Hot Ground V3 Setup

[Daniel Tn]

Anybody got any tips on setting one of these dudes up in hot ground? Using the ground probe in different places I've been, just shows a 15-20% signal loss with recommended RX of 5 or less.

I'm gonna be relic hunting. I've already figured out a few things and got the V3 to really open up in my test garden...where as in preset factory relic mode, it would only hit about 1/4 of the things in there. Our ground has a bad deal with all detectors (V3 included) for making non-ferrous items, read as ferrous items. Thus with most machines we are running in all metal. I opened up the whole disc scale on the V3 and got it to start hitting on all but one target in my test area, then took the average on what the minie balls and buttons were reading as vs square nails and such, and then just left open all but small iron. In the preset relic mode, it would disc out cannonball frags and cannister balls. I've got it hitting on those now, by opening up the disc range.

The only thing it's not hitting is a 9" button in the test area. Only two machines I've had though could do that, one's a TDI and the other was the F-75 LTD, but it was cranked up so high you couldn't have possibly hunted with it in the field.

But in the field itself, I'm running the V3 in manual GB mode, with it locked. I noticed I could get better target response this way. Problem is, in the field I'm getting a lot of false signals even with the low RX settings. Is that kinda the nature of the V3? Anybody got any good tips for this thing? I'm just borrowing it from a friend of mine to determine if I want to buy one or not. He let me see if I could figure out a thing or two on it for his use later on.

Thus far I've seen that it's no F-75 or TDI, but I love all the target info it gives out!!

 

[TheMarshall]

Daniel....What is your typical Ground VDI ?

If the ground is as hot as you describe then I imagine it may be about 93...

How well does the V3 ground balance under these conditions?....Can you get a reasonable audio nulling ? (Not expecting a perfect audio null.)

Only lower the search head to about 2 inches above soil surface during the 'bobbing head balance routine'.

Don't 'scrub the surface' whilst detecting in hot ground.

For Relic hunting in bad ground, try accepting from -30 up to +94, and forget about numbers....Just dig any good audio..

Remember, bad ground, smallest head, and lowest Ground filter. You then determine the sweep speed to suit the situation....TheMarshall

 

[hang7575]

Daniel I used mine at the last DIV and it worked fairly well. I used it in single frequency 22.5 mixed mode relic program, gain of 7 , dis 75 , all metal 60 , used 10 high pass filter it was noisey but it worked. Also was using the stock 10 dd coil.The 22.5 freq was much more quieter than 3 freq or any of the other two single freq modes. This also allows you to hunt beside most other machines without cross talk. Not a perfect setup but it was my first time there and with some more tweaking I am sure it can be made better.Also most of my finds were out of other peoples dig holes?? I use this setup at home where the ground is mild i just change the filter to 5 band and sweep slow

 

[Larry (IL)]

If you have access to an SEF type coil like the 10X12, you might get a better signal to noise ratio as well as a little better depth.

 

[ozark]

Daniel where are you in tn. Ozark

 

[hang7575]

If you have access to an SEF type coil like the 10X12, you might get a better signal to noise ratio as well as a little better depth.

I have a 10x12 SEF and it does work well but did not use it in the hot ground had it on my MXT backup ,I guess to lazy to change it.

 

[Daniel Tn]

About halfway between Chattanooga and Knoxville. It's odd here, because you can go 15 miles north of here and hit the good fertile black/grey dirt that you can run a detector nearly wide open in, and trust the IDs. Then you can hit some sites around here and south of here that a 3-4 inch minie ball will read as iron from every angle. My yard is kind of one of those places. It's actually what I consider "mild" ground in my yard. I've got places that are worse, but I've not had a chance to get the V3 to them yet. With the constant raining and my over time when it's not raining, it's making it hard.

 

[Daniel Tn]

Marshall,

I'm not sure of what you're asking with the V3 and the ground VDI number. I'm just borrowing this one I have, to play with. Is that something that would show up when I'm GBing?

I can tell you that on the F-75 that it has an iron meter on it, that reads the amount of iron in the ground. Most places you go in good ground, it would be low on the scale. In my yard, up in VA at the DIVs, and in some of my hunting sites, it would nearly peg the thing out of the roof, because of the high iron content in the dirt itself.

As far as I can tell, the V3 seems to be balancing okay. I do prefer the manual GB with lock on, vs the auto tracking. Even with the MXT, that seemed to be the better route to take in this kind of ground. On the VDI Disc numbers, I've more the less opened them up like you said to do. I've got it accepting from about -40 on up, and would be digging everything. The good news is, that from my testing the V3 still does a decent job at probable IDs when you open it up like that, and it also gives better signals that stop you in your tracks. I noticed that when you run the factory relic mode, that it has a hard time giving a good repeatable signal, and thus the IDs struggle too.

 

[ozark]

I'm in Crossville Had my v3 about a month now maybe out with it 10 hrs . Some areas are good some not the super 12 seems more stable.. I'll let you know about the 5.3 white s says it more stable..

 

[Daniel Tn]

Ahhh I figured out how to do the Probe in the Expert side of things. It tells more info, although I have no idea how to apply any of it.

I took the V3 out relic hunting today to some of my spots and played around with the analysis. My ground was reading high -80s to low -90s. The average was around -92 to -93 or so.

Signal strength was showing at about 7% and using the other probe feature, the signal loss was still consistent with 15-20% loss, with the highest RX Gain setting of 5.

I played around with a few different ground filter settings and such, and in this kinda dirt, I didn't do well with the V3. I dug one bullet on camera that the TDI was singing on and the V3 sputtered on, even with nearly the whole disc range opened up, and I dig a bullet about 4" deep. 4" and if I would have been hunting with the V3 exclusively, I would have never paid the signal any mind.

 

[Neil in West Jersey]

Daniel....What is your typical Ground VDI ?

If the ground is as hot as you describe then I imagine it may be about 93...

How well does the V3 ground balance under these conditions?....Can you get a reasonable audio nulling ? (Not expecting a perfect audio null.)

Only lower the search head to about 2 inches above soil surface during the 'bobbing head balance routine'.

Don't 'scrub the surface' whilst detecting in hot ground.

For Relic hunting in bad ground, try accepting from -30 up to +94, and forget about numbers....Just dig any good audio..

Remember, bad ground, smallest head, and lowest Ground filter. You then determine the sweep speed to suit the situation....TheMarshall

Good advice, but the ground VDI number of 93 does not necessarily mean "hot ground. My ground usually is in this range, but the concentration is very low. A better method would be the Ground Probe Signal Loss.

 

[Daniel Tn]

Digging good targets out of other people's holes. In that kind of dirt, what happens is people will get an iffy signal, then dig. Only to break the halo or ground matrix, and the signal disappears on them. Since it was iffy to begin with, they just assume it was a small piece of iron or ration can....just trash. Then they go on. Someone else comes along from a different angle or with a different machine and all of a sudden they can hear the signal and there's a goodie coming up. At my first DIV when I had the F-75 up there, on Day 2 and 3, basically 90% of my finds came out of dig holes and where people had scratched the corn stalks back with their foot and not dug the signal.

With so many PI machines at the hunts now, it doesn't take much when you get 2 or 3 of them around to cause major interference. I swear I was the only one there that knew how to change frequencies on mine lol. Those other TDIs and Infiniums would eat my TDI alive. Especially when you would start digging and folks would kind of congregate around your hunt area. You could easily be getting a good signal at first, then when the "hell hounds" close in around you to cut you off, the interference from their machine causes yours to not be able to locate your signal anymore. That's why you could go back to the hot spots after the people thinned out and still pull relics from out of holes and around holes.