Power lines and detectors pre GPZ and SDC

Evening,

I have asked this question on another forum - the more answers the merrier

I hope this makes sense. I have a GPZ and an SDC and they seem to work pretty good near power lines. Plenty of auto channels to try and find a quiet one.

As these are the only detectors I have ever owned I am wondering if other detectors - older minelab and other brands - are as quiet around power lines? Especially the really big trans-country lines.

The reason I ask is that I found a nice looking area today that has been worked 'in the olden days' and in the short time available (20 minutes) this evening I found quite a few shallow rust nuggets, small/nice sounding bits of lead and absolutely no tell tale signs of old detecting holes. All targets were so shallow that a Kmart brand detector could have found them. This is all within about 60 metres of some bloody big power lines.

Would I be right in guessing older technology might not have been able to handle the EMI so this could be some new ground? Apart from the flogging it got 100 years ago :/ :lol:

Thanks, Northeast

I think the older VLFs worked ok near power-lines.

Had an SD 2000 & SD2100 which did not as it got too noisy.

Same with GPX 4500 & GPX 5000, you are correct in saying the SDC & GPZ work much better in close proximity to power-lines.

To tell the truth my best patch came from right near and under the lines. It had been worked before but not by an sdc.

Yeah you could work with the GP3000 and GP3500 near power lines, but you would need to tune out as you got closer to them using either Mono or Double D

As you get to within 40 or so meters the noise was just unbearable - like walking next to another operator with your detector still turned on. Its amazing how you would get to a certain point in normal mode, and then the waver starts, but you could get to that point where you would battle through the constant waver and try to distinguish target response between the waver, and amazing how many targets were in this area.

Its like detector operators who would walk so close then stop - almost like a line of targets within a certain range from the lines. Thats what I found in most area's here near power lines, but I would battle on until I got the DD Anti Interference Coil

So they would say - lose 75% depth and switch to cancel mode. Which pretty much only got the surface objects. With normal DD and Mono

As the developments continued - they flipped the RX and TX / +1 -1 = 0 and hence we had the Anti Interference Coils developed. These things are great, working in Normal mode underneath Power lines. No loss of depth and extremely quite.

The majority of people that would have specifically gone and purchased the Anti's just to hit the area's near lines would have been minimal. And many spots here I still hit these area's and get many targets along with Gold.

Hope that helps - and yeah any ground is good ground in Gold Country - less detected ground even better

Thanks for the replies. Looks like I've got my next spot for a week or two. The best bit is that it's about 4 minutes from home. Just hope the old timers left me something other than nails, bolts and lead

If working near power lines with a GPX series detector you need to use a DD coil and flip the Rx into cancel mode, it flips the phase of the signal on one side of the coil thus cancelling out any inducted noise. Cancel mode loses a bit of depth but is still usable, the target signal will then be detected with the left side of the coil only.

Most single channel PIs are pretty good around powerlines, and that is probably a very good use for them, particularly if the ground is too hot for a VLF.

Most of the gold I have found with the Gold Racer has been close to powerlines and/or electric fences.