First spin today with the G T.. ( finally )

[Mark ( ohio )]

well, I finally made it out to try the G T, which I've had for close to 2 months now.....Man-O -Man,, this is a different beast for sure!!! Sounds are completely different from what I'm use to...Pinpointing is a problem ( for now )... Im digging alot bigger holes looking for targets then I should be..Not having a target id nor a depth readout is gonna take some getting used to too...Those dang screw tops sure do sound good..at least to me..LOL.


SO...Just to make sure I'm clear on this.. If I want to make the detector a turn on and go unit.. I set the controls as follows.. 1) volume turned to around 3O'clock..2)auto sens... 3) toggle set on threshold and turned threshold dial till a slight hum was heard.. ..4) moved toggle to silent search.. 5) iron mask on...6) disc set to mim... or should i set it to where a nickle would still give a good hit...but not beyond.

Is this all correct??? Or what do I need to change??

I did find a good bit of coins..all clad, no silver.... but sure did dig a bunch of junk too.... Not bad for the first spin..

Mark ( ohio )

 

[Ron from Michigan]

Mark,pinpointing with the Sovereign is the one of the best,once you learn.Volume for me is always maxed,targets hits more clear and harder.The Sovereign has never been a problem for me without a depth gauge,even though like most thought it would.Depending on ground conditions and coil used, run your sensitivity high as you can,for me at least the 10 o'clock position.off position for silent search and no notch or discriminate.HH Ron

 

[Mark ( ohio )]

is that correct???? Just curious.. what is the reasoning behind that.

Thanks Mark

 

[bootyhoundpa]

as a gt newby the only setting i would change might be silent search but otherwise yes those settings should do ya till you get the hang of it...its a strange animal till you get some time in with it....practise with some coins just so you have an idea how coins sound....it would also be best if you had a beach or farm field to learn in as the pinpointing is a little tricky....watch gt videos and reread the owners manual every so often an it will come to you in no time....

 

[Critterhunter]

Don't use silent search unless you just want to clad hunt. Bad idea to do that when learning the machine, as the threshold will tell you if your sensitivity is too high and such. If the threshold keeps dropping out try slowing down your sweep. If it still keeps dropping out see if it's not doing it over and over in the same spot, which then means it's not iron your hitting but rather you have sensitivity too high. You need to crawl with the coil with a high sensitivity for sure. People like the threshold because it will change to the tone of the last target hit, so it can hint to silver being present if you just "nick" the side of a coin for instance, or just passed over a deep one. When you get any kind of change in threshold top and do short wiggles or very short constant sweeps over that spot over and over, as that will pull the best ID and tone out of a target, especially a deep one. You just wiggle the coil right over it and listen, and watch the VDI if you have one. I'd pick up one of Ron's meters because it will open a whole other world to you in terms of target IDs on stuff you just can't hear the tone differences on.

Without the meter, though...Screw caps are still easy. They'll usually sound good one way but if you move around to the side and sweep over it again you'll often hear a "warbly" sound to them. Coins right near the surface can do this. Try lifting the coil a little and see if it goes away. If it stays it's probably a screw cap. Took me a while to figure that out. I was REALLY getting ticked off by those screw caps. Now they are easy. Just listen for the warble from two different directions and if one gives you the warble it's probably one.

 

[Ron from Michigan]

Mark,I would go off of silent search.I usually search with the threshold very low just enough to hear.My reason to hear those deep targets.LOL I've seen people go overboard on the threshold just watching their videos cause my ears to ring.Good Luck Ron

 

[Tin Fin]

Mark, these folks have the right info - they got me started and I'm feeling a lot more comfortable now; can even tell more about the depth of a target generally.

Sometimes it will hit something that sounds close to the surface, but the target is deeper than I think it will be. I use the settings you said, but without 'silent' search, the threshold really does tell you stuff, you just have to learn what it's telling you - dig everything at first, that's how you learn, and bottle caps are easy usually unless they are deformed (flattened, bent and flattened, or twisted bent and flattened). Screw caps can throw me if they are misshaped as well, but usually I can tell them for what they are.

I have been using the GT for about five months I think. There is a lot to learn, but don't get overwhelmed by it, just use the settings recommended, and stick with it, adjusting the threshold as needed for the ground conditions. I know I'm missing some targets because I don't know what I'm hearing on some things, but I don't worry about that right now either, because once I learn more, I can go back and re-hunt these areas. I have passed on some targets in some areas due to making such a big, or very deep hole looking for the target. Those too, I can come back to, once I perfect my technique.

Pinpointing with the GT is easier for me than with the Excal - most of the time, I'm pretty dead on with it, and the depth-reading-by-sound-and-tone really does work. I do get messed up some on coins that are partially on-edge, but not usually by a lot; once in a while it messes with me a bit more, but not too bad most of the time. A meter helps sometimes, but there are times I will just take the meter off as well, and use it that way - some of that is me not wanting to be completely dependant on a meter, some of it is I don't want to harm the meter in the forests I hunt in - very thick in places - and sometimes it's due to moisture conditions. But that's just me - most of the time, the meter is on it because my hearing isn't great, and the meter can show me the differences in things that I can't distinguish.

Good luck, keep us posted, and post some photos of your finds if you can.

Best of Luck, hh,

 

[Donny nj]

The Sov's Tone ID once mastered can really tell you everything you want to know about the target........another thing which is very important is to "SLOW DOWN ALOT" and LISTEN CLOSLY compared to other machines.....the SOV is a different breed and needs the time to analyze what's in the ground....if you go along swinging wildly you are going to miss so many good targets leaving them for the next hunter For me Pinpointing is best done with the "WIGGLE" method & pushing the coil up when the tone stops its right at the center heel of the coil...

Hope this helps

 

[Critterhunter]

Run in auto sensitivity for a while so you know how the machine should act when stable. When more experienced you can run sensitivity high and a bit unstable but still tell what's a target and what is just falsing here and there. Just move real slow when doing it like that cuz you got to swing even slower with high sensitivty to keep the threshold from falling out. He's right, some guys get so good with the tones and audio that they don't even use a meter and prefer to hunt that way, but you still can't split hairs on targets as well as with a meter as it has very high resolution.

 

[deepdiger60]

Mark you might want to try disc mode 1 i included on scan sheet until you get to know the Sov GT better, i found that doing the ground balance as read really helped you will see in red . Keep coil on surface BEFORE !! making any changes to desired mode it takes time to understand the Sov but you will see it comes quick . Good luck Jim

 

[Critterhunter]

Remember too that the sensitivity gets HIGHER as you turn it counter clockwise, and then will click into auto. I highly recommend you use Auto sensitivity for several hunts or at least when you first start out at a new site so it will remind you how the machine is supposed to act and behave properly. If you decide to venture into manual then put it at about 3PM and that probably should be very stable (at 90% of my sites 3PM is just fine). Actually, see where the "C" is in the word Noise Cancel on the face plate? It's odd but many people on here including me have found that setting the dial pointing at that "C" seems to be a sweet spot, where you still get excellent depth but the machine is still very stable unless the ground or EMI is really bad. While I could some times ride the stock 10" coil with sensitivity full blast, I'm finding the 12x10 allows full blast at more of my sites. Usually it's rock solid stable, but at some sites at full blast it gets a little unstable with the threshold dipping in and out here and there and the machine "reseting" due to EMI here and there, but I can easily tell if it's EMI or an actual very deep target that just caused it to change a bit. When in doubt just stop and wiggle over that spot where it changed, and if you don't get anything then obviously it was EMI. With super high somewhat unstable sensitivity settings you need to slow your sweep to a crawl to keep the machine stable. But even if you aren't running it real high this is still a SLOW machine, like all Minelabs. Some say (at least with other Minelabs) 4 seconds PER sweep! That's a bit slower than I usually even sweep, but I've been trying it here and there to see if it hits on any deep targets better.

That's a good tip for you guys....If you hit a really deep target trying doing a normal sweep over it (not a short one but a normal hunting sweep)...And change your sweep speed from SUPER slow to a bit faster, to a bit faster still, all the way up to a fast sweep. Notice which speed gave you the hardest hit on that SUPER deep target and try to use that sweep speed for now on as you hunt. Some soil types as well as where you set sensitivity will tell you to go a bit faster, while others a bit slower. I've noticed that the lower sensitivity is (say past 12PM) the faster (just a bit) the machine seems to want me to sweep, or at least with lower sensitivity levels you can get away with sweeping faster and still hit stuff good, or at least the machine will still remain stable...But even still you aren't swinging nearly as fast as some other non-Minelabs. Not if you don't want to miss the deep or masked stuff. When I'm clad hunting or searching the woods for any signal at all I'll swing fast and not worry about it. Also, I believe Minelab says in silent search you can also pick up the sweep speed a bit.

 

[GunnarMN]

switch to fixed all metal to pipont, or pipoint , but try to get a good pipointer it is hard to pipoint with the machine in its disq mode.

 

[Critterhunter]

Oh, I forgot...If you have a meter then for sure run it in Noise Band 2 because that matches the charts in the sticky at the top of the thread. If you run in band 1 it can make nickles read a little off compared to older Sovereigns (which didn't have the ability to switch noise bands).

 

[Mark ( ohio )]

n/t