jdeiana said:
Is there a benefit to hunting in auto track?
Yes, there can be for some people in some hunting applications and sites. Those are especially times when searching places with mildly changing ground mineral in the same area with only occasional, scattered dense mineral bodies. 'Dense mineral bodies' mainly being rocks of a significant difference from the surrounding ground mineral, or maybe something like abrupt mineral changes such as black sand.
One benefit of using auto-tracking Ground Balance is naturally to helot the detector adjust to modest changes is ground mineral make-up for peak performance. But another benefit is it allows the operator to better hear and discern how mild or sever the ground mineral conditions are, and to better understand when they have encountered a significant mineral challenge.
jdeiana said:
I believe the manual recommends against it in most hunting circumstances.
What the Owner's Manual suggests is that you use ''Tracking' in the All Metal mode and not in the three motion-based Discriminate modes for best performance. Most 'average' hobbyists seldom, if ever, search in the All Metal mode. That option is usually chosen by a more 'avid detectorist' or perhaps someone who is Gold Nugget hunting. If hunting an open field or searching for small, elusive nuggets, you want to be able to hear problem conditions, such as significant rocks or mineral bodies [size=small](black sand)[/size] that are out of context with the adjacent ground mineral to better handle the conditions. Any modest changes in mineral the auto-tracking circuitry can deal with that, but you, the operator, want to hear and deal with problem encounters, such as hot rocks.
When searching in a motion-based Discriminate mode [size=small](2-Tone, 3-Tone or Beach)[/size] an auto-tracking selection could work against you. How's that, you wonder? Well, Ground Balance is a way to handle the negative ground mineral conditions, and that includes iron or ferrous material. If you are using a silent-search motion mode, you can't hear audio hints to ground changing conditions, and more often than not, hobbyists will use a fair amount of iron rejection. The problem with using auto-tracking in a Discriminate mode is that, if you sweep over an area with a lot of decayed iron rust, or iron particulate matter, or even just some iron targets, auto-tracking will tend to read and analyze that as being a more mineralized ground environment [size=small](similar to black sand, etc.)[/size] and will 'off-track', leaving you with an improper GB for the area.
Remember that the Discriminate mode is reading both the ground mineral signal as well as a metal target signal [size=small](ferrous or non-ferrous targets)[/size] and it will let us Discriminate annoyances. One annoyance could be iron nails, and they are generally rejected with an ID Filter setting of about '23.' We don't want the detector to 'off-track' the GB to the rejected iron.
Another annoyance in an area could be hot rocks or similar abrupt ground mineral conditions. In the Discriminate mode we don't want the GB circuitry to 'off-track' on hot rocks, either. But that's where the Racer's broad-range Discrimination does its job by using an ID Filter in the '0' to '10' range because that can 'reject' or 'Discriminate' most magnetic type rocks, or it might call for a slightly higher ID Filter setting above '10', if the rocks are very irony and have a little more conductivity to them compared with the adjacent ground the Racer is GB'ed to.
Therefore, it's best to consider using the auto-tracking GB option when hunting in the All Metal mode, and for other modes it's usually best to leave tracking 'Off' in the 'O' selection and rely on the Automated GB and/or Manual GB.
I would also remind every Racer owner to sit down and read the Owner's Manual, front to back, and take notes if they think it might help them. I am not hinting to just the beginners, either. ALL Racer owners [size=small](or owners of ANY make and model detector)[/size] who consider themselves to be very experienced can benefit by reading the well written manual. I am sure there will be some little operational suggestions that they might not have understood or considered.
Monte
