Ground balancing.. I've read all the recentposts...

[Silverbackbob]

with great interest. It's a little over my head to tell you the truth. I'm just your average detectorist. Get out when I can, hunt old yards, schools, and sites I've found thru research. Full time job, wife kids and grand daughter, yada yada. My question is, if you have fairly benign ground to begin with, if you are relatively new to the xterra's( I just bought a 70), should you even be worrying about Auto GB versus manual GB?? Will it it give you that much better performance?? Depthwise etc?? Any tips on how best to setup the xterra for a beginner to understand so I can hit the ground running in the spring??
This is the best site for xterra's on the net that I've found. Barnacle Bill and Digger are No. 1 in my book. No slams or knocks just straight info.
Keep those finds with pix coming. For us on the frozen tundra it keeps hope alive during what looks to be a long winter. Good luck and HH. Bob.

 

[Seth Bullock]

This ol coot will tell ya his story on GB. Unless your area has really bad soil you dont need to worry about GB because the auto feature on the terra will do its job with tracking. Yes it is true you can get more depth with manual GB in certain situations, mainly in areas where gold is concerned. Because your hunting areas like I hunt meself I would just stick to the preset's from minelab for now, pattern 1,2 and 3 are all good settings. Use auto GB (tracking on) and you will do just fine. I wish ya all the best of luck in 2008 and hope its a fantastic year fer ya! Once you get more familiar and confident with ya machine you can then program it as you like. The stock coil is very good and should suit most of your needs to begin with. Later on down the track you might want to invest in a nice little 6" coil for those tight spots.

 

[John LA]

The way I do it is to turn on the tracking for 2 or 3 minutes then turn it off. It should have GBed during the 2 minutes.

 

[Beale]

You know I have never used tracking? I auto GB, auto noise cancel, and hunt? I try to re GB every so often any how. Does the track feature help that much? My GB#s run in the 40's-60's. I am in red clay central NC. Run my sens low 20's down to 15. I may have to tr-read about track, Beale.

 

[Jackpine Savage]

it may help given you have to keep the sensitivity that low in your ground. Also try bumping up the GB a couple numbers higher when using fixed GB. According to those that hunt tougher ground that helps a lot.

Tom

 

[Horsesoldier]

1. Hold the coil in the air and auto Noise cancel
2. Turn tracking on
3. Press the Ground Balance button
4. Watch it ground balance itself.
5. Then if you need want fixed ground balance then turn tracking off.

If been playing with this and I don't even bother with ground balancing. With the tracking it will correct itself. Then if I'm in a lot of man-made iron I turn tracking off so that I don't track the iron. Try it and see. HH

 

[BarnacleBill]

As you can see by the responses below the X70 provides you with three options:

1. Manual GB(Old School).
2. Auto GB(I'm not really sure about Old School).
3. Tracking(This is the way life should be).

First couple times out take 10 minutes and experiment in target free ground. Try all three methods, and then Manually adjust away from the GB point picked by Auto & Tracking, try them over again. Have fun with it, you're not going to break anything or end up with your settings so whacked out that you'll never straighten it out.

If you're feeling really unsure, just put her in Tracking and go, no fuss, no muss. And this is what separates the X70 from many of the more expensive detectors, it offers a lot of adjust-ability many of them lack without the complexity. Since you have time till the big thaw comes, have a look through the FAQ where you can copy and paste the information you find important into your own custom manual to be ready for spring.

If your ground is just frozen without a lot of snow cover, then during a warmer spell you can still go out and play with the GB, just might keep the winter blues away. And if you can do this and run across any interesting ID's (you have to be sick like me), use a handheld GPS to mark the locations.

HH
BarnacleBill

 

[Steve in Idaho]

I am lazy so with GB on and auto track on for a few minutes then turn off tracking, I hunt and forget about GB. If the ground changes every few feet, then I leave the tracking on.

LOOSE LOTS IS MY MOTO