Fixed vs Tracking on GPX

There was a bit of a discussion going on on Fbook about Fixed vs Tracking, with fans on both side of the fence.
Me personally, I use Fixed maybe 70% of the time, but have no hesitation using Tracking if the ground or my obvious lack of concentration dictates.

Last time out, I was detecting with the 5000 and 14x9" evo, I went from some pretty warm ground down into some bad ground, real ironstone playground, and the coil was struggling. I dropped Rx Gain from 13 - 11 which helped but ground balance was still a bit touchy. I would normally just drop it back from Fine-Gold into Enhance, but wanted to experiment a little. I did a Specific ground balance and left it in Tracking. This worked an absolute treat, except when going over a shallow bit of trash, the ground balance would get knocked out of whack and I had to do another re-balance, which when you are in Specific you can't do with the green button.

So after a few re-balances I went to the normal tracking, and then when going over some shallow junk I just re-balanced with a quick press of the Quick-Trak with the little "bip" sound. Anyway I was going up a narrow track and got a nice little signal, two sweeps and I was ready to dig but I stopped myself. I tried to track it out by repeatedly going over it, and while the signal response faded maybe 60% it never fully tracked it out. Then i tried Fixed, ground balanced about 40cm to the side and went over it, and the signal response was good, and consistent and didn't fade. BUT, here's the kicker. I walked back 10m to where I started struggling a bit, re-balanced there and walked back up the track without re-balancing. That target was invisible! So what's the conclusion? If you are going to run Fixed, make sure you re-balance regularly which really means as often as practical. If you get lazy or are forgetting to re-balance, then let the detector do it for you and flick into Tracking. Oh, target was a tiny square bit of brass which took way too long to recover.

Your thoughts on this method pls PT: I run in fixed with my 4500 and GB regularly. If I think a target maybe ground noise, I hold down the green button (tracking) and sweep widely over it. If the target gets only a little softer (it often sounds a bit shitty too - that's an Engineering term), then I'll dig. If it fades to near zero, then I walk. The trick is to swing widely though when the green button is pressed.

Nenad once again very informative and helpful Also I thank you for the many phone calls you have taken answering my queries ............... much appreciated.

Thanks Nenad good guts info

PT or anyone else I too am interested to hearing views on BW's method. I was taught that method by a professional gold detectorist (paid lesson) when first starting out. Accordingly I use it too. To test the theory I have placed gold nuggets on the ground and tested whether the method would track out the gold. It never did so I have been comfortable to use the method. Cheers Dignit

BigWave said:

Your thoughts on this method pls PT: I run in fixed with my 4500 and GB regularly. If I think a target maybe ground noise, I hold down the green button (tracking) and sweep widely over it. If the target gets only a little softer (it often sounds a bit shitty too - that's an Engineering term), then I'll dig. If it fades to near zero, then I walk. The trick is to swing widely though when the green button is pressed.

Click to expand...

Yes that can work BUT there is a bit of caution needed with that method.
When you first press the quick-trak you get about 5 sec of a very fast ground balance rate. After that, if you keep pressing the quick-trak the ground balance will revert to whatever Tracking speed is selected in the menu - in any case a much slower speed.

You definitely want to avoid sweeping over a potential target during this 5 sec period. I would pump the coil for 5 secs, then go over the suspected target.

What I instruct on my training days is to press the Quick track and do a couple circles around the target area - this sets an average of the ground mineralisation. Then release the button and go over the suspected area. If the target sharpens up 9/10 times it'll be a metal object. If it dissapears then it's just ground.

Great info Nenad, I run with the tracking locked as much as possible and I try to set it up to be slightly on the more positive side and update the tracking the moment I hear the slightest of rises in the threshold from ground noise and it there has been little change then I update the tracking aout every 15 minutes just to make sure all is well,

I have tried to track out some small targets even though some of my machines are quite aggressive with their tracking I have had very little success,

john

Thanks PhaseTech

This sort of info really is appreciated by a pro like you Nenad.
Cheers Jaros