Jim, I'll try to explain.

[crazyman]

I'm not a technical type guy so I'll try to explain simply the best I can. When talking about the iron mask on the GT the filtering occurs when you turn iron mask off. That's why Minelab says you might get a slight loss in depth with iron mask off in the manual and also state that iron mask off will perform better in mineralized ground. Filtering is basically discrimination. Think of the discrimination range as a full circle with small iron being at 6:00 and large coins/silver at 12:00 with ground minerals falling between 1:00 and 5:00. I always thought when Tesoro described the discrimination range of some of their detectors as being ED 120 or ED 180 they were referring to the degrees of the circle of discrimination with the ED 180 giving you a discrimination range through small iron. Opening up the discrimination range to include mineralization will make the detector more sensitive and give better depth in good ground. Some Whites detectors like the XLT gives you access to the full circle of discrimination. If you want to open the discrimination range to improve sensitivity while still discriminating iron you have to open up the upper range between 1:00 and lets say 3:00. The closer you get to 5:00 the more the iron starts to bleed through.This is what the hot rock accept/reject switch on the Whites 5900/6000 does and what the + 95 on the XLT does and what the ground zone does on the QXT. The iron mask switch on the GT acts very similar in that with it on it is more sensitive to mineralization and there is some bleeding through or more sensitivity to iron.

 

[crazyman]

n/t

 

[crazyman]

With iron bleeding through via the upper range of discrimination with iron mask on your chances of hitting a coin near the iron are slightly better as Minelab says but only slightly. There are more benefits to hunting with iron mask off in iron than on especially if you have mineralized ground.

 

[synthnut]

Crazyman,
Thanks for the explanation ....I can surely understand that switching Iron Mask OFF will add filtering for sure ......Even slightly mineralized soil benefits from Iron Mask being OFF ....... From my understanding and from what I have read , the fact that Iron Mask opens up Descrimination to allow for better depth, is more or less an older way of thinking as the older technology dictated this .......Newer Technology as what's in the E Trac does NOT live by those standards any more .....Discrimiation does NOT mean less depth ...... Please understand that I am not knocking the Sovereign or it's technology....I'm simply stateing what I have read directly from Minelab themselves .... I don't notch, and rarely will I Descrminate except for running in Descrimination mode whereby the iron is scrimmed out to a degree automatically ..... Therefore by adding some filtering by turning Iron Mask OFF , I can live with that ..... I remember running a filter on the Safari that allowed for a fast response ....I forget the actual name of how it was set , but to make a long story short , I used this filter anyway ....I think it was a Trash setting to "Fast " or something like that .....This was suppose to give me less depth .....The means justified the end results as I was able to hear targets SO MUCH better tha I recovered more targets using the filter that was suppose to give me less depth ..... Perhaps I hunt a little bit unconventionally , but this is what works for me ..... What works for one person may not work for someone else ...... So what it boils down to in this particular case is that Iron Mask "ON" opens up the Descrimination and allows more minerals into the field , which to me means more noise , so as to add more depth .....and I know that there are plenty of guys who "Hunt in the noise " ...... I'll switch Iron Mask "ON" every now and then in a situtaion where the soil is NOT so mineralized, but in a soil that is highly mineralized , I"m gonna be happy to swtich to Iron Mask "OFF " ..... Thanks again for the explanaiton ...I'm makes good sense to me now ....Jim