Fastgrab Ground Balance Question

[Brainwasher]

From reading the manual I think I can assume that the F75 is not ground tracking like my MXT, but this Fastgrab ground balance looks like it should do fine. I was just wondering if once you use the Fastgrab at a site, are you good for the hunt, or should you periodically reset the Fastgrab while hunting? If so, how often should you reset it, and is there anyway to tell while you're hunting that you need to reset it? Obviously I understand if there is a drastic change in soil composition, one would have to re-ground balance, but I'm wondering if there is a way to tell the difference in what would require a new reset of the fastgrab over needing to simply adjust the threshold tone when the ground change isn't so obvious? Thanks for the help.

 

[Low-Boy/LCPM]

FOR ME THE HARD PART IS FINDING CLEAN GROUND BUT I DO FAST GRAB WHEN I FIND A NICE CLEAN PLACE. SO DURING A HUNT I WILL FAST GRAB ABOUT THREE TIMES. AND IF IN WOOD CHIPS OR SAND I WILL FAST GRAB BEFORE I HIT THE TURF AGAIN.

 

[jim tn]

I've not been able to determine from anything the detector is telling me that I should re-ground balance. If I stay on the same area of a site, I may never re-ground balance during a typical 3-4 hour hunt on a familar site. If I do move some amount of distance on the same site, I'll give it another quick fastgrab balancing if I can find a trash free spot. HH jim tn

 

[Streak!]

if your hunting in all metal and the Gb starts to drift, its easier to tell than when your in Disc, but even in disc there are telltale signs. If the Gb gets too positive, it will actually get a bit quieter, and you will lose a bit of depth.(harder to tell if its off though) If it gets too negative it will get noisier (falses and chatter). A good habit to get into is to just Fast grab everytime you hit a piece of quiet ground. It only takes seconds, and ensures your spot on all the time. Most places around here the soil stays pretty much the same, and every time you fast grab it displays pretty much the same value. there are lots of areas in the country though where the ground changes every few feet. Had to say what YOUR soil is like, but you can tell by Fastgrabing every 20 feet or so and comparing the values when you hit a new site. Also, one way to be SURE (in realtively stable soil) thats you got a good accurate fast grab, is to make sure the Gb value isnt a lot different than the last one you did. If it is, you likley GB'd over something you shouldnt have. I'll typically Gb 3 or 4 times in the first 50 feet or so, and if it stays pretty close each time, I usually wont touch it for the remainder of the hunt. Streak!

 

[Mike Hillis]

Use the pinpoint mode to confirm your inital balance. Then use the pinpoint mode to let you know when you are too negative or too positive and need to rebalance. May have to turn the pinpoint sensitivity down and is dependant on clean ground of course.

HH

Mike

 

[Cliff KS]

Mike,

Could you explain a little more how you use the pinpoint to to confirm GB? Thanks!

 

[Streak!]

and thats seeing how well the ground reacts when you lower the coil to the ground in PP. everything else being equal, if the Ground stays the same, the response (READ: loudness) should stay the same when you lower the coil to the ground with the trigger pulled...........that is.............If your not over a target. You can go through all that if you want, but eventually you'll develop an "ear" and be able to tell if the Ground has changed just by swinging the coil....................
(I have a couple of machines with no All metal, and fixed GB, and using the VCO pinpoint the only way to tell if the Gb is even reasonably close when you have it apart tweaking it.)

 

[Mike Hillis]

Confirm your balance by raising the coil, pulling the pinpoint trigger and listen to how the ground responds as you lower the coil to rest flat on the ground. If you are balanced positive to the ground, the machine will see the ground as a target and give an audio response. The more positive the setting, the more the audio response will increase as it is lowered to the ground. If you are balanced neutral then there will be a initial audio response that will stay the same volume as the coil is lowered. If negative then the audio volume will decrease as the coil is lowered to the ground or even be silent.

Once you start hunting, if the ground strength rises and your balance goes negative, you just lost all the tiny sounds and deep target notification. If the ground strength decreases your balance goes more positive you just lost all the tiny sounds and deep target notifications. Go past a certain point either way and you are no longer actually balanced to anything.

While you might develop an 'ear' to ground changes in a silent search mode, the problem is by the time you've noticed the good tiny signals have disappeared you've already covered ten feet with with a less than optimum performing machine. And you don't know if its gone negative or positive, only that it has changed.

Since you are already using the pinpoint mode for target information and target recovery, go ahead and also utilize it for ground balance verification too. It doesn't change your current balance while giving you important information about the ground. You now make setting changes for optimum performance based upon facts.

Along the same line, I think the best thing to do is to understand right off the bat how FastGrab balances. Use FastGrab, confirm it, then switch to all metal and manually adjust the balance until you get a true neutral balance, confirmed. How much adjustment did it take to go true neutral? Thats is always going to be the difference between FastGrab and true neutral. There are places where you will want it balanced a bit different and knowing that you've got five or 7 detent settings between the FastGrab setting and true neutral can help you setup your ground balance without having to go through a lot of extra activity.

HH,

Mike

 

[Brainwasher]

Thanks guys, that helps alot. I sort of figured it was something like that. Checking it while in pinpoint is probably something I would not have thought of that, but makes sense. Also, fastgrabbing and then sort of fine tuning it further with the manual ground balance in all metal mode sounds logical too. Thanks.

 

[Low-Boy/LCPM]

I fast grab when I find clean ground and with the F75 and where I hunt it is hard to do. I do add a + on my ground bal number (fast Grab) and that seems to work also. That is what fast grab is really for but what ever works in the long run is all that counts.