bigscoop
Gold Member
- Jun 4, 2010
- 13,520
- 9,050
- Detector(s) used
- Older blue Excal with full mods, Equinox 800.
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Why/When Stable Ground Balance Is Vital:
“Ground balance calibrates the detector the local ground conditions in order to eliminate noise and false signals, thus allowing good targets to be isolated more easily.” This is what the ground balance feature is doing, it is a process of keeping the search field operating in a stable condition.
Now in many locations throughout the country the ground is fairly clean and so good ground balance is much easier to maintain. However, as the search field (coil) becomes larger this constant balancing act becomes more unstable as the machine begins to struggle with keeping up, especially true as the sweep speed increases. Yes, auto ground balance, which most of us apply, also has its own rate of recovery speed that can become very unstable whenever larger coils and faster sweep speeds are applied, especially when the ground conditions themselves are also unstable (frequently changing).
Take even freshwater shallows, the boat traffic and/or strong wind causing the sandy bottom of the lake to become cloudy due to all of those disturbed sediments that are now drifting and swirling about “through our search fields.” Now consider a saltwater environment where there exist more mineralization, the breaking surf and waves causing these same disturbances within all of those debris, not to mention that in these environments coil control also becomes more unstable. Do you see the problem here with those larger search fields (coils).
And this can also apply to land detecting conditions as the debris in one area of that same ground may contain more or less of these scattered debris and contamination, i.e, iron, foil, tin, and all of the tiny scraps, halos, and deteriorating particles of each. We can't hear all of this ground balance instability in our headphones but that doesn't mean that it isn't happening, and in many cases it is, especially within those larger search fields (larger coils).
Now imagine trying to hear (getting returns) on all of those deeper and fainter targets that we all want to access while operating with an unstable search field? “We're kidding ourselves because with an unstable search field it probably isn't going to happen because our struggling search field is likely going to filter those uncertain returns out.”
This is why, and especially true when in the discrimination modes, that we should always practice the common principle of, ”the larger the search field (coil) the stronger th returns required.”
“As the search field increases in size so must the detected item as it also becomes harder for this more unstable ground balance to isolate and to separate those smaller items and weaker returns from the surrounding soil conditions.”
Just some food for thought...........
“Ground balance calibrates the detector the local ground conditions in order to eliminate noise and false signals, thus allowing good targets to be isolated more easily.” This is what the ground balance feature is doing, it is a process of keeping the search field operating in a stable condition.
Now in many locations throughout the country the ground is fairly clean and so good ground balance is much easier to maintain. However, as the search field (coil) becomes larger this constant balancing act becomes more unstable as the machine begins to struggle with keeping up, especially true as the sweep speed increases. Yes, auto ground balance, which most of us apply, also has its own rate of recovery speed that can become very unstable whenever larger coils and faster sweep speeds are applied, especially when the ground conditions themselves are also unstable (frequently changing).
Take even freshwater shallows, the boat traffic and/or strong wind causing the sandy bottom of the lake to become cloudy due to all of those disturbed sediments that are now drifting and swirling about “through our search fields.” Now consider a saltwater environment where there exist more mineralization, the breaking surf and waves causing these same disturbances within all of those debris, not to mention that in these environments coil control also becomes more unstable. Do you see the problem here with those larger search fields (coils).
And this can also apply to land detecting conditions as the debris in one area of that same ground may contain more or less of these scattered debris and contamination, i.e, iron, foil, tin, and all of the tiny scraps, halos, and deteriorating particles of each. We can't hear all of this ground balance instability in our headphones but that doesn't mean that it isn't happening, and in many cases it is, especially within those larger search fields (larger coils).
Now imagine trying to hear (getting returns) on all of those deeper and fainter targets that we all want to access while operating with an unstable search field? “We're kidding ourselves because with an unstable search field it probably isn't going to happen because our struggling search field is likely going to filter those uncertain returns out.”
This is why, and especially true when in the discrimination modes, that we should always practice the common principle of, ”the larger the search field (coil) the stronger th returns required.”
“As the search field increases in size so must the detected item as it also becomes harder for this more unstable ground balance to isolate and to separate those smaller items and weaker returns from the surrounding soil conditions.”
Just some food for thought...........
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