L-rod technique and tips

[Mike(Mont)]

Tip #31: Ground probes for very dry sand. Please note you need quite a bit of wire in the coil or else add a resistor between the leads. You could severely damage your equipment if you don?t do this correctly.

One schematic shows 47k resistor parallel with the coil (across the two output leads).

[Mike(Mont)]

Tip #32: A you tube channel "Stefan Burns" has some good solar activity info. You can go to settings, captions, and auto-translate to various languages.

[Mike(Mont)]

Tip #33: Those efnmr frequencies are sensitive to geomagnetic solar activity. Well, probably all frequencies are. LOL A changing magnetic field is just bad for locating. One LRL manufacturer uses a sweep function, a few Hz either side of the frequency. I call it "Beating around the bush". The idea being that hopefully once each sweep it will hit the exact frequency once. It will certainly take longer to build up a signal line. I think he said you might have to wait a half hour. I have not had much success with that but I admit I am impatient.

You can find some of Dell Winders old frequencies on the geotech1.com LRL Reports page for the VR-800. Gold is 612 Hz, silver is 466 Hz. Those work a good part of the time.

[Mike(Mont)]

Tip #33: Those efnmr frequencies are sensitive to geomagnetic solar activity. Well, probably all frequencies are. LOL A changing magnetic field is just bad for locating. One LRL manufacturer uses a sweep function, a few Hz either side of the frequency. I call it "Beating around the bush". The idea being that hopefully once each sweep it will hit the exact frequency once. It will certainly take longer to build up a signal line. I think he said you might have to wait a half hour. I have not had much success with that but I admit I am impatient.

You can find some of Dell Winders old frequencies on the geotech1.com LRL Reports page for the VR-800. Gold is 612 Hz, silver is 466 Hz. Those work a good part of the time.

I haven't done enough with the sweep to be able to say how well it works during solar magnetic storm. If you watched the latest Stefan Burns youtube video he says storms are coming so I guess I should find out. My experience has been the signal line does not hit the target straight on. I didn't wait a half hour so maybe that is the problem for me. Besides my equipment is different. It's certainly worth a test to see when the storms hit.

[Mike(Mont)]

Tip #34: Smartphone magnetometer. There are several magnetometers at the App Store. Many are free and some cost a few dollars. I got one called Physics Toolbox that has a five star rating for free. It shows a moving graph of the magnetic fields. You want the total which is a white line near the top of the graph. You can enlarge/zoom it by spreading your fingers over it to get much more detail.

I’m not too schooled on these mags but you probably need to calibrate your phone sensors by moving your phone in a figure 8 pattern. I do this is all three axis. Remember to keep your phone away from metal objects.

After you have watched this several times you can get an idea of how much the magnetic field is shifting and decide if locating conditions are worthwhile.

Also there is a web site called Spaceweatherlive.com that has mag read outs. The DST section shows where the graph goes into storm conditions or you can click on More Info and get stackplot for Europe or America’s that has many mag graphs all together. These are live so it is not just an estimate. Which some research you can find which mag is nearest to your location. Also the Bz graph shows when the field goes South. This means much energy is being pushed into the earth. Not good.

[Mike(Mont)]

The stack plots. Are ordered by latitude with the top graphs more northerly.

The nice feature on the NOAA mobile magnetic field calculator site is the magnetic storm index meter is for your area assuming you have gps coordinate location set on your phone or entered manually.

[Mike(Mont)]

Another note about rod lock times. Silver at 8.7kHz has a much shorter lock time than gold. Many times a bad/weak signal the rods will begin to open almost immediately. If you see the rods start to open that pretty much tells you they are not locked any more. Lock time is a good indicator of good/bad targets. Practice it on a visible target before you go out in the field. Lock time is the same for near or distant target, no difference.

[Mike(Mont)]

Tip #35: Higher frequencies develop a signal faster than lower frequencies. But they also lose the signal line faster during interference or when you shut off the transmitter and count lock time.

[Mike(Mont)]

Tip #36: Here is some info on the Gold X-Finder. https://device.report/manual/9140494

[Mike(Mont)]

I haven't done enough with the sweep to be able to say how well it works during solar magnetic storm. If you watched the latest Stefan Burns youtube video he says storms are coming so I guess I should find out. My experience has been the signal line does not hit the target straight on. I didn't wait a half hour so maybe that is the problem for me. Besides my equipment is different. It's certainly worth a test to see when the storms hit.

Early tests in not too much solar activity I was better able to hit the test target using the Contraption all-electronic locator using a one second sweep of four Hz either side of 612 Hz gold frequency. I know better than to make any proclamation until a few days of testing. I have a new name for the frequency sweep "Shake it off". LOL I know many times I get a line and nothing there, but just walking through the area it seems to degauss and next time I get a good hit. This might be what is happening here. So we will see what happens in the days to come. I turned on the transmitter for ten minutes before searching.

[Mike(Mont)]

Tip #37: I already mentioned this a bit but if you are having trouble getting the rods to respond be sure to tilt the rod handles in towards each other slightly. If the rod tips are angled down you can put a slight amount of pressure to tilt them inwards without them moving. With that slight pressure it just makes it easier for the rods to get moving when you cross a signal line. My guess is some people do not realize they are putting pressure outwards slightly so this can make a real difference especially when the tips are angled down. I would say this is important and it can really help you get a rod response.

[waltom0798]

Do I have to turn off the transmitter when I count the blocking time?

[Mike(Mont)]

No. Leave transmitter on. Sorry got the confusion.

There two ways?you can turn off the transmitter and count lock time if you want, but no need to do that.

[Mike(Mont)]

Tip #38: Use low power. This is important. Start with low power setting. Too much power creates a large halo effect, and since the field edges are strong you might assume you hit the target but in reality it was the field edge. If you go from high power to low power there is a good chance the target will be masked.

I don?t know if I mentioned this, but when changing frequency you need to turn off the machine for five minutes first.

[Mike(Mont)]

Learn to calibrate and use your cell phone magnetometer. Local conditions can vary. Short of that you can lower the frequency one or two Hz on days when you cant get a rod response on your test target. I am talking about the gold efnmr frequency which for me is 40.2 Hz so I drop it down to between 38 and 39Hz. Higher frequencies would require a much larger drop by a multiple. Some cell phone cars contain a magnet to keep the cover closed. You won?t get a good reading.

There is an outfit Alpha Labs that sells an earth field mag. That would be nice to try. I don?t know if it works any better than a cell phone mag, but my cell phone almost always gives a lower reading than the government mags. So at least it is a good idea to check and make sure you can hit your test target.