I've never heard anyone say anything about the XT70 and hot rocks. I took mine out , with the 6 inch 18.75 coil, and all it did is beep on hot rocks. How do people find any gold with it beeping on hot rocks every couple of inches of ground?I did everything the book and FAQFAQ said . Any help would be appreciated, Thanks.
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hot rocks
- Thread starter bubber
- Start date
Steve in Idaho
New member
I run my X-70 in the prospect mode, iron mask at 1 and use the auto track. Hot rocks donot bother with a lot of beeps, only the gold beeps.
nero_design
New member
The X-Terra 70 is one of the few VLF detectors capable of handling the extremely mineralized soils here on the Australian Goldfields - which is some of the worst in the world. You want to be running it in Prospecting mode and, whilst occasionally a hot rock might present itself, you need to rebalance your detector as often as possible to avoid picking them up. Since most of us are too lazy to do this as often as we should, you need to use Ground Tracking which automatically samples the soil every few seconds and adjusts the ground balance for you. The odds of finding and targeting hotrocks are then greatly reduced and in most cases eliminated.
Now with that said, you are also using the 6" DD HF Coil and that coil is best suited for scanning smaller areas of soil. This coil is SUPER SENSITIVE and will squeak on a pinhead. So any fragments of ironstone or similar will trigger a response and you may need to switch to Coin & Relic Mode to try to TID (Target Identity/Identify) the object with a numerical value and only dig items above -2. Scrape the topsoil away and detect the area again to see if the signal or TID changes in value.
Admittedly, the Prospecting Mode is more sensitive than Coin & Relic Mode and you probably should dig all targets, possibly with a pinpointer, if you are finding a lot of tiny targets. Combine Prospecting Mode with the powerful little 6" DD HF coil and you often pick up on multiple positive targets every few feet. This is why I use the larger Elliptical Coil for exploring larger areas because it's a little less prone to beeping unless it hits a good target. Hotrocks are usually larger rocks which can be composed of any combination of minerals (often ironstone). Usually they're quite large in order to trigger a response. * When you break them with a pick, the signal they produce gets fainter as the chunks get smaller. If you are picking up on smaller hot rocks, your Ground Balance & Noise Cancel is probably incorrect. However, remember than the little 6" DD HF coil is super sensitive. Just adjust to compensate if you are not picking up on legitimate targets.
Now with that said, you are also using the 6" DD HF Coil and that coil is best suited for scanning smaller areas of soil. This coil is SUPER SENSITIVE and will squeak on a pinhead. So any fragments of ironstone or similar will trigger a response and you may need to switch to Coin & Relic Mode to try to TID (Target Identity/Identify) the object with a numerical value and only dig items above -2. Scrape the topsoil away and detect the area again to see if the signal or TID changes in value.
Admittedly, the Prospecting Mode is more sensitive than Coin & Relic Mode and you probably should dig all targets, possibly with a pinpointer, if you are finding a lot of tiny targets. Combine Prospecting Mode with the powerful little 6" DD HF coil and you often pick up on multiple positive targets every few feet. This is why I use the larger Elliptical Coil for exploring larger areas because it's a little less prone to beeping unless it hits a good target. Hotrocks are usually larger rocks which can be composed of any combination of minerals (often ironstone). Usually they're quite large in order to trigger a response. * When you break them with a pick, the signal they produce gets fainter as the chunks get smaller. If you are picking up on smaller hot rocks, your Ground Balance & Noise Cancel is probably incorrect. However, remember than the little 6" DD HF coil is super sensitive. Just adjust to compensate if you are not picking up on legitimate targets.
BarnacleBill
New member
Settings, ground phase & mineralization levels of background soil & hot rocks, coils tried, detectors tried, geographic location, experience level etc etc.
HH
BarnacleBill
HH
BarnacleBill
I've been detecting for about 30 years, using different ML detectors,both coin and gold hunting detectors. I'm using the 6 inch 18.75 DD coil, read all and copied some of the FAQFAQ articles.I've tried Tracking, no Tracking. from 1 to 20 on the disc scale,(it picks up the hot rocks from 1 to 20,) I've read the manual, the FAQ articles over and over, tried all the different settings etc, it just picks up all the hot rocks.
nero_design
New member
Hot Soil is "Mineralized" soil which contains concentrated minerals and conductive particles which may mask the soil from the search coil field of a detector. A Hotrock can be any stone which contains metals (eg. ironstone, which triggers a false "positive" signal on your detector but which can usually be ignored or even masked). Both are usually found where heavy minerals have been deposited via ancient volcanic activity. Most detectors will respond to such rocks yet a well balanced detector will usually ignore them. I believe Pulse Induction detectors are less prone to sensing hotrocks than VLF detectors like the X-Terra 70. But the X-Terra 70 is regarded as being capable of ignoring all but the hottest of these stones and the VFLEX signal processor is supposed to stabilize the signals received from the coil and should cancel out questionable feedback.
The 6" HF DD disc is super-sensitive on anything with even a minute trace of iron or metal. I don't have any trouble in creeks with this coil but I do it patches of ironstone occasionally and this has not been a problem to me. But shed and corroded fragments of iron tools or tin cans that have rusted away into fragments are indeed a problem for me as some of these fragments are the size of a match head yet they'll trigger a reaction from the detector with this coil. Forget about the same with the Elliptical - it ignores the really small fragments. So the smaller coil is not designed for searching larger patches of ground, that's a job for the Elliptical. The 6" HF DD coil is best used in creeks and for sifting through high trash areas and it is for this reason that you should be able to correctly balance your detector to ignore all but the hottest rocks. Whilst hotrocks will always be out there, you should only have to deal with them rarely.
The X-Terra 70 was sold to me as a solution to hotrocks as almost all the other VLF detectors out there will have serious problems with them. The only time I picked up on hotrocks was my first and last day detecting. On the first day, it was because I did not have the Ground Balance correctly set. The hotrock looked like dense granite and the inclusion of aluminium in felsic granite is probably why it triggered a response to the detector. On the last day it was because I was trying to detect a mountain with the 6" coil. I'm serious too... it was an actual mountain and I attacked it with the 6" coil. A mistake but one which has led me to some very interesting areas to be revisited. The issue with that day was more along the lines of the fact that the mountain was full of silver and native tin. This was extremely hot soil which was shedding material all over the place. My hotrocks were clumped together at the base where the creeks ran beside the mountain. Another problem which can cause false signals is mineral rich water runoff which distributes minerals over an area where water often flows during downpours and this will trigger a response even from Pulse Induction detectors. Again, this is a fairly rare event.
If you are picking up hotrocks from 1 to 20, is there any chance you are detecting an area where people were once melting metals or smelting? This often produces a lot of finer particles rich in metal which can trigger a response. These tend to be very lightweight material but give a Positive Tonal Response. They are much like volcanic pumice in weight ... only darker.. and are sometimes called "slag". My own X-Terra will trigger on these and I have included an image below to help in identifying them.
Remember to balance your detector on an area of the ground where there is no signal. I prefer to balance my X-Terra 70 before I turn Ground Tracking on. If you do this correctly, you should be able to avoid picking up on the hotrocks in all but the rarest occasion. But remember also that the 6" coil is VERY sensitive so if you don't balance correctly whilst using this coil, you will certainly get some false positive signals as soon as you walk over conductive rocks containing metals. You will hear subtle pitch changes and you detect the ground and some of the fainter signals are usually the ones you want to dig if Prospecting and not just coin hunting. If you are using the 6" DD HF coil, try switching from Prospecting to Coin & Relic to see what the TID is. If it indicates a positive target, yet you know it's really a hotrock, you might want to rebalance your detector. The 6" coil is a specialized coil which is particularly sensitive to very small targets and it punches fairly deep. - Deeper than the Elliptical.
I'm headed out into the desert when the weather here gets a little warmer and I'm dreading the thought of digging a single hotrock in 100+ degree heat. It would be a waste of my time and energy to do so if and when I do.
The 6" HF DD disc is super-sensitive on anything with even a minute trace of iron or metal. I don't have any trouble in creeks with this coil but I do it patches of ironstone occasionally and this has not been a problem to me. But shed and corroded fragments of iron tools or tin cans that have rusted away into fragments are indeed a problem for me as some of these fragments are the size of a match head yet they'll trigger a reaction from the detector with this coil. Forget about the same with the Elliptical - it ignores the really small fragments. So the smaller coil is not designed for searching larger patches of ground, that's a job for the Elliptical. The 6" HF DD coil is best used in creeks and for sifting through high trash areas and it is for this reason that you should be able to correctly balance your detector to ignore all but the hottest rocks. Whilst hotrocks will always be out there, you should only have to deal with them rarely.
The X-Terra 70 was sold to me as a solution to hotrocks as almost all the other VLF detectors out there will have serious problems with them. The only time I picked up on hotrocks was my first and last day detecting. On the first day, it was because I did not have the Ground Balance correctly set. The hotrock looked like dense granite and the inclusion of aluminium in felsic granite is probably why it triggered a response to the detector. On the last day it was because I was trying to detect a mountain with the 6" coil. I'm serious too... it was an actual mountain and I attacked it with the 6" coil. A mistake but one which has led me to some very interesting areas to be revisited. The issue with that day was more along the lines of the fact that the mountain was full of silver and native tin. This was extremely hot soil which was shedding material all over the place. My hotrocks were clumped together at the base where the creeks ran beside the mountain. Another problem which can cause false signals is mineral rich water runoff which distributes minerals over an area where water often flows during downpours and this will trigger a response even from Pulse Induction detectors. Again, this is a fairly rare event.
If you are picking up hotrocks from 1 to 20, is there any chance you are detecting an area where people were once melting metals or smelting? This often produces a lot of finer particles rich in metal which can trigger a response. These tend to be very lightweight material but give a Positive Tonal Response. They are much like volcanic pumice in weight ... only darker.. and are sometimes called "slag". My own X-Terra will trigger on these and I have included an image below to help in identifying them.
Remember to balance your detector on an area of the ground where there is no signal. I prefer to balance my X-Terra 70 before I turn Ground Tracking on. If you do this correctly, you should be able to avoid picking up on the hotrocks in all but the rarest occasion. But remember also that the 6" coil is VERY sensitive so if you don't balance correctly whilst using this coil, you will certainly get some false positive signals as soon as you walk over conductive rocks containing metals. You will hear subtle pitch changes and you detect the ground and some of the fainter signals are usually the ones you want to dig if Prospecting and not just coin hunting. If you are using the 6" DD HF coil, try switching from Prospecting to Coin & Relic to see what the TID is. If it indicates a positive target, yet you know it's really a hotrock, you might want to rebalance your detector. The 6" coil is a specialized coil which is particularly sensitive to very small targets and it punches fairly deep. - Deeper than the Elliptical.
I'm headed out into the desert when the weather here gets a little warmer and I'm dreading the thought of digging a single hotrock in 100+ degree heat. It would be a waste of my time and energy to do so if and when I do.
The 6" HF DD is so sensitive to small amounts of minerals that it will respond to the iron in your hand if you sweep it by the coil. A larger (DD) coil will be less sensitive to small amounts of minerals and will be less likely to beep on the hot rocks.
If your situation demands that you use the 6" HF DD, for instance if you are hunting for very small gold nuggets, then I would remind you of a trick that you have probably used somewhere in your 30 years of detecting and may have possibly forgotten about.
Find a hot rock that makes your detector beep. Then find an area that is free of metal targets and hot rocks. Turn off Tracking and Auto Ground Balance. Put the hot rock down and manually ground balance over the hot rock. Your detector will no longer beep at these hot rocks.
But, now when you sweep your detector over the ground it will be out of phase with the mineralization in the ground to some extent. You will need to decrease your Sensitivity setting to some degree to regain a stable threshold. The difference between where you could have run the Sensitivity and what you had to decrease it to is the price you will pay for not hearing the hot rocks. Since you are using the 6" HF DD you are probably looking for small nuggets in the sub gram range. If so, the smallest gold is normally fairly close to the surface and the amount that you had to reduce your Sensitivity probably won't affect your ability to find gold too severely. Here's how to tell.
Take a sample of what it is you are hunting for with you, Set the machine up as outlined here, and then see if it will hear the sample at a depth that is acceptable to you.
If this works for you and you are going to hunt in this mode, instead of checking your ground balance periodically like you normally would do, instead every so often try turning the Sensitivity up to see if the mineralization of the ground you are currently working has become more favorable.
If your situation demands that you use the 6" HF DD, for instance if you are hunting for very small gold nuggets, then I would remind you of a trick that you have probably used somewhere in your 30 years of detecting and may have possibly forgotten about.
Find a hot rock that makes your detector beep. Then find an area that is free of metal targets and hot rocks. Turn off Tracking and Auto Ground Balance. Put the hot rock down and manually ground balance over the hot rock. Your detector will no longer beep at these hot rocks.
But, now when you sweep your detector over the ground it will be out of phase with the mineralization in the ground to some extent. You will need to decrease your Sensitivity setting to some degree to regain a stable threshold. The difference between where you could have run the Sensitivity and what you had to decrease it to is the price you will pay for not hearing the hot rocks. Since you are using the 6" HF DD you are probably looking for small nuggets in the sub gram range. If so, the smallest gold is normally fairly close to the surface and the amount that you had to reduce your Sensitivity probably won't affect your ability to find gold too severely. Here's how to tell.
Take a sample of what it is you are hunting for with you, Set the machine up as outlined here, and then see if it will hear the sample at a depth that is acceptable to you.
If this works for you and you are going to hunt in this mode, instead of checking your ground balance periodically like you normally would do, instead every so often try turning the Sensitivity up to see if the mineralization of the ground you are currently working has become more favorable.
I appreciate all the advice, and the time to respond, Thanks. I was detecting in a river Ipicked up the hot rocks and checked them to be sure that was what was giving the signal. I used to have the GT 12000 and I could just wave it over them, and they'd fade out.I put in some time checking these rocks to make sure that was what I was picking up. The only detector I ever had this much trouble with was the original GOLD BUG.and it was much worse. and I got rid of it. I would think I could discriminate them out in Prosp. mode, but I couldn't. Big rocks or small, it picked up them all.Thanks again for trying to help. Guess I'll either give up prospecting, or get rid of the detector. With all the hype, I sure thought I'd picked a winner.
nero_design
New member
Hey TOM! I found the same thing but thought I must have been imagining things. The only thing I could conclude is that the coil was either detecting the conductance of iron in my hand or the water content was the cause for the slight pitch change. Very interesting. Good advice on the hotrock as a reference tool too. I always carry a Gold nugget with me to test each time I dig my first junk item on a day out. It gives me a chance to hear any variations in signal strength after burying the nugget and checking it. I also collect the smaller hotrock specimens when I can and bring them away with me for testing later.
Hmm... I found the X-70 pretty smooth handling after the initial breaking-in period. But I find also that you need to use the right coil for the type of detecting you are doing. It's odd that Bubber is picking up on these rocks and that there's so many of them messing up his detecting. He's also considerably experienced which must be frustrating. The 6" coil is what I sometimes refer to as "hyper-sensitive" to small gold which is why I use it to find specimens and even clumps of very tiny gold particles in streams (as long as the deposit is tightly packed in a crevice etc). I'm eying off the GPX-4500 at the moment and yet I'd still bring the X-Terra 70 with the 6" coil with me as a backup for some places.
Does anyone else think that Bubber's experience is unusual? Again, I had problems with hotrocks when I first used the X-Terra but that was due to my own failure on two fronts:
1/ I didn't read the manual properly.
2/ I wasn't Ground Balancing correctly (I pressed the wrong sequence of buttons).
I returned to my Hotrocks and rebalanced properly nearby on another date, I just got a faint rise in signal hum rather than the positive beep which i first encountered. That was with the Elliptical Coil though. Using the 6" HF DD in other regions was an amazing experience... until I came to that mountain which was shedding mineralized junk stones made of tin, silver and iron ore. There was some fine gold particles in there too and in Prospecting mode it was just crazy. I used it in a stream which was popular in the 1850's for gold nuggets just a few miles away and it ran absolutely silently until I struck a positive target. No problem with hotrocks at all and yet the stones on the ground stuck to my magnets so there was still plenty of ironstone about.
Hmm... I found the X-70 pretty smooth handling after the initial breaking-in period. But I find also that you need to use the right coil for the type of detecting you are doing. It's odd that Bubber is picking up on these rocks and that there's so many of them messing up his detecting. He's also considerably experienced which must be frustrating. The 6" coil is what I sometimes refer to as "hyper-sensitive" to small gold which is why I use it to find specimens and even clumps of very tiny gold particles in streams (as long as the deposit is tightly packed in a crevice etc). I'm eying off the GPX-4500 at the moment and yet I'd still bring the X-Terra 70 with the 6" coil with me as a backup for some places.
Does anyone else think that Bubber's experience is unusual? Again, I had problems with hotrocks when I first used the X-Terra but that was due to my own failure on two fronts:
1/ I didn't read the manual properly.
2/ I wasn't Ground Balancing correctly (I pressed the wrong sequence of buttons).
I returned to my Hotrocks and rebalanced properly nearby on another date, I just got a faint rise in signal hum rather than the positive beep which i first encountered. That was with the Elliptical Coil though. Using the 6" HF DD in other regions was an amazing experience... until I came to that mountain which was shedding mineralized junk stones made of tin, silver and iron ore. There was some fine gold particles in there too and in Prospecting mode it was just crazy. I used it in a stream which was popular in the 1850's for gold nuggets just a few miles away and it ran absolutely silently until I struck a positive target. No problem with hotrocks at all and yet the stones on the ground stuck to my magnets so there was still plenty of ironstone about.
BarnacleBill
New member
I'll just add a couple of other thoughts. You can also manually GB halfway between the two phase points if they are not too far apart. And raise the coil to see how fast the hot rock response falls in strength compared to your good target. Using Prospecting mode hot rocks usually give a wider+softer response than a small target which gives a zip-zip well defined rise & fall response. And lastly use Tracking & switch to GB mode to see if the hot rock tracks in.
HH
BarnacleBill
HH
BarnacleBill
mohayes1046
New member
Thanks to all of you! I have been following this discussion and found it very interesting, informative and I plan on using it. It's great to know how sensitive the 6" coil is.
Thanks again to ALL of you gentlemen for your input.
Mark
Thanks again to ALL of you gentlemen for your input.
Mark
Nero, I do the same thing. I have a .02 Gram nugget glued to a poker chip and about 8 or 10 times a day I'll throw it down and sweep it just to make sure every thing's OK. Speaking of .02 Grams that's what you used in your excellent YouTube video. Nice Job!
About the GPX-4500, I think you're right on there also. As good as they are, they just don't see the smaller nuggets no matter which coil you use. I have the 4000 and wouldn't think of leaving a patch without going over it with a VLF machine. I've been using a Gold Bug II but I'm going to switch over to my X-Terra 70 this desert season. It's just a more pleasant machine to use.
Barnacle B, Thank you and thanks for the great tip. I'll be trying that as soon as it cools down some and I can get out to them pesky hot rocks.
Bubber, I'm with Mohayes, don't give up on the X-Terra, it's a great machine. There's probably enough info in this thread to whip your problem. If not, here's a little more:
From a post about 5 months ago.
" A tip if you are working an area with a lot of hot rocks and don`t want to go to the less sensitive coin /treasure mode, in prospecting mode tracking G/B bring up the numbers showing the changing ground conditions by pushing the ground balance button, to check if its a hot rock, when you go over the target the read out will rapidly drop to below twenty if a hotrock, if metal there will be no movement should work the same with hot clay pockets.
kris "
And a step by step clarication:
" What he is doing is the following.
1. He has the detector in Prospecting Mode.
2. We will assume he was in Standard GB Mode not Beach GB Mode.
3. He has Ground Tracking On.
4. He has pushed the Ground Balance button so that he can see what the relative ground phase is and how it changes as he moves over the surface.
Let's assume his relative ground phase is Tracking along from 45 to 50. So after checking this initially at the start of his hunt, he re-checks it from time to time to see if the ground has changed dramatically by pushing the GB button and looking at the numbers.
Assume he does not now have the GB button pushed and is hunting along as one normally does.in Prospecting mode. He gets what appears to be a good target signal, but is in an area where Hot Rocks have been giving him trouble. He pushes the GB button and watches to see if the Tracking function will cause the GB relative phase numbers to change dramatically while swinging over the target he is investigating. He says that he has discovered that if it is a valid target the relative ground phase numbers will not change dramatically, but if it is a Hot Rock, it will Track down to the number 20. By Tracking "down" to the number 20 I assumed therefore his background relative ground phase was somewhere above 20, therefore I used 45 to 50 for the example. Your ground balance numbers of course can be anything depending on where you are hunting, and are also coil dependent.
HH
BarnacleBill "
If you want to read the entire thread go here: http://www.findmall.com/read.php?55,686749,688578#msg-688578
This won't stop the beeping, but at least you won't have to dig to see if it's a hot rock or not.
Hang in there
About the GPX-4500, I think you're right on there also. As good as they are, they just don't see the smaller nuggets no matter which coil you use. I have the 4000 and wouldn't think of leaving a patch without going over it with a VLF machine. I've been using a Gold Bug II but I'm going to switch over to my X-Terra 70 this desert season. It's just a more pleasant machine to use.
Barnacle B, Thank you and thanks for the great tip. I'll be trying that as soon as it cools down some and I can get out to them pesky hot rocks.
Bubber, I'm with Mohayes, don't give up on the X-Terra, it's a great machine. There's probably enough info in this thread to whip your problem. If not, here's a little more:
From a post about 5 months ago.
" A tip if you are working an area with a lot of hot rocks and don`t want to go to the less sensitive coin /treasure mode, in prospecting mode tracking G/B bring up the numbers showing the changing ground conditions by pushing the ground balance button, to check if its a hot rock, when you go over the target the read out will rapidly drop to below twenty if a hotrock, if metal there will be no movement should work the same with hot clay pockets.
kris "
And a step by step clarication:
" What he is doing is the following.
1. He has the detector in Prospecting Mode.
2. We will assume he was in Standard GB Mode not Beach GB Mode.
3. He has Ground Tracking On.
4. He has pushed the Ground Balance button so that he can see what the relative ground phase is and how it changes as he moves over the surface.
Let's assume his relative ground phase is Tracking along from 45 to 50. So after checking this initially at the start of his hunt, he re-checks it from time to time to see if the ground has changed dramatically by pushing the GB button and looking at the numbers.
Assume he does not now have the GB button pushed and is hunting along as one normally does.in Prospecting mode. He gets what appears to be a good target signal, but is in an area where Hot Rocks have been giving him trouble. He pushes the GB button and watches to see if the Tracking function will cause the GB relative phase numbers to change dramatically while swinging over the target he is investigating. He says that he has discovered that if it is a valid target the relative ground phase numbers will not change dramatically, but if it is a Hot Rock, it will Track down to the number 20. By Tracking "down" to the number 20 I assumed therefore his background relative ground phase was somewhere above 20, therefore I used 45 to 50 for the example. Your ground balance numbers of course can be anything depending on where you are hunting, and are also coil dependent.
HH
BarnacleBill "
If you want to read the entire thread go here: http://www.findmall.com/read.php?55,686749,688578#msg-688578
This won't stop the beeping, but at least you won't have to dig to see if it's a hot rock or not.
Hang in there