Minelab "low - high" tone

[sdf527]

I would like to hear from the educated and informed guys, particularly JP on this facet of detecting.

As I mentioned in my Moore Creek story, I must have dug at least 100 "low - high" tones or the "woo - wee" sounds. Imagine the threshold as a fairly constant flat line. In my experience, gold targets tend to have a soft rise from that tone then fall off as the target is passed. We refer to it as "wee - woo" for lack of a better description. Small iron/steel metal targets near the surface tend to have a sharp spike tone. Dozer blade and track shavings are pretty distinguishable because they are so sharp, fortunately they are pretty easy to recover with a magnet.

It's the falling/dropping tones I'm wondering about. Theoretically, they could signify a deep gold target. I have not dug a single gold target that started out as a "low - high", "woo - wee" tone and I dug some of the deepest gold targets of my life at Moore Creek. The "low - high" tones always turned out to be iron targets usually nails and not necessarily deep ones. The Moore Creek experience gave me the chance to run the detector 8 to 10 hrs a day and listen to hundreds of targets, 30 of which turned out to be gold. My pulse rate goes up dramatically if I can get a soft rising "wee" tone, especially after moving a few hot rocks. I settle down for a wasted dig if I get an initial "woo" tone. Mind you, I dug them all though, particularly after my near miss of thinking I could distinguish an obvious trash tone. Here in the desert I often find the black basalt hot rocks have that same dropping tone.

What's the science behind the detector's tendancy to produce these separate and quite distinct tones?

[andromedae71]

I would be interested to know if anybody out there has ever dug a low-high tone that turned out to be gold. All my low-high signals have been trash. All the gold nuggets have been high-low (wee-woo).

Best Regards,

Don

[montana]

SDF . What minelab are you running? The SDs took an extremely large nugget to invert the signal. It gets a little trickier with the GPs. With your timing switch in sensitive you may get an inverted signal on a small fairly shallow nugget , but returning the switch to normal timings it will give a normal wee-oo . On the GPX4000 and 4500 similar things can happen depending on your timing settings. Still most nuggets 1/2 ounce or less give a normal wee-ooo. The referal to a deep nugget inverting the signal really means a deep large nugget since you won't normally detect a small nugget beyond a foot or so. An inverted signal gives me a feeling I'm digging a horseshoe, but it can mean a big nugget, or rarely even a small nugget . I don't have the tech savvy to explain any of this , but maybe JP can shed some light on it. My talk at the AZO outing at Stanton was on this exact subject and is available on video if you're interested enough to spend a few bucks to see how various size and shaped nuggets can effect the signal response depending on timing settings, size, shape, orientation in the ground, and other factors.----Bob

[Qld Sandy]

SDF,

My experience with the low/high signals (woo/wee) is that in normal timings they sound a lot like ground noise except a metal target is shorter or sharper rather than broadish. Nuggets over 2/3rds of an ounce and a foot or more deep generally give this sort of signal, whereas smaller shallower targets show the normal high/low (wee/woo) response.

With a 4000 in Smooth timings or a 4500 in Enhance or Smooth, the low/high signal can sometimes be had on targets down as small as 3 grams. The area we have been detecting recently has given around 10 nuggets/specimans in the 20 grams to 6 ozs range which have all shown the low/high signal in Enhance timings. If Enhance or Smooth timings are selected the chances are that the target is metal if one of these responses are met with. These are the type of signals that I target as I am aware of the possibility of a larger deeper gold nugget (or maybe a bit of trash) and I have been well rewarded many times for my efforts. My advice would be to thoroughly investigate any low/high response, even moreso if there is a lack of rubbish and ground signal. Cheers and good hunting.

[sdf527]

My experiences with the "low - high" tone have been pretty much the same in all the settings on the 4000; however, at Moore Creek where I was able to put in a lot of back to back hours and dig a lot of targets, my settings there were Sensitive - Smooth, Audio- Quiet, with a gain of between 8 and 12, using the coiltek "goldstalker" coil. As far as large, deep gold I think the 3.5 oz at 15 to 18 inches should qualify, although I had switched to Sensitive - Extra and Audio - Boost for that one. It was certainly at the extreme end of the detectors depth capability using those settings, in that particular ground matrix. The tone was an ever so faint rising "mew", not a dropping "woo". There is no doubt the 4000 could punch deeper, but the abundance of hot rocks made most other settings impractical. Even with the "Extra" and "Boost" I was reminded of the old VLF days with the constant noise of "hot"and "cold" rocks. Picking out a target signal becomes a real art, my hat is off to the guys who cut their teeth on that technology and found a lot of gold. Just think how many I missed because of the so called "electronic hole" in the 4000 when using Sensitive - Smooth, oh geez let's don't get that started again. That new "Enigma" or whatever its called will be here anyday and the MLs only use will be as boat anchors, whatever... But I digress.

Bob, I'm sure it must be tough to separate a single event with the vast number of hours you put in, but can you remember a specific gold target that started out "woo" and you thought you were digging a horsehoe? I am curious about the conditions and the tone. Does the tone change when you get closer? Do you think the soil conditions QLD Sandy works in make a difference? Where is JP on this?

Thanks for the discussion and education.

Stephen

[Jonathan Porter]

G'day Stephen, in our first video I explained about the two channels of the Minelab machines, where one channel usually covers the larger more conductive (or is that longer Time Constant) responses and the other covers the smaller or shorter Tc targets. The idea behind the two channels is to set them up so that when one is at its least sensitive the other is at its most sensitive. The targets you are referring to where the "Woo and Wee" are together or intermingled are what Minelab calls confused signals where both channels are responding equally.

Now to confuse things even more these channels get moved around (or their sensitivity to different Tc's get moved around) when the timings are changed so that you can now recieve a "Woo Wee" on a small target and a "Wee Woo" on a larger target depending on which timing you choose.

Usually the "Woo Wee" response signals a larger piece of gold but this is dependant on orientation and depth (nails and wire unfortunately produce a similar response), usually a larger piece really deep is heralded by the "Woo Wee" but will then change as the coil is brought closer during the dig. The reason your larger pieces of gold from Moore's only tended to make the "Wee Woo" noises was due to their specimen type nature. I tend to find also that larger nuggets do the "Woo Wee" more in mineralised soils than in mild conditions, but also the solidity of a target has a large bearing on the final response. If the "Woo Wee" response is very broad then there is a much higher likelyhood of the target being large and deep especially if the response is faint.

So in a nut shell the Minelab machines have two channels, one is most sensitive to short Tc targets and the other is more sensitive to longer Tc's with a carefully designed cross over between the two. Usually a large solid nugget will be heralded by a broad "Woo Wee" response when it is furtherest from the coil but can change as the coil gets closer. The responses are not dictated by gold content so much but more in line with their conductivity or how they are seen by the coil eg I have dug specimens with solid chunks of gold enclosed up to depths of 2 1/2 feet that have made a solid "Wee Woo" the whole way and in some cases they have made far stronger signals that a solid nugget of the same size at the same depths.

Hope this helps explain things a little,

JP

[sdf527]

G'day Stephen, in our first video I explained about the two channels of the Minelab machines, where one channel usually covers the larger more conductive (or is that longer Time Constant) responses and the other covers the smaller or shorter Tc targets. The idea behind the two channels is to set them up so that when one is at its least sensitive the other is at its most sensitive. The targets you are referring to where the "Woo and Wee" are together or intermingled are what Minelab calls confused signals where both channels are responding equally.

Now to confuse things even more these channels get moved around (or their sensitivity to different Tc's get moved around) when the timings are changed so that you can now recieve a "Woo Wee" on a small target and a "Wee Woo" on a larger target depending on which timing you choose.

Usually the "Woo Wee" response signals a larger piece of gold but this is dependant on orientation and depth (nails and wire unfortunately produce a similar response), usually a larger piece really deep is heralded by the "Woo Wee" but will then change as the coil is brought closer during the dig. The reason your larger pieces of gold from Moore's only tended to make the "Wee Woo" noises was due to their specimen type nature. I tend to find also that larger nuggets do the "Woo Wee" more in mineralised soils than in mild conditions, but also the solidity of a target has a large bearing on the final response. If the "Woo Wee" response is very broad then there is a much higher likelyhood of the target being large and deep especially if the response is faint.

So in a nut shell the Minelab machines have two channels, one is most sensitive to short Tc targets and the other is more sensitive to longer Tc's with a carefully designed cross over between the two. Usually a large solid nugget will be heralded by a broad "Woo Wee" response when it is furtherest from the coil but can change as the coil gets closer. The responses are not dictated by gold content so much but more in line with their conductivity or how they are seen by the coil eg I have dug specimens with solid chunks of gold enclosed up to depths of 2 1/2 feet that have made a solid "Wee Woo" the whole way and in some cases they have made far stronger signals that a solid nugget of the same size at the same depths.

Hope this helps explain things a little,

JP

Wow, they sure clears it up... I think. You've done an excellent job of explaining it, not sure my alcohol addled brain can get a grasp on the true depth of it though. In the meantime, I'll "dig em all" and hope my "Woo Wees" improve as I dig.

Thanks again for your assistance and insight.

[nuggethunting]

Hello Steve,

I'm dug some nice nuggets that gave me the "Woo-Wee" rather than the "Wee-Woo." Most of the "Wee-Woo's" seems to be gold nuggets somewhat near the surface, or nuggets that are not right at the faint threshold point.

The nugget below I found in California about a year or so ago. I was working a small wash with the GPx-4000 and Coiltek 14-inch Round Mono. I heard a few faint, broad Woo-Wee." For the most part, these are normally deep cans, nails, horseshoes and other iron rubbish at extreme depths. Since I knew I was right in the middle of a patch, I dug down about a foot and the target changed from a "Woo-Wee" to the loud "Wee-Woo." Low and behold it was a nice 12+ Dwt flat specimen of gold.

Dig everything and never loose any sleep at night!

Take care,

Rob Allison

[Uncle Ron]

Yo Guys...My old hand cranked sd2100 goes wee-woo and woo-wee but I discovered with just the right gb'ing, I can dial it in to go WA-HOO! over larger gold.... ...Cheers, Unc

[Guest Mike C...]

Nobody mentioned the warble signals--I've found a few that gave off this signal as well -Miike C...

[FlakMagnet]

Mike C,

Have found a few where the tones were warbles - what a weird kind of signal,

and they were all small.

Flak

[Guest Mike C...]

Hi Flak I found a 1/4 ozer once at a little over a foot down that started out a lite warble and when I dug down and got closer it turned into a wee-woo--I've also dug some small ones with the same results PS--enjoyed your input on the AZO gold trick thread-you asked some very valid questions-2-3 months vs 9 months experience-can you say balls to the wall-that got to thick for me but it was very entertaining -Mike C...

[montana]

SDF. I have some nuggets in my collection that give a warbly or confused signal when oriented one way, then rotated 1/4 turn give a wee--oooo, or a wooo-eeee. I have a 2 gram nugget that gives a wooo-eee at all distances from the coil until out of detected range while in sensitive setting on the gp3500, and on sensitive extra on the GPX4000. Switching to normal timings reverts it to weee-ooo on both detectors at all detectable distances from the coil. A 5 1/2 ounce piece gave me a wooo-eee and sounded exactly like a horseshoe on the GPextreme when I found it and it was very shallow. First swing over was such a god awful overload blast that I had to raise the coil 20 inches to tell what kind of signal I was getting. Keep digging. One of those wooo-eees will be a nugget. The rarest signal of all is the threshold null . The threshold just goes silent for a moment . I've heard 2 of these and both were small nuggets at moderate depth. One was with a GP3500 and the other with the GPX4000. JP has mentioned this rare event and so have a few others. As I recall, none of these were large nuggets nor were they real deep.----Bob

[sdf527]

Crikey,

Now I'm going to have to go back over all the crap targets I've left behind in the desert. I don't lose sleep over most of them, they are usually in the areas with 100 yrs worth of accumulated trash. But, you never know.

[Uncle Ron]

Yo All...In a moderately trashy wash I used to hunt regularly, I would walk over the same big woo-wee sound for several months...I had dug some cans and pieces of aluminum all around it that gave the same sound...Then, one day, I decided I was sick of hearing it, because it was very loud and very irritating...to the point of nulling out the detector when close down...Well, you guessed it, ....Turned out to be this beautiful half ounce pendant, solid nugget. ..Since then I digg'em all ...Cheers, Unc