Ok guys, here is my meager contribution. I've had my cz for a couple of years and feel reasonably comfy.
I've copy and pasted notes from other posters and during this time and have learned quite a bit.
I think my notes will answer most of your questiona about ground balancing plus much more. Just hope
they will all fit on one post. ( short answer...If it does'nt seem to gb for you set it at 10 or 5. Try a target on the
ground and see what you get. Just remember these are all bits and pieces and you'll have to just wade
thru and pick out what makes sense and forget the rest. Personally, if I can't make sense of the GB, I
just set it at 10 and reduce the sensitivity just enough to stop the chatter.
Works for me. GLHH.
The Bobbing Method of Ground Balancing:
Note: Use headphones to do thisdont use the internal speaker. What we are listening for when doing this is too subtle a sound to rely on the internal speaker.
1) Turn on the machine and use the Auto/ID touchpad to put the machine in "Auto" mode. Now sweep around a little in the area you're going to hunt and find a clean area of ground with no metal in it to do the ground balance. Verify that as you sweep the coil in the test area, that there are no signalsno metal in the ground.
2) Nowset the Ground Balance knob to 10.
3) Set the Sensitivity of the detector to maximum.
4) Set the Volume of the detector to maximum. Do this on your headphones as well if applicable.
5) Set the Normal/Salt selection in Normal unless you are beach ground balancing. If so, set it to Salt.
6) Stand the machine straight up and down with the coil flat on the ground. Hold the grip with one hand and the grasp the Ground Balance knob with the thumb and forefinger of the other, ready to adjust the control.
7) Heres the Bobbing part. With the settings of the machine as they are now, if you raise and lower the coil from the ground to a height of about 6 inches (repeating in a steady up and down motion, kind of like you are plunging a clogged toilet, though in a little slower and controlled manner) you should be able to hear a pulsing tone or hum as you bob up and down, toward and away from the ground. Continue bobbing the coil up and down and, while doing so, slowly rotate the Ground Balance knob down the scale. Continue bobbing and listening while slowly lowering the GB control from 10. At some point, you will hear the pulsing tone begin to decreasethe goal is to set the GB to a point where there is the LEAST AMOUNT OF CHANGE in the pulsing as you bob the coil up away from the ground and back down toward the groundattaining a neutral ground balance, if you will. If you go too far, the pulsing will start to increase again, so in that case, raise the GB back up. Play with it a little until you achieve the setting that has no change or as little as you can get. Thats it. Its ground balanced.
Once satisfied you have nailed it, leave the GB control where it is and restore your other settings to your desired hunting preferences. Take the machine out of Autotune and go to ID mode. Drop the Volume to whatever you like, I like 4 because above 4 you get Faint Target Audio Boost, which makes deep targets sound like shallower ones. I like the deeps to SOUND DEEP, so I go with 4. Set the Sensitivity to whatever you like, but with a CZ-70 I would recommend 4, as unless you have really clean ground you will probably be getting some false signals above 4 in ID mode. If you can run it higher and not get falsing, finedo so.
Note: If the terrain changes, like for example from soft, moist soil-under-grass to maybe a hard-packed dirt road, the woods, etc., then you will want to re-do the Ground Balance procedure. When using the method as I have oulined it here, you don't need to re-do it if you adjust the Sensitivity, Volume, or Notch selections.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
It should eliminate iron at a setting of 2. If you are still hearing a low tone on 2 or higher, there is something wrong with the machine.
If your machine is ok; For best results on the beach where targets are few, hunt in all metal mode. When you get a signal switch to disc. #0 and listen. If it is not the low tone, DIG IT.
My suggestion with any CZ in iron is to turn the dicrimination all the way down and listen to the iron, go slow and pick out the medium and high tones. If it's too much for you to listen to then just move to a cleaner part of the beach. Chances are that other detectorists moved away from that area leaving the goodies for you to find. Good Luck
I used to have a CZ-20, and now I have a CZ-5. (I wish I hadn't sold it).
This is how I search:
In wet sand where targets are few, use all metal, then switch when you get a signal to ID. Dig everything that is not iron.
In dry sand with lots of signals, I use disc. mode but still dig everything but iron.
It is one tough detector that is built like a tank. I usually set the disc. on 1 so I don't hear the low tone for Iron, but some thin white gold rings can sound with the low tone, but so will tons of bobby pins. My CZ 20 or 21 still can not sound off on thin gold chains like the Tiger Shark. But if the chain has the right sized clasp or a medallion you are OK. I have one Excal that can find chains and the other one won't, so I guess you need to get lucky in which ever one you get.
OK Here's the scoop. I'm back from Daytona beach. I had to drop the sensitivity down from 10 to 5 and ground from 8 to 6 to get the detector to stabilize. Other than that, the CZ- 21 performed well. I managed to grab a nice 10 K gold ring, a silver bracelet and a silver ring before being knocked off the shovel by those nasty waves down there. No kidding, 3 ft breakers at the shore line and lots of white caps and rips. The beach patrol and life guards had over 100 call outs that weekend. Only one person died. I just got lucky and found a cut after low tide.
Over all, The machine worked well, but it works better in fresh water.
My main CZ questions are for CZ users. I love the 3 tones in discriminate mode. But it seems like with every CZ I have tried so far, besides having to have correct ground balance, sensitivity must also be set correctly in discriminate mode. If sensitivity is set too high, I get constant false ground signals. So I lower sensitivity. OK that makes sense. But, I have noticed when in the all metal Auto tune mode, I can always crank up sensitivity to max, without any falsing! The one time I tried a CZ20 in the salt, I had to search with a sensitivity of 4 in discriminate mode for stable operation. Plus I have noticed if I hunt at max sensitivity in all metal, hit a target and then switch to discriminate mode to check target ID, it works! I could never hunt at max sensitivity in discriminate!
Hello CC,
I'll try to answer some of your questions but as I have never used an Excal I can't provide any comparisons.
In my current line up is a CZ70PRO, CZ20 8", & cz20 10". I hunt freshwater & saltwater beaches with a variety of ground conditions for both. That is they vary from clean white sand, to severe black sand, cobble fields, and the worst conditions being saltwater with severe black sand and cobbles combined.
Over the years there have been many posts with observations concerning the questions you are asking which I will try to summarize.
Sensitivity
This is one area where there has not been a consensus as to how high can you usually run it. With my CZ20 8" on a moderate black sand saltwater beach I can run her at 10 pegged out, no problem. But on the CZ20 10" only 5>6, which the thought may be that it's because it's a larger coil and seeing more of the ground. However, I've seen many posts over the years where those sporting a 8" can only get as high as 5 or so to remain stable. As locations vary, the only way to really know for sure is to gather a bunch of these together in the same location and try them out. So my thought on this is that you have to live with whatever the way your's acts. You might put the CZ6A in Salt mode and compare it to the CZ20.
All Metal vs Disc depth
I believe most users that hunt in (0) zero Disc find that it is deeper than Autotune despite what the manual says. That may because the Disc audio is a saturated response, as opposed to trying to hear a slight audio rise in the Autotune mode. I personally hunt at (0) zero Disc 99% of the time because I find that it is the best way to get the real deepies. The only time I don't is on a saltwater severe black sand beach with cobble fields where the machine constantly spits in Disc mode no matter where the sensitivity is set. But that is a truly miserable place to hunt, which I don't do very often, and maybe a ground balancing PI is the only thing that would stand a chance there. Over the years I've taken a dozen or so VLF's there, and so far nothing runs smoothly, some like the Tesoro Tejon are in overload six inches above the sand.
Ground Balancing
To get the most performance I usually GB in Autotune to get in the ballpark. I then switch to (0) zero Disc and pump, then swing the coil over the sand, while adjusting the sensitivity and GB to get the optimum setting. Kind of like stick and ruddering her to get just on the brink of instability.
Important Tip
The de-tunable VCO pinpoint is your best friend. Example; Hunting in (0) zero Disc you get what you think might be a weaker low toned target. Is it iron or a deep good target that the CZ can't ID because of depth, so it reports a low tone? Switch to pinpoint and listen to see how high(tone) and loud the target sounds. After a little practice you will get an idea of how deep a coin is just by the way the pinpoint responds.
If the target is very weak in pinpoint, take away 5 to 6" of sand and re-check. If the target is now much louder and still sounding iron(low tone), move on. But if the target is still weak or has begun to signal mid/high tone then dig some more. The one target that will drive you crazy are rotten zincs, I have dug them at +20" in semi-frozen beach sand with the cz20 8" on a consistent basis. This because they have leached heavily into the surrounding sand, and they never give a consistent ID. And yes if there are no children around, you are allowed to call them bad names.
Hope this gives you some more ideas and things to try.
It's my Jersey shore beach machine, works great in the wet salt sand. Used it today in a local 300 acre park that has mild soil, hoping to find any deep coins that my Tesoro couldn't get. Passed up the shallow signals. Got a lot of one-way signals (left to right) that I thought might be deep coins. Cut a 6 inch wide plug and went down 14 inches, still got a high tone signal but no target found. That happened a number of times. Had the Volume at 4, Sens at 8, Disc at 2 - 4, and ground balanced. After almost three hours of getting false signals and some deep rusty square nails I called it quits. Before I dug, the pin-point button verified that small metal was there. Why was I getting all those false signals.
I can't run sensitivity higher than between 6 and 7 in fairly good ground without falsing with the 8 inch coil on my CZ-20 or CZ6A. With a 5 inch coil on the CZ6A I can get a little above 7 on sensitivity in some areas. I run with discriminator on 1 and listen to all three tones. If it is high tone I slow sweep speed way down over the target and if it breaks into low tone or alternates low and high, then I am pretty sure it is a nail or piece of iron or rust in the soil from a decomposed piece of iron. If I dig those to see if I guessed right, sometimes all I find is an area of red dirt that, once broken up, no longer gets a reading. On the salt water beach, discriminator is still on 1, listening to all three tones. For me, bottle caps in the sand frequently alternate between high and low tone like nails do on land. (I like Tesoros too ... different animals, different hunting style ... depends on the day and what I feel like doing)
Thanks TVR, will try again with lower Sensitivity. My CZ-20 has a 10 inch coil, could be falsing more. Some months ago a poster on this forum said that he would pry the dirt with his digging tool to loosen the soil a little, and by doing that the rust trail gets broken, no longer giving a signal. I did that a few times and the signal did go away. Saved me some digging. Jabbo
The 'bobbing' method works the same whether it is a CZ20 or 21. Set the unit to Autotune ( ie. All metal mode). Set the GB at 10 .Sensitivity at max, volume high enough so you can hear the threshold. Begin lowering and raising the coil off the ground from ( start at a height of about 1/2 inch off the ground and raise the coil about 10-12 inches off the ground) and keep repeating this motion ( similar to plunging a toilet or churning butter ( not my analogy...got that from another forum detectorist and it's a pretty good one).
As you continue to raise and lower the coil in that motion ( not too fast, not too slow), slowly turn the GB knob from 10 to 9, etc. as listen to the threshold. The idea is to get the threshold to NOT change as you raise and lower the coil. When you start the process with the GB at 10, the threshold may rise as you lower the coil to the ground ( or rise as you raise it). You have to try to get the GB to a point on the knob where there is minimal if any rise in threshold in both directions when you raise and lower.
Sometimes you may not be able to get an exact GB, and sometimes you may not get anything at 10 or 1 on the GB knob,. If so, leave the GB at 5.
I have a CZ20 and 2 CZ6a's and there are lots of times I cannot GB at the beach and I just leave it at 5 and there are no problems. Still runs super deep and super stable. The main thing with the CZ's is to make sure you don't run the sensitivity too high and get lots of falsing or high tones on iron. The CZ's still run deep at lower sensitivity settings.
Just remember if you are going to hunt in discriminate mode and you switch from Autotune to Discrim setting 0 or 1 ( of whatever you are going to use), make sure you lower your sensitiviy because it's at it's highest setting. If you don't you will be falsing like crazy.
Also, you can get the manual off the net.
OK Dave, here we go, I hunt the saltwater beaches of Maine which vary wildly in regards to minerals including black sand. This is with a CZ-20 w/8 coil just back from a repair and alignment.
Sensitivity
I can run mine @10 some people can only be stable as high as 5. So far cause is unknown for the variance, coil, machine etc. My machine is deeper in Disc mode than Autotune, others have also reported this .
GB
Adjustment method:
1. Vol @ 10
2. Sens. @ 10
3. Disc @ Autotune
4. GB @ 5(preset)
Bob coil straight up down by about a foot. If volume increases on way down turn knob towards 10, if volume goes quiet approaching ground and does a rebound on the way back up, turn towards 1. You want as little change as possible, and some people prefer to run slightly positive(towards 1) increase when approaching ground. My GB ends up usually between 4 and 6.
Volume
I run at 6 which is just into the audio boost zone. By the way the headphones have little rubber plugs in them which you should leave in except when hunting underwater. This keeps the wind noise across the headphones down.
Disc
I run at 0 which is basically an all metal silent search tone ID, not precisely, but in practical use, that is an easy way to think about it. If I get into a heavy amount of hot rocks, then I may go to 1 iron/small foil reject just to save my ears, but this is very rare, usually if Im quite tired. Positive hot rocks will give a weak low tone followed by a short high tone chirp.
Pinpoint
50% of my dig/no dig is determined by the pinpoint. It is a VCO increasing in frequency and loudness. I use it for sizing and shaping a target, and if I get a low tone, a deep target may be out of ID range. So if you get a low tone, check target strength w/ PP, if weak, scrape away sand or dig a little out, then recheck target, if it to starts tone higher, even broken, dig!
HH
BarnacleBill
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
If you don't have the manual, download the CZ21 manual...same as the CZ20 except the pin point button is different.
Ground balance using the bobbing method. When doing so, the detector should be in autotune and the sensitivity at max along with the volume pretty high so you can listen to the threshold changing as you bob the coil up and down. Once completed, remember to turn down the volume and lower the sensitivity if you switch to discriminate mode prior to hunting.
If you are hunting in discriminate mode, set it at 0 and listen to all targets. Make sure the sensitivity is not too high...you should probably run it no more than 3-4 to start. Hunting in 0 discriminate mode allows you to hear the iron targets that bleed over ( ie, wrap) into the high tone. They will be low tone/ high tone hits. If you have your discrimination set to 1 or higher, the low tone is disabled and you will only hear the high tone hit on these bleeding targets...and get fooled by digging deep iron. One of the main things that causes new CZ users to dig much more iron than normal. They run it in discriminate mode 1 or higher. If there is TONS of iron, then you can run it that way...just make sure when you get a high tone hit, it's repeatable in all directions, and just to make sure, switch to 0 to see if any low tone comes into play.
Dig all REPEATABLE high tones, mid tones and even dig any low tone/mid tone bounces. These can be deep gold targets.
If the area is not too riddled with iron, you can run in auto-tune( ie, all metal) and dig all the sharper, smaller sounding targets. The longer, screeching, double hits and warbles are mostly iron. Auto-tune makes a very wide footprint and more sensitive coil so you will find a lot of small targets like rivets, bb's, etc. using that setting. It is a really cool way to run it to learn how the all metal mode reacts on the CZ. You can tell a lot about a target. I was out today with my CZ and running in all metal on the beach. A lot of hot rocks were in an area and were sounding off with a very faint change in threshold. When switching over to 0, they went away. Once I started to know how they were sounding, I just moved along.
Not sure what coil size is on your CZ20, but if it's the 8 inch coil, then you don't even need to use the pin point button. X the target and its almost always right in the center hole of the coil.
In my opinion the CZ is one of the best all around detectors ever made. The only caveat with the CZ20/CZ21 is that it is always in salt mode, so the sensitivity to SMALL gold ( ie, small earrings, thin chains. etc.), is below average.
JC
