Gpz threshold

[Rockpile]

I recently heard of setting the threshold to 1 on the gpz. At first I thought it was a ludicrous idea, so on my last outing I decided to check out for myself. I usually end up in moderate to hot ground, mainly on account of all the magnetite in the dirt. I did my ground balance, set the threshold to 1. Zero on smoothing, 17 on sensitivity!! (Crazy) general and normal....I found five nuggets that day! Nothing huge.. 2 grammer was the biggest piece. I was just surprised that I hit anything with that setup. Detector ran dead quiet until I hit a target. Anyway I'd like to hear other pros and cons on running a virtually nonexistent threshold 

[nuggethunting]

Hey Rockpile,

   I haven't tried that low of a thresold yet.  I would think the best way to test would be to compare a low threshold (like 1) vs. a higher threshold with the same settings, without removing the nugget or target.  Whatever sounds best would probably give you a better idea.  I've always used the theshold as a background reference, so any disturbance or break in that I would investigate.  Normally, if I got a disturbance in the threshold, it was always a deep target.

[Rockpile]

Ya I agree, I learned on my 4000 to listen for a warble or a break in the threshold. I'll definitely be going back to my comfort zone ??

[andyy]

This is why I wish we could save at least one extra  setup. (like the GPX)  It would really make it easier to test different settings when you do get that warble.

I believe your settings are similar to the Bogenes setup.

Me personally, the very first thing I tried with my ZED was I think called Steve's Super Hot settings.   My settings were very similar to yours  but I think my threshold was 26 or so.  I checked two washes that had been very good to me in the past.  It was small enough that I knew I could cover it completely.  This was going to be my test ground.  I went down wash#1 and got nothing (this was a fairly shallow wash- 8" overburden at worst).  In wash #2 I also got nothing (this was a bit deeper ..some spots had almost 18-20" overburden).  Ground was hot (red dirt) and trust me, I was going very low and slow (slower than I ever ran the 5000) . I overlapped everything.  Now I knew there was gold there so I decided to run some conservative style settings.  I lowered the sensitivity without initially looking at the numbers.  This ended up being at about 5.  Then Smoothing = off.  I went backwards up wash#2.  Immediately, I hit a soft murmur.  The first nugget was right at 1.1 gram and was stuck in the red clay.  Depth measured my my ruler was 14".  It was important for me to know fairly accurately the depth.  Anyway, about 6 steps further down the wash I got another soft murmur.  It ended up being a little smaller at 12", and then I hit another signal which gave me a two-fer.  My conclusion, for "that ground' where the gold is trapped in red clay, and a high EMI day, using headphones, that is what works best for me.   By the way, wash#1 never gave up any more gold.

Now I have been out with a friend who run the ZED exactly with your settings and he can also get half grain and smaller.  I think there may be an edge on the smaller stuff with hot settings but it is so minimal I tend not to mess with it.  

For me, I really think sensitivity in mineralized ground should be lower, but less mineralization then you can probably crank it up.  The only way you'll know is to test before you dig it up.

You may also want to do a search on Lunk's settings, as well.  That will give you another strange setup with smoothing=high.  But it also works well for me when I know the gold is small and shallow.

So there are some ideas.  Good luck.

[Tortuga]

Running Smoothing Off, Sens 12 and the new Tracking Setting on Semi-Auto I think(?) and changing from High Yield to General keeps things pretty quiet for me. 

The difference between HY and General for me is on General I hear less ground noise and I find myself wasting less time pushing around teeny tiny targets like microscopic scraps of iron. Denser, deeper targets like nuggets will come through tho. I’d like to hunt for larger, deeper targets anyways so General works for me.

If I’m in an area like the Bradshaws where I can expect tiny shallow micro nuggets I’ll probably switch back to HY just to beat the skunk. 

[Rockpile]

7 hours ago, Tortuga said:

Running Smoothing Off, Sens 12 and the new Tracking Setting on Semi-Auto I think(?) and changing from High Yield to General keeps things pretty quiet for me. 

The difference between HY and General for me is on General I hear less ground noise and I find myself wasting less time pushing around teeny tiny targets like microscopic scraps of iron. Denser, deeper targets like nuggets will come through tho. I’d like to hunt for larger, deeper targets anyways so General works for me.

If I’m in an area like the Bradshaws where I can expect tiny shallow micro nuggets I’ll probably switch back to HY just to beat the skunk. 

Thanks for the solid info!!