of any importance. Even over 20 years ago when I received my first metal detector,my thought has always been this: can that XYZ detector find that valuable item at a certain depth in the given ground matrix, not in the air where there is no mineral influence.I look forward to receiving my GT and learning the "whispers" that it is telling me in my ears. Findmall is awesome as I have learned so much about the Sovereign GT in how it works even before I received my detector. "Thank you" to everyone that has taken the time to answer my questions and provide those tips / tricks to be successful in the field.

The GT works excellent in dry ground, but too dry and I notice rusty bottle caps will start sounding good. The Sovereign has to have something to compare the signal too and why air test don't do as good as those targets that have been in the ground for a while as freshly buried targets also do not test well or freshly turned ground as there is air in with the target.
Many do not like the Sovereign when they first use them, but those that stay with them and learn them do good, so I tell everyone to stick with it and use it as you will learn each time out with it and soon you will see why many of us swear by the Sovereigns and find they are really easy to use.

 

[SovGTuser]

Jim,
What I did is I went back to the start of all Sovereign forum posts and worked my way to the present reading through all that seemed relevant to me, I learned so much. Thanks to all the great posters!
I recently got a used Quattro and with the built in meter it seems to make a big difference for me in identifying targets, I will be installing a meter on my Sov. as Jim in S.D. suggested.
I maybe mistaken but you maybe able to buy (WTB) on the forum just not sell, not sure? You might want to check.
Newbie Steve

 

[JimmyCT]

Thanks Steve,

I reread the rules and yes, I can place a WTB on the forum. Thanks for the heads up! Newbie - Jim

Jim,
What I did is I went back to the start of all Sovereign forum posts and worked my way to the present reading through all that seemed relevant to me, I learned so much. Thanks to all the great posters!
I recently got a used Quattro and with the built in meter it seems to make a big difference for me in identifying targets, I will be installing a meter on my Sov. as Jim in S.D. suggested.
I maybe mistaken but you maybe able to buy (WTB) on the forum just not sell, not sure? You might want to check.
Newbie Steve

 

[old lobo]

Rick, thank you for the information about the Sovereign needing something to compare the signal to. I'm sure that was informative not only to me, but to many others on the forum. The only reason I had put Jim with my question was being as he was in San Diego I figured he did beach hunting like me, and I didn't know if beach sand had the same effect as fields and parks like a lot of you people back east hunt.

 

[Critterhunter]

All VLF detectors (unlike the Sovereign) use a ground balance filter to cancel out the ground signal. For that reason they can be "ground balanced" in the air and do very well on air testing. The Sovereign, however, takes a digital picture of the ground signal as you hunt and then compares that to a picture of the ground with a target present. It's not like conventional ground tracking or ground balancing. Those machines may do better in air tests, but they won't get as deep as the Sovereign when seeing targets in the ground. That's also why the Sovereign will ID targets better at depth, where as all other detectors tend to degrade the target signal at depth or in certain minerals.

By the way, read all the posts you felt like from the start till now? Wow, I admire the effort. I've slowly been going through the old posts from the start and compiling a "LINKS" page that will have links to threads on various topics for people. Hoping when I'm done it will become a sticky at the top of the forum.

 

[Rick(ND)]

I have seen so many detectors air test great, but in the ground it was bad while the Sovereign dont air test good, but in the ground where I like to find my coins deep the Sovereign will do better than any air test I have done.

 

[JimmyCT]

I have been going through many older posts - Seems as though the name critter hunter comes up quite often. He has many in-depth articles and has conducted numerous tests so others can benefit from the information. Thank you Critter Hunter for the invaluable info you provided. With all your input, you should compile and write a "support" manual for the GT.




By the way, read all the posts you felt like from the start till now? Wow, I admire the effort. I've slowly been going through the old posts from the start and compiling a "LINKS" page that will have links to threads on various topics for people. Hoping when I'm done it will become a sticky at the top of the forum.

 

[Critterhunter]

Others have used this machine much longer than me. I just post more than some of them.

 

[old lobo]

Critterhunter, your explination of how the Sovereign reads the ground and balances compared to other brands of detectors was excellent. It was concise, complete, and even an idiot like me understood it.