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Turning gain down?

longbow62

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Apr 20, 2017
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Location
Jonesboro, AR
I read a lot about folks turning the gain up for better depth, but when is it better to turn it down? Is it better to lower the gain on sites with high amounts of nonferrous trash?
 
Some people that hunt around metal like play ground equipment will turn the gain down so that they can get closer to the equipment.

I have read about a person that would only look for fresh dropped clad and they would turn the gain way down to reduce depth that way the older trash that was deeper would not mask the shallower clad coins.

I find this is something you determine based on your detector and the type of site you are hunting. I try and use as much gain as possible but there are times when I will drop it.

Ray
 
Depends on what sort of gain you have.
Different manufactures have different names for their features, audio gain just amps up the weak signals, sensitivity is where you usually get the depth from, but some detectors have separate gain, sensitivity, and weak signal amps, some have gain combined with sensitivity, or it can alter the detectors algorithms, etc etc
Without knowing whats connected to what, it would be trial and error, probably not the answer your looking for though lol
 
So my thoughts were that with gain up really high that the detector might not separate or unmask as well because you might potentially be sounding off trash targets around good targets. I don't have a lot of experience with adjusting for best detection.

So the other day I went to a spot I had hit a couple of times already and inadvertently deleted setting that I had used the time before. I had set up from a youtube video some settings another person was running. So since I didn't remember the exact settings I had to just use the default settings in the program. So basically I just turned on and ran. I seemed to find way more stuff than what I had been using the suggested settings. Way more clad dimes than I had the previous outing. I know the default gain was 70 and I had been running 90. It was not just the gain setting as there were some numbers notched out. Also this was running default 14khz instead of 5khz.
 
So my thoughts were that with gain up really high that the detector might not separate or unmask as well because you might potentially be sounding off trash targets around good targets. I don't have a lot of experience with adjusting for best detection.

So the other day I went to a spot I had hit a couple of times already and inadvertently deleted setting that I had used the time before. I had set up from a youtube video some settings another person was running. So since I didn't remember the exact settings I had to just use the default settings in the program. So basically I just turned on and ran. I seemed to find way more stuff than what I had been using the suggested settings. Way more clad dimes than I had the previous outing. I know the default gain was 70 and I had been running 90. It was not just the gain setting as there were some numbers notched out. Also this was running default 14khz instead of 5khz.

Gain is an adjustment that allows the detector to amplify the weaker signals. This makes small targets stand out more. A gold detector is a high gain detector as to detect those small nuggets.

But it depends on how well your detector can handle the ground mineralization. When running at 14khz, that is a frequency that is chosen as a middle ground. It is suppose to be low enough for coins and high enough for gold jewelry. But the gain will work better when using higher frequencies. Running higher gain on lower frequencies are not going to help you as much and my make the detector less stable with larger higher conductive targets. Higher frequencies do not handle ground mineralization very well either.

The lower VLF (very low frequency) will handle ground mineralization a lot better and hits high conductors very well. 5khz is going to be a better frequency for coins and run more stable. You will have less chatter and falsing. Lower frequencies don't get bothered by EMI as bad either.

Some detectors have a volume gain which just makes deeper targets sound louder but doesn't increase the gain of the detector itself.

Set your detector up to give good stability with good solid ID and good quality tones. Use the frequencies to match your hunting. Set your gain so that you can still hear the deep targets but where shallower targets hit louder.

Unmasking will depend on the detectors processing speed and it's ability to differentiate between target/trash/ground. Coil type, size and sweep speed will come into play as well.

Depending on the flexibility of your detector and it's settings, one maybe able to set up the detector with tone differential making coins easier to find in the trash. Setting the trash/iron to a low tone with a low tone volume and setting the coins to a high tone with a high tone volume can audibly be used to pick out coins from the trash.
 
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