Anyone seen hot soil outside VA on the east coast?

[Mach1Pilot]

I took the 5000 out to an old homesite near home here in PA over the weekend.... could not get it to stabilize unless the timings were in sensitive smooth! It went wild even on the fine gold setting with the gain on 3. When I did dig a target, I was trying to find it in the hole with the Garrett propointer... it would sing loudly when it was laying on the ground, just like in VA.

This surprised me.... was not expecting hot ground here... OR - did I do something wrong? :sad:

There were power lines near by, but I have hunted closer to them on other sites...

 

[B sperty]

Do you Specific ground balance at a new site?

 

[Mtnmn]

There could many reasons that your P.I. unit wouldn't behave properly. First and foremost is EMI from unseen sources such as underground cables, Wifi and other similar type sources. Not to mention that some overhead power lines give off many times more EMI than other power lines do. I literally cannot detect some such areas no matter what type of detector I try to use. There are many areas of PA that have fairly high mineralized ground because of either glacial (NE & NW PA) or continential drift (SE/SC PA). Although none of these areas would normally have enough mineralization to cause your P.I. any undo problems. Though there are some areas that might cause you problems such as where long gone manufacturing plants once stood because of there being unbelieveable amts. of small iron in the ground or in (SE PA) where long ago they once mined copper and iron ore (due to any leftover tailings). The only other cause might be with your ground balancing, if not properly set, it could cause major problems.

 

[Mach1Pilot]

In retrospect I think in this case it was just a small patch of super hot ground. Even the Garrett pro pointer would go off just laying on the ground. The nearby power lines may have been contributing to it a small amount, but the ground minerals were the source of the problems. Very surprising to me to find this so close to home, its not typical at all.

 

[Big Boys Hobbies]

Places here in Oklahoma can be very hot with the red clay.

 

[ScottTX]

I'm not sure if you attended the forum held by Kevin Hoagland at DIV XIX?

Kevin started out by telling everyone that the soil around Culpeper wasn't that mineralized it was just very conductive. He stated that we were over doing the soil timings and missing targets by using Fine Gold. He guaranteed we would do better if we used Sharp. Guess what he was right. I used Sharp the entire hunt with no problems getting the machine to balance.

Opened my eyes. Since DIV XV I'd used Fine Gold. Not anymore its Sharp all the way.

Another key point he made was let the detector tell you what to use. Start with Coin and Relic. If the machine is noisy and you can't get a GB then go to Sharp. Advancing until the machine is quiet. The progression should be C&R, Sharp, Normal, FineGold knowing with each progression you are giving up some depth.

 

[Mach1Pilot]

I didn't get to attend Kevin Hogland's seminar, but have seen the video or post he put on Minelab's site regarding VA soils and timings. After seeing that, the last time I was in VA hunting I tried a bunch of different timings (mostly focusing on sharp, normal, fine gold). To my surprise I really did not notice much change in depth in any of the timings. I switched between sharp, normal, and fine gold and when a target was found would try the other two. For the most part, depth did not seem to increase. What was interesting was this.... in one timing (say, sharp for example) a moderately strong target could be heard that which not be heard using another timing. But this did not seem to be specific to any one timing - each timing would ignore some targets. I found more in fine gold, but I think that was only because I was more used to how it responded to targets than in the other timings.

Since that time I picked up Jonathan Porter's 5000 video. In it at one point he demonstrates something similar in the gold field with hot rocks. I'm thinking to get everything a person probably has to go over each site in several different timings to "get everything". If I only had to pick two, I'd probably use sharp and fine gold at this point.

But next time I expect to get more depth with the newly purchased 15x12 DD.

On the PA site mentioned above, I tried all of the timings and none of them would settle down completely. Only in Sensitive Smooth would it settle down to the point where I could for the most part hunt with it, but it was still noisy. Another thing gleaned from Jonathan Porter's video was his simple explaination of how to tell the difference between EMI interference and ground noise. I felt real dumb after hearing the simple explaination, but that info will help determine the issue at the local site... I need to go back and try one more time, if nothing else for the learning experience.

Thanks!

 

[ScottTX]

Mach 1,

I had a similar experience near the power line in the new field at DIV XIX. Because of the EMI coming from the power line I changed from Sharp to Normal (I was using a Coiltek Platypus DD). After leaving the power line I noticed that I had a signal but it was very faint. I switched back to Sharp and it became much louder.

I have all Porter's videos starting with the 4500 to the 5000 and have watched then over and over to glean every piece of data I can out of them. 2 important things I learned. First when you GB the machine (assuming a Fixed GB) make sure the coil is as close to the ground as humanly possible while pumping and hold the coil perfectly still on the button release then wait for a few seconds before starting off. At DIV XV I didn't follow that procedure and never got a good GB. Second thing was each soil timing has a greater effect on the soil then the last in other words it filters the feedback heaver. Thats why they suggest using Sensitive Smooth with mono coils. It aids in quieting them down. But since the DD is inherently quieter it masks the DD's performance.

Porter has some audio settings you might try. I use them and there is no doubt when you hit a target. Close to the surface and it blasts, deep its faint but stands out.