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Does the average detectorist ground balance too much or too little?

Hordfest

Junior Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2019
Messages
44
This is a subjective question, and detector dependent I'm sure, but it's one that I'm curious about as a novice. Do you think people tend to be over zealous about their ground balancing or that people don't take it seriously enough? Should I be manually ground balancing multiple times in a given park or field, or once per hunt? Just trying to get some opinions on people's perceptions of how important precise ground balancing should be. Thanks!
 
I don't know about other people, I usually do it once at each location unless things start getting funky.
 
If I'm out with my Makro, I gb at the start of the hunt, and if it behaves then I'll just leave it. If it starts getting noisy, or weird on targets I'll redo the gb. If I have my Nox out, I don't even touch gb yet. Probably should, but still getting the feel for that thing.
 
Its a great question to pose to the Forum, great Wintertime fodder for us ruminants to chew on...Like you said, its very subjective...Lets start there, and since I like to hear the sound of my own typing, I will offer some fuel to the campfire....

To 'GB frequently or not' is 'Subjective' in that theres just a ton of variables and target preferences on any given day....For a Megacladder, Who's primary focus is speedy recovery of shallow targets, a guy dont have to GB at all, except maybe in situations where the dirt determines, 'hey, you are into some old deep dirt here, so you might want to forget about scarfing up clad, and see what other targets are portending'...In these rare cases, I stop and consider, I take a minute and tighten up, set up right, and work the site optimumly...Other than that, a shallow fast target hunter has no need to GB at all! Just fire up and get with it!

That said, I have not GB'd my F70 at all in the past 5-6yrs...not done a 'factory reset' since I cant remember when...I just fire up and go with mid range settings and let the site determine how tight I gotta be..generally working the sens up or down according to the situation/day/weather/ground moisture content, etc..

I wanna know I got a good grip on any target 5" to surface, accurate location to hop coil and stab, composition and profile size..Gb is the least of my concerns, and my rig seems not to care either...

Now, theres folks otherwise inclined, and really want to know they are gaining the top echelon of the performance out of their rig, and I get that...I do the same thing with my car, I know and maintain my tire air pressure, my oil level, my diligence maintaining the MAF sensor, PVC valve to get the top MPG efficiency out of her....

So, one guy dont care a dink about his vehicle, driving on half flats and has no idea what a MAF sensor is and dont care about MPG or efficiency...but he GB's his detector religiously! And heres another guy who dont give a dink about GB'ing a detector, but knows exactly the details about the important operating systems in a car?

....They both get where they are going and they both will find some cool stuff! Its all about what trips a guy trigger!..Like you said, Subjective....
 
I ground balance the Equinox 800 most every time I go and detect... that being said I can take the AT PRO and change the coil not do the recommended factory reset, not ground balance it and find more with the AT PRO then I can with the Equinox 800.
 
This is a subjective question, and detector dependent I'm sure, but it's one that I'm curious about as a novice. Do you think people tend to be over zealous about their ground balancing or that people don't take it seriously enough? Should I be manually ground balancing multiple times in a given park or field, or once per hunt? Just trying to get some opinions on people's perceptions of how important precise ground balancing should be. Thanks!

If your detector has GB auto track? turn it on, use it, forget it. Folks tend to underestimate the engineering research that goes into developing a new detector, especially if it's in the higher dollar range.

If I'm going to shell out the bucks I'm going to believe what the manual that came with it says instead of blindly critiquing capability, twisting knobs, pushing buttons, and relying on forum chatter on how to best use it. Read the manual, learn the detector, and enjoy the hobby.
 
Some of my older parks have some funky fly ash/cinder fill that requires GBing every few yards, but most of my hunting I don't GB unless the Pro is acting weird.
 
If I'm out with my Makro, I gb at the start of the hunt, and if it behaves then I'll just leave it. If it starts getting noisy, or weird on targets I'll redo the gb. If I have my Nox out, I don't even touch gb yet. Probably should, but still getting the feel for that thing.

Yeah, pretty much this. When i first got my machine, i was used to one that wouldn't gb so i went crazy with it, adjusting every few min if the numbers were even slightly off. Now i kinda throw and go, balancing once at the beginning and only once more if they swing wildly, not five or 10 either way haha.
 
You can't balance to much.

Soil condition changes. I balance again each time the soil changes, and that can be different in sometimes 2 steps. One field can easily need 5 re-sets and more.

To less will not be that big a problem though either if set well once. Can be that you will miss 2 percent of the signals, so whatever.
 
If your detector has GB auto track? turn it on, use it, forget it. Folks tend to underestimate the engineering research that goes into developing a new detector, especially if it's in the higher dollar range.

If I'm going to shell out the bucks I'm going to believe what the manual that came with it says instead of blindly critiquing capability, twisting knobs, pushing buttons, and relying on forum chatter on how to best use it. Read the manual, learn the detector, and enjoy the hobby.

I have the Nox 600. Have debated trying the auto ground balance. However the manual has it set to off by default on all modes but gold and I can't help but feel there's a reason for that.
 
I should probably do it more often. But the areas I hunt in are usually quite sandy, and most of the time I can hunt with no problems. I set my sensitivity at around 14-18 depending on the site (beaches up to 30, which is the max), and I still manage to find coins relatively deep (in the 10-14 range).

If I find the target ID to become too jumpy or erratic I usually do both a noise cancel and a ground balance.
 
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