I started out hunting like I always do, I had on the new 17" mono from n.f. and set my settings like usual, I leave everything on deep then set the gain in the 7 or 8 mode, then hunt accordingly, as usual find a little gold here and there, but lately, the past couple times I've been the skunk mode! This time I went out and played with the settings I was never really happy being in the 7 or 8 gain but I dealt with it. I decided I would start at maxxed out gain-15' and try to quiet it down from there! I ended up putting audio on quiet and messed with the sens. smooth and extra, it turned out quite abit different than it was before, mainly I noticed more volume response in finding targets I was wondering if by running full gain or high gain then putting audio in quiet to quiet it down am I gainning anything, I changed other modes to quiet it also but nothing drastic like the gain. I ran a few tests, but couldn't tell much difference. It ran pretty quiet but where I hunt the grass and the tarweed are still high, and its still hard to hunt this time of year I was wondering if you or J.P> have experimented like this and if you like the results, I felt I wasn't getting much depth plus the machine always was a little wavy or erratic even with the dd's I value your opinion! thanks FLatland Gold - MIke

Mike. With the gain at 15 it would be hard to get the threshold stable no matter what you do with the other settings. You may gain a little sensitivity but lose it amongst the increased noise. I would rather reduce the gain to 8 or 10 and run the audio on boost. In boost audio the threshold will probably still be a little jittery , but I feel you gain more by increasing the audio setting than by maxxing out the gain. You may also find that running the TARGET volume fairly high you can get a better response on weak targets. By all means, experiment . My personal feelings are that I'll hear even the faintest targets if I have my threshold dead smooth and getting that threshold smooth is my top priority to start the day. The problem with running a high gain is that you not only make the detector more susceptible to EMI , you make it more sensitive to minor ground mineralization changes and hotrocks. You can negate the advantages of a PI and make it start acting like a VLF. For small tight patches of tiny nuggets you actually might want to do this and I have when I know there are crumbs that might not respond to lower gain settings. At the same time I'll put on my smallest coil when doing this which in turn helps cut the EMI that the increased gain has caused and the smaller coil will be a little more responsive to tiny nuggets. Your coil size can have an effect on what settings are best for the conditions. The 17" E coil is great for ground coverage and compared to an 18" round coil it is much less sensitive to EMI and is also more responsive to small nuggets. As I've always said , there is no best settings for the GPX series. With time you learn that it will tell you if changes are needed and what those changes need to be. No matter what, you don't need to lose sleep thinking you have walked over dozens of nuggets because your settings are a little off. you'll hear the vast majority of them even if it's pretty far off the optimum for the ground you are detecting. It's only when you are detecting a really pounded patch that precise control settings may help squeeze out a few more that were missed , and extreme settings like a high gain setting might be just the edge that is needed, but it will come at a cost of listening to some EMI , digging some ground noise or hotrocks. I certainly wouldn't let a skunk day or two make me feel that I had the settings all wrong. Some days are like that, And some days everything just clicks. If that new coil is an advantage coil, when you do get it over a nugget you will be blown away by the crisp , clear response and possibly the depth that you dug it from. ----Bob

Hi Bob- thanks for a quick reply, I pretty much been doing what you said although I hadn't tried it in boost ,with the gain maxxed out, I was able to get it pretty quiet, but like you said the EMI was real strong, and I was having trouble getting the small targets, I'll head out this wkend and do some more testing, thanks again for the advice! have a good wkend!!!!!!!!!! Mike

There are so many options on a subject like this, one method I have heard of is running reasonably high Gain levels but backing off the Stabilizer to sub 5 levels, the Stabilizer controls the instability or jitteriness of the higher Gain but allows the brighter signal responses to come through. If ground noise is present then Enhance really will do a good job on cutting through the mineralisation whilst at the same time having excellent performance on fast time constant targets (small gold or specimens), even better in some cases than Sensitive Xtra does (bit of an unknown secret that one ).

The things that tie in together on the 4500 and can be moved relative to each other (one up and the other down) is the Stabilizer, Motion, Audio filters, Gain levels, Signal control & Threshold. Tweaking these settings and paying attention to how they behave in the field can provide some interesting combinations that can to a large extent be stored in the various Search mode tabs and called on at just the flick of a switch for quick comparisons during your detecting day.

Montana is absolutely right in saying that 90% of the time keeping within the basic guide lines of the FP settings of the General Search mode tab will allow you to find the bulk of your gold assuming you are in-tune or becoming more in-tune with your detector. The real secret to getting to the levels of Montana's efficiencies is the controls and filters in your mind, learning to fine tune them will have a marked effect on what turns up in your pocket at the end of the day assuming you have good equipment and spend time in areas that have the potential of producing gold. Threads like this one help in a very big way because it provides your mind with the confidence that what you are doing is not drastically wrong allowing you to be bold when you are next in the field.

JP

J. P. thanks for the response I'm curious though, what is the stabilizer on the 4000? thanks again. Mike

My apologies Mike, there is NO Stabilizer control on the GPX-4000. However for your info what is does on the 4500 is allow the operator to raise and lower the floor of the threshold allowing more or less information in depending on the conditions. It's main advantages from a target performance point of view is in the smaller gold sizes however it does allow for another option of smoothing out the threshold for overall quietness running of the machine. The Factory Preset (FP) for the Stabilizer on the 4500 is 10 which is what the 4000 will be set at as default (with no ability to adjust), I like to run my Stabilizer on my 4500 around the 8 mark which still provides decent performance on the little stuff but gives a very smooth benchmark threshold when working with larger coils especially with a slightly elevated Gain settings using Enhance in High Mineralisation.

Basically it is a juggling act to get overall smoothness of detector use without compromising too much on performance, that is why I recommend operators pay attention to the FP settings of the General search mode tab, the FPs are where the detectors main performance is in optimal conditions and then work from there.

Hope this helps,

JP

Mike. I think JP missed that you are using a GPX4000. You don't have the stabilizer or enhanced timings, but the point he was making is that if you increase say the gain, you may have to decrease your audio setting to quiet or normal to achieve a smooth threshold . Decrease the gain and you may be able to run the audio on boost and still maintain a usable threshold. Increase the gain , and you may have to use a slower motion setting and so on . If you have been running a smaller coil before you got the 17", you will probably notice a little more noise if you run the same settings you were before. For instance if I put the Commander 8" coil on I can run all the settings a little hotter than I do with the 17"E and still maintain the same smoothness of threshold.----Bob

Hi Bob - I did'nt think ther ewas a stabililizer but I thought it my be under a different name, anyway that's what I had been doing increase in one mode, decrease in another, I apologize for not being specific what I was doing I've been hunting gold for a long time and my other minelabs I've had along the way were basically turn on and go, the 4000 changed the way of hunting, anyway that was my point to see if you guys had any luck or tried that way with the machines since you guys hunt all the time with them, again I thank you for your expertise in this, happy hunting !!!!! Mike