Using a multipurpose detector with manual ground balance, audio & visual discrimination

In the past there were not any specialized detectors for prospecting. Most of the first detectors that were made were designed for coin hunting and given certain abilities some had to cancel mineralized ground they were used as coin and gold hunters. These types of detectors have in many prospecting trips proven useful to expert prospectors and still do. As a matter a fact a great number of bigger sized gold nuggets were found in the past with these types of detectors. If the prospector has a low frequency detector, keep in mind that it is often times used by most manufacturers for a diverse number of purposes. Often times these kinds of detectors have what is known as double stacked tuners. In other words they have a coarse and fine tune knob that was placed on top of each other. Some of these had a visual identification meter that was made to assist in identifying several coins and to show where the iron targets were located. Boulders are leftover tailings from old miners and sandy mounds are made up of decomposed bedrock that were exposed by the first mining operations done in the specific area and subjected to over one hundred years of rain, snow, heat and wind.

Look around when in a detecting trip and study the area and if you find the type of area previously mentioned you can break out your detector and tune it to the ground in the way suggested when working with manual ground balance detectors. Use a pair of good headphones and put the threshold hum to a faint level with the tuner control. Then lower the detector to the ground. If you see that the sound becomes reduced, bring the loop back up to the air and correct your ground cancel again by turning clockwise slightly. You can then squeeze and release the reset trigger and hear to see if the threshold hum returns. Then bring the loop back down to the ground and again. If you notice that you have gone too far because the detector produces too much of a hum, then simply adjust and make the correction to the ground control knob in a counter clockwise way. Once the ground had been balanced out so that the hum is not too much different with the loop held in the air or on the ground, then you can set the control knob a little bit more to the right. This will cause there to be just a little bit of positive sound that can be head when you place the loop near the ground. Having a positive ground setting will allow the signals that are coming from deep areas or smaller targets to be enhanced and it will enhance all of the signals in ground that is mineralized. This kind of work can be done with the detector set at an all metal (non motion) way of operation and the discriminator dial set to where it only rejects nails. The same would need to be done in cases where the detector does not have a discriminator. If the prospector’s detector did not have a discriminator then the same thing would need to be done. You may want to set the detector at a place where there are not any false noises when you are moving the loop above the ground when in a search. If the area you are working in is moderately mineralized, you can utilize full sensitivity.