GPZ not stable in salty ground in WA

good info jasong, i made it easy for davesgold by suggesting to turn the threshold all the way to 1.
in my writings above i suggested the last thing you do is lower the threshold to where it is comfortable for you individually.
surprise, surprise, i eventually settled on 9 as my threshold setting of choice.

when you compare the gain in depth by increasing the sensitivy, compared to what you loose by lowering the threshold it becomes a nobrainer i might add, with factory default settings, i was only able to detect in difficult - ground setting. (not quiet soils) when i adopted the high sens. and low thres. i was able to always run in general and normal at the same locations. as you know this gives you a much greater performance.
its equivalent to when the 4500 came out with the enhance mode, it enabled us to up the gain and get better depth. then the 5000 came on the market and was a big improvement (quieter) in normal settings, which enabled me to go back over the same ground in normal but with the gain lowered and still getting greater depth.

i had the pleasure of talking with some of the testers for the 7000, about the time of its release, they were still unsure of the limits of its capabilities. i have found it a real pleasure to experiement with its capabilities, which i will have the chance to do again soon.
i am very impressed with the z and hope to find more surprises in the near future ... kev

It seems there is a lot of talk about lowering the threshold and increasing the sensitivity.... but has anyone tried to simply lower the sensitivity? I had my sensitivity all the way down to 4 due to too much ground noise (threshold was on about 25 from memory). I got a very obvious signal and it turned out to be a nice, solid 10g nugget at a depth of about 15"-16". Admittedly, this wasn't in salty WA soil but in heavily mineralised VIC soil.

G'day Kev

Yes I tried those settings againyesterday for awhile, what I find is that with the sensitivity at 20 and the threshold at 1 (mostly when I use this method I have the threshold at about 10) and everything else the same as I was using I still get a good signal on a nugget, same amount of hot rocks and a few ground noises, but basically you only hear an actual target.

Now the target is a narrower and sharper target signal than the usual settings I was using, I wouldn't say it was any louder and I got nuggets from near surface to about 8" deep for the deepest which was a 0.4g nugget. I got 16 nuggets today using this method which ranged in size from 0.1g up to 0.5g

All in all not much different to the usual settings I use for depth etc but no threshold means on noise.

I must add that all these tests were done using a B&Z booster with dual speakers, which I use all the time anyway.

cheers dave

With threshold set around 11 you will get a squeak now n then and believe me you still know when you go over salty ground, the only difference is you don't feel like wrapping it around the nearest tree or quickly looking up for quieter ground to head for

thanks dave - good to see all the positive replies about how flexible this new machine is. comes down to personal preferences how you use the machine. the loosers are those who dont keep their eyes and ears open and remain inflexible with their detecting methods.
yes the target signal is sharper and narrower which suits my hearing, i have the audio at 75. with the previous gpx machines it made a target very different to ground noise (which i had to check to see if they were a deep buried nugget), i havent had the pleasure yet of getting a similar possible ground noise down deep that turns out to be a large nugget with the z, and i dont even know if such a noise will be heard as a sharp but faint, target or otherwise with the z. has anybody had a find of this nature? it would be interesting to hear about it ... kev

I'm yet to get anything large with the 7, so don't know what to expect, but I remember Kev you getting a nice chunk a wee while back, you should be able to interpolate from that what a whopper will sound like.

The blokes who get creative with the Zed and keep the faith will do well in the end.

kevlorraine2 wrote:thanks dave - good to see all the positive replies about how flexible this new machine is.  comes down to personal preferences how you use the machine.  the loosers are those who dont keep their eyes and ears open and remain inflexible with their detecting methods.
yes the target signal is sharper and narrower which suits my hearing,  i have the audio at 75.  with the previous gpx machines it made a target very different to ground noise (which i had to check to see if they were a deep buried nugget), i havent had the pleasure yet of getting a similar possible ground noise down deep that turns out to be a large nugget with the z, and i dont even know if such a noise will be heard as a sharp but faint, target or otherwise with the z.  has anybody had a find of this nature?  it would be interesting to hear about it ... kev

No worries Kev, all the methods described work well, even if they aren't in the ML manual.

If you call a 7 gram nugget big at 14" deep then this method being discussed worked well on it as well, it gave an inverted (low/high) signal response, I have it on video and will upload to youtube eventually. Next to no way of doing it till we get home though, so it will be a bit of a wait.

We did a few comparative tests using the 5000 and the new Coiltek Elite coil. This nugget was found in un disturbed ground with the 7000, and then comparisons were done with the 5000 and a 2300.

2300 could not hear it until at least half way down in depth. The 5000 with the new Coiltek Elite coil was almost equal to the 7000 response on the target.

cheers dave

gday alchemist and dave,  my comment -----

getting a similar possible ground noise down deep that turns out to be a large nugget with the z, and i dont even know if such a noise will be heard as a sharp but faint, target or otherwise with the z.  --------------

no, alcho (hope you are not) a 72 grammer at 12 inches did not fit the bill.  with this nugget i was able to raise the coil more than two feet above ground level and still had it screeming at me.  but come to think about it, raised higher, it did eventually became a "interference noise" that is - not a sharp noise. but as i had the threshold at 9 i couldnt call it a "threshold interference". might be a clue there that the sharp noise will turn into a threshold interference even with it turned way down.

and no dave,  7 grams at 14" also doesnt qualify, too big and too shallow.   i found a 2.2 and a 2grammer at 15 inches,running my machine at 9 thres, high yield, normal, sens 19, target vol 15, max vol 10, smoo off.  they were both a faint sharp signal, i cant remember if the sig was reversed or not, but struck many smalls down deep that way.

i have to go back to this spot and run the machine in general and  deep to see if anything is lurking even deeper down.  plus this area is filthy with hot rocks which i left on top of my filled in holes.  a lot of these "hot rocks" were down deep in the soil, which is something the previous gpx machines couldnt do for me. so thanks to your picture dave, i now have to go back and check them all again... kev

Dave, i dont know where you got the assumption that i was using bogene settings since i have never mentioned them The settings i use are pretty close to factory presets with a few tweaks.
We dug a 84g bit out a couple weeks back at about 14", it was a very distinct clear signal with the zed, the 5000 with 14 and 18" coil on sounded like a ground noise and would not have dug it as its in solid calcrete. I was stunned that the gpx did not get a clear signal, the only explanation i have is that there are layers of black mineralization through the calcrete which must have masking the signal from the gpx. The nugget was a queer round shape too which may also have effected the gpx signal.