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Interesting time ground balancing with Omega

F

Furious T

Active member
Went to an area, town parkland, where I have previously hunted probably a dozen times with the Omega. Went through the usual routine, and when I tried to ground balance, I couldn't get the numbers below 92. This was disturbing, because I knew this area usually ground balanced at 52 to 53. Turned machine off, the on again, same result. Replaced battery. Same result. Couldn't understand how it could be the detector as it was working perfectly the day bvefore. Went through some checks, put a coin on the ground etc.... put the detector in disc and everything seemed normal...everything was working fine except the ground balance..sooo...detected for a while in disc mode...until I'd moved away from the original area..probably 100 metres ( 110 yards). Tried ground balancing again, perfect. Dont know what was going on, but it wasn't the detector...There was water laying around, and we had had some unusual weather the previous day or so, so I dont know if underground cables had been affected, but there was something coming from somewhere which was upsetting the Omega. A good example of how a mysterious situation can arise. Lesson: dont immediately suspect that it is the detector playing up. Check all possibilities. HH
 
Thanks.
Very helpful info.

HH
 
My unit did the same thing with a electic pet fence on. Turned if off and fixed everything.
 
The last couple of days when trying to GB my Omega, it would immediately go into "overload" everytime I would hit the GB button. This would be way far from any powerlines or other EMI with the coil held straight in front of me. Finally after about 10-15 times trying to GB, the detector would finally settle down where I could GB. I talked with Felix today with 1st Texas and he said it may be a bad coil. I Shipped the unit off today for repairs. Hopefully the turn-around time with 1st Texas is similar to Garrett...Around 10 days...
 
Cow, sometimes it is not a faulty coil. If that proves to be the case, here is a snippet from a post by Monte:

Q. On the 11" DD coil when I would push the ground grab, it would scream like mad for a sec then finally settle down when you started pumping the coil, and there was nothing under the coil either. The 10" didn't act that way at all. I believe the 11" may have some kind of problem. I'm gonna call First Texas tomorrow and explain it to them and see what they say. I really couldn't believe the difference.

A. Remember, the Ground Grab will adjust the GB as you pump the search coil. So, it was logical for it to settle down once you started pumping the coil.
It helps if you've already swept the search coil over the ground a bit, then hold the coil at the ground level before you press the Ground Grab button. If the coil is held too far in the air and the detector hasn't had any ground signal presented to it, regardless of the search coil you have mounted, it's quite possible for you to have an audio response that isn't good. It might produce the - - double dash marks and give a bad audio response. That can simply be letting you know that the detector doesn't acknowledge any good ground, or a ground reading that is below '40' and you might need to manually Ground Balance. If the ground mineral is greater than '40' then once you start bobbing the coil everything ought to balance just fine.
Monte
 
Thanks guys! In my case, the ground balance was above 40, but the Omega was definitely acting erratically, but only in the process of ground balancing....everything else seemed to be in order...about 10 minutes into the hunt I was able to ground balance as normal, and it has been fine ever since. I was using the 11" DD coil, and have used it since that day....previously I had been using the 10" coil, but had had about 3 outings with the 11" before this erratic behaviour occurred. In the hunts since then, The Omega with the 11" has behaved perfectly, both in balancing and detecting. VID is spot on. Am still open to suggestions as to what it might have been, although the last 2 posts have been helpful. Thanks again.
 
Terradigger, Thanks for the reply, Using the 10" concentric, I have been hunting the same soil/general area since I received the Omega back in March and never had a problem until recently. The overload would happen in the air, hitting the GB button a foot or so off of the ground while pumping the coil or hitting the button a couple of inches off the ground and pumping . I tried everything, checking connections, cleaning coil cover etc. I have a 11" DD on my G2 I should have tried just before I sent it in but I already had the machine boxed up and ready to go before Felix called me back with an RA # and mentioned the possibility of a bad coil. I thought it may have been something wrong with the GB touch button but I will post what the fix was when I receive it back.

I sure enjoy any posts of Monte's...That fellow is a wealth of information!

The Omega should arrive in El Paso sometime tomorrow. Thanks Again.

cowtownkid
 
This happens alot for me. Cant ground balance.
Yesterday I go to GB. First I sweep the area in all metals to make sure there is not a target interfering with the GB routine.
Sounded good and clean, so I GB. Get the double dash screen of death. I am just SOL. pumping the coil at various heights, speeds ect. nothing would nudge the machine into happiness....

So I did not move. Instead, I switched back to all metals.....Cranked the sensitivity up (95ish) and now I hear the dreaded rhythmic rapid although faint 60hz beep. (EMI).
Some where nearby there probably was a underground power line that did not show up as interference at the regular (80ish) sensitivity setting.

So I walked until The EMI beeping stopped (only about 20ft) and it ground balanced perfectly (57ish).

So I made a mental note to crank the sensitivity way up prior to attempting to GB to listen for the faint rhythmic beating of the EMI devils.
 
Thanks AlumMagnet, if it works for you, it's worth trying (by me and anyone else having the same experiences). I haven't had any trouble since the occasion I mentioned, but if it's happened once, it could well happen again. Any technique that works for others is worth a try. Thanks again.
 
cowtownkid said:
Terradigger, Thanks for the reply, Using the 10" concentric, I have been hunting the same soil/general area since I received the Omega back in March and never had a problem until recently. The overload would happen in the air, hitting the GB button a foot or so off of the ground while pumping the coil or hitting the button a couple of inches off the ground and pumping . I tried everything, checking connections, cleaning coil cover etc. I have a 11" DD on my G2 I should have tried just before I sent it in but I already had the machine boxed up and ready to go before Felix called me back with an RA # and mentioned the possibility of a bad coil. I thought it may have been something wrong with the GB touch button but I will post what the fix was when I receive it back.

I sure enjoy any posts of Monte's...That fellow is a wealth of information!

The Omega should arrive in El Paso sometime tomorrow. Thanks Again.

cowtownkid
Click to expand...

Thought I would bring up this post again since I received my Omega back from 1st Texas. I didn't get to try the unit until yesterday. Turn around time was fantastic 11 days! I noticed they did not replace the coil which was orginally suspect, instead the "face plate" was replaced which probably included the keypad but not sure. I took the Omega back out to my local lake where it normally balances around "57". After finding a good metal free spot about 1200 ft. out in the dry lakebed, Held my breath and the coil about 6" above the ground and...Yes! The Omega was back to normal. No overload while trying to balance and it quickly grabbed the ground. About every 30 minutes I would double check the unit and make sure it wasn't going back to an overload while balancing.

Good to have a properly functioning Omega back in the arsenal. Thanks 1st. Texas! Top notch Company and 1st class equipment!
 
I have a friend with a minnieball buried at 12". IT has been there for about 22 years now. He uses it to test detectors. He was baffled by the Omega at first because one day it hit it hard and gave the correct ID, then another day it wouldn't hit it. What he found was that the GB had to be "right on" to hit it but when the GB was tweaked perfectly it would both hit it hard enough to stop you but also ID it... so, I guess it could be hard to know if you have the GB maximized but apparrantly it matters a lot. I would suggest tweaking the GB on some weak/deep targets wherever you hunt. Then dig the target to see if it is what the Omega said it was.

J
 
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