Recently I've been tossing up the idea of getting a Whites modded SPP/TDI SL/TDI Oz pro mainly for specific areas that contain scattered basalt after some advice here on the ability of these machines to balance out or handle the basalt better.
Being a tight ass :lol: I've been stalling on a purchase & to be truthful I'm more committed, comfortable & have more confidence with using the Minelab PI's. On a recent trip things were pretty slow & I started to think about a close by area that I'd found a couple of bits at before that has the scattered basalt. It was getting late & I needed to head home soon but had about an hour up my sleeve so decided to head there for another go at it.
To cut what's becoming a long story short I found a couple of small bits with the SDC just operating normally & kicking the obvious basalt signals out of the way. I started thinking again about the merits of a Whites machine here but the tight ass in me took over & I decided that rather than keep going I would spend some time trying to find a way, with the few options the SDC does give you, to minimise or balance the effects from the basalt.
After trying all the normal settings & the only really noticeable difference was a quieter response in the lower settings, which was to be expected, I tried it in salt settings 1 & 2. Don't know why but I'd never thought to try it before & was surprised by the results I got albeit in the short period of time I had left. In salt setting 1 there was no or very minimal response to the basalt. A lot of pieces of basalt I tried gave no response but switch back to normal & they would. What pieces did respond were different from what you'd get in the normal settings being a very gold like signal on the basalt to more of a murmur or very mild upsetting of the threshold. Salt setting 2 was like running your SDC hot (like I do in normal 4 mostly) & there were more rocks that would give the murmur or mild upsetting of the threshold but I reckon you'd probably get a little bit more sensitivity in 2?
In both salt 1 & 2 I was still able to find the very small bird shot that SDC owners love (we must we keep going back for more :lol: ) & also some old square type nails at reasonable depth up to around 6". That gave me some confidence that I wasn't losing too much sensitivity especially still getting the bird shot. The metal targets both shallow & deep stood out as different to the murmur of the basalt using the salt modes.
Before I say that this will work without a doubt I need to spend a bit more time + try it in a couple of different areas when time permits. In the meantime if anyone has an area where they get these problem rocks - give it a try & let us know how you go with it.
I also want to try the GP3500 in salt mode with a DD to see how it goes & would be interested to hear if anyone with GP/GPX etc. has tried it or has a problem area they could try it out at? Most likely been tried before with these but it seems to work on the SDC so just thinking it could be worth a try too?
Being a tight ass :lol: I've been stalling on a purchase & to be truthful I'm more committed, comfortable & have more confidence with using the Minelab PI's. On a recent trip things were pretty slow & I started to think about a close by area that I'd found a couple of bits at before that has the scattered basalt. It was getting late & I needed to head home soon but had about an hour up my sleeve so decided to head there for another go at it.
To cut what's becoming a long story short I found a couple of small bits with the SDC just operating normally & kicking the obvious basalt signals out of the way. I started thinking again about the merits of a Whites machine here but the tight ass in me took over & I decided that rather than keep going I would spend some time trying to find a way, with the few options the SDC does give you, to minimise or balance the effects from the basalt.
After trying all the normal settings & the only really noticeable difference was a quieter response in the lower settings, which was to be expected, I tried it in salt settings 1 & 2. Don't know why but I'd never thought to try it before & was surprised by the results I got albeit in the short period of time I had left. In salt setting 1 there was no or very minimal response to the basalt. A lot of pieces of basalt I tried gave no response but switch back to normal & they would. What pieces did respond were different from what you'd get in the normal settings being a very gold like signal on the basalt to more of a murmur or very mild upsetting of the threshold. Salt setting 2 was like running your SDC hot (like I do in normal 4 mostly) & there were more rocks that would give the murmur or mild upsetting of the threshold but I reckon you'd probably get a little bit more sensitivity in 2?
In both salt 1 & 2 I was still able to find the very small bird shot that SDC owners love (we must we keep going back for more :lol: ) & also some old square type nails at reasonable depth up to around 6". That gave me some confidence that I wasn't losing too much sensitivity especially still getting the bird shot. The metal targets both shallow & deep stood out as different to the murmur of the basalt using the salt modes.
Before I say that this will work without a doubt I need to spend a bit more time + try it in a couple of different areas when time permits. In the meantime if anyone has an area where they get these problem rocks - give it a try & let us know how you go with it.
I also want to try the GP3500 in salt mode with a DD to see how it goes & would be interested to hear if anyone with GP/GPX etc. has tried it or has a problem area they could try it out at? Most likely been tried before with these but it seems to work on the SDC so just thinking it could be worth a try too?
