Monte...some interesting information from todays hunt..

[Anonymous]

Monte...
Went on a relic hunt today. Nice day early and late. It poured down raining around noon. Lasted for about an hour. Gave us some time to get a burger and drive by some new sites we have been researching.
We found some nice Confederate minies and one unidentified dropped pistol bullet.
I tried the Cibola for Discrimination Ground Balance shift as you described. It had absolutely no effect on the machine from 0 to full discrimination. So that means I am just as well without a GB in my area...right? Everywhere I have tried the Cibola down here in South Alabama it has responded with a perfect ground balance.
Here is another thing we discovered while testing targets amongst all machines today. I was trying one target at all three frequencies available on the Cibola. At frequency 3..I lost all depth. Another detector was turned on and was on frequency two. You could not hear any cross talk between the machines. It did not do that if I switched frequencies or if the other machine switched frequencies. That REALLY opened my eyes. I had heard that machines with similar frequencies will effect the depth of both machines. Today this test was a dramatic demonstration of that effect. As we have been testing these units it appears to us that random frequencies has been used on each machine. It is not like all Cibolas or Vaqueros are the same at each chosen frequency. You have to try each one to see where they cross talk with another. Now I am going to have to throw a nickel on the ground to see if I am losing depth when any other machine is turned on near me.
That test today has been a real eye opening experience on detectors working near each other and the effect it can have on depth.
The Mayor

 

[Anonymous]

Tesoros seem to be less prone to crosstalk from similar frequency detectors than any of the others I've used. CZ's seem to be the worst here, they start losing depth well before another CZ get's close enough to hear the interference. If a preset ground balance detector is pretty much right in your ground then you have a tad more mineralization than here. With all the buying, trading and selling detectors I've done in the last 15 years I can't remember even one preset balanced detector that wasn't at least a little too positive here and every true auto balance detectors I've had except the LST auto balanced too positive. George Payne, he's originally from not too far west of here and used to detect some in MS when he was down for visits, told me we had saline soil conditions that was beyond the range of most autobalance circuits and even some manual ground balance detectors. He's right, I changed the pot out on a manually balanced detector yesterday because the original 10 turn 500 ohm pot didn't have enough range on the negative side to balance anywhere near neutral, put in a 1 K 10 turn pot and it barely balances neutral. Whatever we have, most quality manual and true auto balance detectors that have enough offset to compensate for the soil conditions gets excellent depth here.
JB

 

[Anonymous]

I think Tesoros have a bit of *drift* built in to minimize the cross talk.
The worst I've seen being affected by stray signals are the multifrequency machines.
And yes, we can lose depth without hearing the interference. It pays to check the machine every so often.
John

 

[Anonymous]

in that ground you get to hunt in?
<STRONG><EM>Monte

 

[Anonymous]

that adjusting the Disc. on your Cibola won't alter the GB setting. It doesn't mean you would be just as well off w/o manual GB. Check the GB with each of the search coils you try on a Cibola. If they all work just fine and the GB is not too negative so as to cause falsing in the Disc. mode, then the Cibola is a model that can work 'Okay' for you.
Interesting, however, because I found that the Vaquero did experience a little GB shift when the Disc. was adjusted from minimum to maximim.
The shift was much more pronounced with an original Tesoro Conquistador.
<EM><STRONG>Monte

 

[Anonymous]

I overlooked your post, sorry about taking so long to respond. No, I don't know what the ground phase readout is, no one around has an MXT and I never thought to check when I had the XLT a few years ago.
JB