Ground balance in the 90"s

[dirt-digger69]

I am new to this forum but Jon at Detector Warehouse sent me this link to ask a question. I bought the nox 800 this pass summer and really trying to learn all the ends and out. So I found The Equinox Serious Handbook on Amazon and read it cover to cover and with that I decided to build a test garden. So I ran the nox over the area I wanted to use and it seem the area was clear so I added about 12 targets and then decided to checked it. Well to my surprise I couldn't hit on a coin at all. I went through all the modes and nothing. When I hit the little horseshow in the nox the machine started grunting everywhere in the area of the coins and still not picking up anything. So I did a ground balance and the ground balance was at a 93. Thinking it was because of the update to 3.0 I did a few days ago and I was ready to go back to 2.0. I could lay a silver coin on ground and it would hit it every time but it would never hit the coins I put in the ground. A day later I started checking the ground balance in other parts of the yard to find ground balance of 32 so I dug some holes and through some coins in there and BOOM I was picking up everything I put in the hole. So here is my question has anyone ever seen that? Can coins be detected in a ground balance of 93? If so what settings do I need to be in?
I have moved my test garden and everything is working now but I would sure like to know if anyone seen this before. Thanks in advance for your responses!!

 

[laplander]

Yes I have and unfortunately your test garden is probably a burn pile or building site. Your detector is tracking iron targets and not the actual ground because that is all that is available for the coil to see. I personally don't ground balance. JMO
HH Jeff

 

[Dirt Duke]

You must ground balance over “quiet” ground, IE. ground with NO metal, hot rocks, etc. A reading of 93 indicates to me that you are ground balancing over metallic, etc. subsurface. Try manually setting your ground balance indication to something between 0 and 20 for example and see how you do as an experiment. You also need to ground balance again when you change modes.

 

[dirt-digger69]

Yes I have and unfortunately your test garden is probably a burn pile or building site. Your detector is tracking iron targets and not the actual ground because that is all that is available for the coil to see. I personally don't ground balance. JMO
HH Jeff

 

[dirt-digger69]

Thank you, that makes sense.

 

[etex]

Yes I have and unfortunately your test garden is probably a burn pile or building site. Your detector is tracking iron targets and not the actual ground because that is all that is available for the coil to see. I personally don't ground balance. JMO
HH Jeff

Why do you feel it's better not to ground balance? May try that out

 

[kschae4]

Coming from Safari, I always GB and NC at each site and then again after an hour or so, just to think I'm getting optimal performance at least in theory..

 

[laplander]

Why do you feel it's better not to ground balance? May try that out

Everyone should decide for themselves, because ground conditions are different. Meaning what works for me might not work for you. I have done a lot of testing in the field and ground balancing doesn't improve depth or target id if anything it hurts performance on my sites that have a lot of iron.
Minelab only recommends ground balancing on highly Mineralized soil ie Austrailia ect..
Noise canceling is only a slight frequency shift and is great when detecting around other detectors. When experiencing true EMI this function is seldom enough by itself I usually have to reduce sensitivity or resort to single frequency to eliminate the interference.