Slow sweep speed fact or fiction?

[Rick(ND)]

Is that the Sovereign do air test so so, but on actual targets in the ground it will test even better and give you more depth. This is one of the few i have used that do this as many will air test great, but actual target in the ground the depth is not good at all. This is why many will say it don't air test well as in the ground on actual target is goes deeper.

 

[Ism]

A lot of the air test issues stem from RFI in the home. To the detector, it acts as a pretty good dampening field. I have experienced poor performance in the field also around direct buried conductors and cable TV lines.
As far as the Sovereign and depth in real world test vs air, I believe that depth in the earth can be greater in the soil than air but only because of the halo built around the object making it appear larger.
I have experienced a number of digs where I was able to pop the plug, remove the exposed coin and flip the plug back over leaving the soil virtually undisturbed where the target was located.
When I resweep the plug, I get a target hit on the first swing but a resweep cleans it up. This has happened so often that I can only conclude that the BBS helps to energize the mineralized earth around the object as well as the object itself.
If you saw the BBS on a scope, it is sweeping the frequencies, that could have the effect of massaging the earth and thereby exciting the halo making the target visible at greater depths.
This is only my theory, I have no evidence to back it up. I like evidence so I may do some testing to prove/disprove the theory.
I didn't really believe in the halo effect influence on the more modern fast recovery VLF detectors, but the Sovereign appears to take advantage of it.

 

[Critterhunter]

I think Rick is right, that the Sovereign can air test well but will get more depth in the ground. I don't think though that it's because of the halo, although of course that is going to increase depth. I think the machine really does need a ground load in order to properly compare it to a target present. I don't know if it's true but I've read many times before that Minelabs take a digital picture of the ground signal without a target present and then compare that to a signal of it with the target present. As I've said, I've seen a Minelab get confused on a surface target and not get any kind of depth at all on it.

 

[Critterhunter]

Ism, just noticed in your post that you said the soil was neutral. That can make a difference. In more mineralized soils I think it's even more important to slow down your sweep. It seems to give the machine time to read and see through the ground matrix.

 

[John(Tx)]

n/t