Sovereign GT & threshold chatter

[Argonaut]

Greetings, Have a question regarding my new GT.. In Disc. mode. Iron mask on or off doesnt matter. Notch off. Disc. min or max doesnt matter. Volume mod. to full doesnt matter. Sens. auto to 12 o'clock doesnt matter. THRESHOLD when attained properly sounds perfect on good targets. On nails and other ferrous trash it nulls then returns as an ugly chatter not sounding anything like a smooth threshold. the manual states "returning threshold pitch to be lower than normal" nothing about a hideous chatter...One must continue searching until you find a good target to return a normal threshold.. Since 90% of the time one is over junk, 90% of the time I'm listening to this chatter instead of a smooth threshold... A real deal breaker for me..w/35 years experience, I have picked up thousands of good targets w/very faint waiver in threshold tone.. Not possible with this situation..obviously.. Love this machine, very powerful, unbelievable depth for a VLF. This is my 6th Minelab. 1st Sovereign GT.. I must be an Idiot or my new toy is a mutant.. Thank you..

 

[Rick(ND)]

One of the things with the Sovereign is it keeps the tone of the last target it sees, so when you go over iron it will null and come back with the low tone growl sound. It will stay this way until it see another target which if iron again it will null and come back with the low tone growl. Now any good target or one not disc out Will give you a higher tone of the target and then the threshold will be a higher pitch. Mostly for me it is at the low tone growl most of the time as many of my sites have nail at them. If you are running a threshold you will hear that threshold change when it sees a good target, then by working the coil back and forth only over that target the threshold will try climbing to the correct ID, but remember to sweep the coil slow to hear those weak and deeper targets, then do the Sovereign wiggle faster to get the correct tone ID of that target. With experience you will learn more about the Sovereign each time out with it and soon you will even impress yourself at what you can find.

Good Luck and keep us informed on any questions you may have plus your finds.

Rick

 

[Argonaut]

Greetings Rick, Thank you kindly for your quick and spot on explanation.. Low tone growl is the perfect description.. Wow, unusual.. However, I was picking up deep silver amongst the chaos.. Also am on my way towards the "Sovereign Wiggle"..I had a prelude machine to this model in the late 80's. I think it was a GT 16000 cant remember for sure.. Little to no Disc. W/Boost switch. Used it in Ariz. Nev. & Mexico for gold so dug all targets anyway. That was just before PI machines took over.. Used Fisher Gold Bug for patch hunting light and quick... Whites original Goldmaster for sm. gold and GT 16000 for Lg. deep gold.. Exc. machines all for their intended purpose.. Loved the depth of the Minelab that's why the recent GT purchase.. Thanks again & Good Luck James

 

[OBX Franz]

I must be the only person who prefers the low tone growl threshold over a higher pitched one. When I dig a good target, I'll even go so far as to run the coil by my boot shank to switch to the low threshold.

 

[Ism]

I don't mind the low tone growl. I'm with Frank Its a good reference point to start from. The problem with the growl is its twice as loud as the other threshold tones.
I can't turn it down to a comfortable level without almost eliminating the higher tones.

 

[Rob in (Ca)]

When I hunt I glue a small fender washer to my detecting shoe so I can pass thr coil over the washer to bring the threshold lower

 

[Buried Crap NJ]

One of the issues not addressed here was his concern for not hearing the faint threshold breaks associated with deep/on edge, or small gold targets. Now what still holds true is if the target can be heard with your settings and sweep speed you will hear it. To answer this question is fairly simple if you have the threshold set to the faint buzz you want and you go over that iron and come back in the null growling, the machine is still set the same. If you now go over that faint signal you will come out of the growl and be over a desirable target. Working the coil (Coil Control) will now with proper technique bring out those faint deep signals.You should not miss them in the growl! What may be happening is the desire to get out of the growl, you may increase you coil speed (sweep) and now that's the reason for missing targets.Hunters searching with the Minelab Sovereign type detectors should be the slowest moving guy/gal hunting. Hunting in All Metal will always allow you to hear more targets that can not be heard in Discriminate (not recommended in iron infested area's). Far too many times while reverse hunting have I heard the faint threshold break only to switch to Discriminate and hear nothing,further investigation in all metal revels a good target. BCNJ