GOLDEN MASK 5+ User Manual - Ground Balancing (Gb)
Golden Mask 5 User Guide
GMD -
www.goldenmaskdetectors.com - Golden Mask Official Reseller
12
Golden Mask 5 User Guide
GMD -
www.goldenmaskdetectors.com - Golden Mask Official Reseller
13
3. All Metal (All)
Remember what we said about discrimination, in general? In All metal mode the discrimi-
nation is completely omitted and the detector is equally sensible to all type of metals.
You hear the response from all the metals with a single tone. The tone frequency can be
changed the same way you do it for the bitonal mode.
Identification of the target detected is possible by looking the Spectrum VDI graphic on
the LCD screen.
In All metal mode the Golden Mask 5 achieves the best depth of detection, but the differ-
ence with the Mono mode is not as big as you’d think. However there is a difference and
this tiny difference may be the depth you just need to detect an object. Unfortunately,
this mode is not comfortable in iron-polluted areas, but works best on places where a few
targets are present and you want to search at the maximum depth possible.
Setting the discrimination level (DL)
As it was said in the previous chapter, Golden Mask 5 does not have the usual discrimina-
tion setting other models have - you cannot control where to place the border between
the iron and the other metals, it is fixed (or not exactly, as you will see bellow). And this is
done for two reasons:
1. To protect you making mistakes - setting a wrong discrimination border leads to many
good targets loss.
1. To ensure correct VDI for both 8 and 18kHz - with the frequency change, the response
from the target also changes. Moreover, the signal response changes also with the change
of the ground balance. To maintain an independent VDI display, that will show always the
same no matter what the working frequency and the ground conditions are, the discrimi-
nation border is fixed, but only for the user. In fact it changes upon the detector settings
to ensure iron is always shown as iron, copper is always shown as copper and so on.
The Discrimination level (DL) setting is something different from the usual discrimination.
This setting (on the Golden Mask 5) controls how the detector handles iron targets. To
ensure a proper target identification, especially on big and/or deep targets, the detector
needs time. The faster the detector, the worse the target identification, and vice versa.
If you set a lower DL value, the detectors “holds” the signal for more time, so the signal is
properly identified by the processing engine. Lower values are good to properly identify
deep targets.
If you set a higher value of the DL, the signals are purged faster from the processor queue
and the detector becomes faster. But with faster signal processing, large iron objects
could be idetified as non-ferrous.
In brief: for deep search on clean areas, set the DL to a lower value; for trash-polluted areas
set the DL to a higher value.
Ground balancing (GB)
The ground balance is a setting that compensates for different ground conditions. There
are soils with no to very strong magnetic properties (the so-called mineralization), and the
detector needs to be tuned-up for the soil conditions on the area you are searching in.
There are also conductive soils (salt soils or wet beach sands) that also need ground
compensation. There is also a combination of both mineralization and conductivity, which
is the worse case - on such ground most detectors cannot be ground-balanced or are run-
ning with strongly reduced performance. The Golden mask 5 is no exception.
Strong mineralization reduces the working depth of the detector, while on low mineral-
ized soils the detector achieves its best working parameters.
Ground balancing depend also on the coil used. Usually, larger coils are harder to ground
balance.
The Golden Mask 5 has two options for ground balancing: Auto and Manual.
As you can guess, Auto ground balance is made automatically. It’s easy to be done, but it
is not always the best. Golden Mask 5 has a separate processor unit to perform the ground
balance in the best possible way. And it does it quite well, especially on light soils and lack
of electromagnetic fields.
Manual ground balancing the machine is best, if you perform it the right way. On tough
soils manual ground balance could dramatically increase the machine performance.
If you have troubles with the ground balance of your GM5, you should first change the fre-
quency. This almost always solves the problem. If not, decrease the power level (PL) until
you are able to successfully ground balance your machine.
Remember: the ground balance is essential for the performance of every metal detector!