Goldbug 2 going nuts everywhere

[undersc0re]

I bought a used goldbug 2 it has the 6 inch coil, I tested it on some gold to be sure it worked before heading out to the local free hand panning only reserve. I put on the headphones and tried it, been out 3 times now and played with it as a break inbetween panning to give the back a break lol. This creek is full of mineral and hot rocks like crazy, its called tranquille creek in kamloops bc canada. I can not seem to tune out the hotrocks and they are everywhere! I mean I can not go 6 inches without picking one up and it also goes nuts on lots of the bedrock areas. I tried many settings and I use headphones, the creek is know mostly for placer with some nice flake and rarely a little nugget. Am I screwed in an area like this, I tried so many settings I just can't tune out the crap and its almost impossible to pick out the sound difference between my test gold on the ground there and the surrounding noise. Is it a matter of just keep going day after day until you finally here the minute difference and learn to tune absolutely perfect??? I had no prob with the atgold on dis2 and threshold on 3 full sens...just it would only pick up larger stuff...but it discriminated well...I figured I am spoiled with the atgold and I need to actually learn with the goldbug 2 for a whole year maybe...lol seems a little too sensitive for this creek maybe...just wondered if its possible that maybe the goldbug 2 is not an option in some areas! I watch some videos and still can't get it....also I have not tried it any other areas, so maybe I will give that a shot as well, maybe it is just a bad unit I have, although the 6 inch coil is brand spankin new, and the 10 inch coil is used, they both seem to do the same thing...10 inch not so bad though.

Thanks for any ideas or trouble shooting I could try with this detector...

 

[Ed in SoDak]

That sounds crazy-rich for hot rocks and junk or else we have some sort of GB setting going on. My first advice that I'd normally give, you've already done. That's using a test nugget in that area.

So now we need to try to isolate those nuisance signals as a first step. Can you locate and remove one of those hot rocks, so if you do an air test on it, you get a signal? Once you have a sample to inspect, maybe you can test it in another spot or try whatever comes to mind to remove that type of signal or otherwise recognize it as compared to a "good" gold signal.

At the place where you you retrieved your hot rock, check the spot again. Was the signal removed when you took the hot rock away? Are there more that can be placed away from where you're testing? We're trying to find out if your dud signals are just a few hot rocks or "everywhere" and how you can learn to ID them by either sight or signal.

If removing some suspects still leaves a bunch of signals, or your sample hot rock won't read in an air test, it might be a bunch of finely-distributed bits of the same or maybe it's a ground balance issue. Maybe drag a magnet around in the soil to see what it collects.

I don't have a GB2 to offer better advice, but I do understand your frustration! In my areas, I have lots of native iron. Iron likes gold, or so they say, but so far all I find is the iron and not the other! Fr me, it's just lots of low tones to decipher.

-Ed

 

[Joe Z]

We recently moved to Arizona very close to many Gold Claims in the Bradshaw Mountains and I just purchased a used Gold Bug 2 and still learning the tricks to it and have only been out three times.(I really like this for nuggets )Many pros out here (not me) have a Minelab GPX5000 Pulse Induction and a Gold Bug 2 to compliment the PI machine and when asked the same question to them they say they ground balance it on top of one of those hot rocks when it's really infested with them and both rocker switches in the middle and full discrimination if possible and back down as needed. I haven't tried that yet but give it a try then slide it over your test nugget and see if it picks it up. Let us know what you find out.
Joe

 

[steve herschbach]

Heading out the door detecting right now but will post something you want to read tonight.

Steve Herschbach

 

[steve herschbach]

OK, my first concern are these hot rocks. Set the left switch to Iron Disc and see if you can get the rocks to be ignored by lowering the sensitivity setting. If the rock beeps at high sensitivity but at some point basically disappears when you lower the sensitivity you have a ferrous type hot rock that can be rejected as if it is iron. But if the rock beeps no matter what but the beep slowly gets weaker as you lower the sensitivity you may have a non-ferrous hot rock. These are big trouble for the Gold Bug 2.

My concern is that in BC it is not unusual to run into graphite, the same stuff the use to make battery posts. Pencil lead. It is non-ferrous and highly conductive, hence the use as battery posts. It is commonly found in BC and elsewhere as graphitic slate, just good old slate but with a very high graphite content. Long story short the Gold Bug 2 is very hot and if graphite is your problem time for another detector as the graphite will light up just like gold nuggets.

Common hot rocks can be eliminated with the Iron Disc setting. Or, by a combination of lower sensitivity, or by setting the mineral control to High Mineral, or both. In worst case situations lower sensitivity and the coil an inch off the ground will do the trick. Sometimes you may have to purposely offset the ground balance midway between true ground and the hot rock to moderate the response

The goal is stable operation any which way you can get it. But the Gold Bug 2 is as hot as they come, and in some ground just too hot. Do not be afraid to back it down a lot as even at lower settings it is a hotter unit than most anything else out there. I have found few places where I can't run a Gold Bug 2, but one place near me is off limits due to graphitic slate. That place calls for a PI. Units that are less hot like the AT Pro are also a better option.

Steve Herschbach

 

[undersc0re]

Thanks for the suggestions! It is definetly a hot detector! I will give it all a shot...too bad the at gold wasn't as hot on small gold, because man can it ever block the other crap out good...although I have only tried the 5x8 with that detector. This gold bug seems like it would be absolutely awesome if it wasn't so finicky with the hotrocks...anyhow I will pull out different hotrocks and mix a couple gold samples amongst them again when I get a warmer day here and practice with the settings, using your suggestions of course!! The pinpointer totally picks up these darn hotrocks with ease as well!

 

[parrott]

Hey... Hot rocks are "iron". They should either be positive or negative, depending upon your ground balance setting. But your "hot rocks" seem to be
conductive and non- Iron (ferrous). Hot rocks are conductive and the GB-2 should be able to pretty well ground balance it out as an air test. Can you
bust one up (carefully) and pan it? Is it platy, rusty looking? Can you scratch one against unglazed porcelain and do you get a steak? What happens
to the hot rock if you make sure it is dry before testing? Whats it's color? Is it heavy or light-weight? Does it have a thin outer skin and different inside.
Smooth or rounded... Etc., ???

 

[undersc0re]

This place is an hour away, no time to go there for a while...not to mention the snow and cold, but I can tell you the rocks are all sizes and they are brown and black and smooth there are some rusty ones, and some weird greenish ones. I did crack one open once, it kind of had layers, maybe half of it was solid color then a couple smaller bands(same sort of color near the outside but no rust in that one....I will do some more testing with the rocks as well as lining up different ones and trying to ground balance the common ones out.....it goes off on a lot of the bedrock too for some reason...but I will work on that later...thx