This can be helpful for high-mineralized and tough ground such as saltwater and hot rocks. Manual: Allows the user the ability to manually set the ground balance.Automatic: Quick and simple, auto ground balance automatically sets the best parameters for detection in your hunting terrain.Usually, this setting is fine for low-mineralized ground. Preset: Factory-set by the manufacturer for average conditions for the average user.There are four different types of ground balance: Ground balancing is an adjustable feature and allows for a detector to essentially cancel out these ground minerals and signals, so you can better hear true signals from desired metallic targets. This means that these minerals respond to a searchcoil’s electromagnetic field in a similar way that metallic objects do causing the metal detector to provide a signal to the user in a way that they can’t determine if it’s a good object or ground signals. Minerals in your hunting terrain like saltwater, black sand, or iron-rich soil in red earth sets off a detector with false signals.
It also filters out the “chatter” from other sources of electromagnetic interference from power lines and the like. Toning it down allows you to better differentiate between good targets and false signals from ground minerals. There are times to decrease sensitivity to improve performance. While it may be tempting to run at max sensitivity all the time, you don’t drive 100 mph everywhere you go.
So, not only are weak signals intensified, so are false signals from iron and other natural magnetic mineralization and electrical interference sources. Running it “hot” means running your detector with maximum sensitivity that may work well for experienced users, but it also means a detector can get “noisy.” For example, detecting hot may allow you to hear more weak signals from deep or small targets, but it also allows the detector to respond to ground signals generated from high-mineralized soils.
This is the detector’s ability to pick up the smallest targets, metallic substances with the weakest electromagnetic fields, and to adjust a detector’s ability to respond to various factors in the environment.