Setting Up The Sovereign GT

There seems to be some that have a little trouble setting the Minelab Sovereign GT for the Discrimination mode. I thought I would share how I set the controls on my Sov. GT. To begin turn on the machine and increase the volume full clockwise, then set Sensitivity to the Auto mode. Then set Threshold to an audible and stable level, be sure not to set it too high. Continue on to the Disc knob and set it full counterclockwise=off. Set the Notch also to full counterclockwise=off. Set the Threshold toggle switch to Threshold. For my area setting the Noise Cancel toggle switch to Band 2 works best. Next we need to Ground Balance the GT and set the All Metal toggle to All Metal Then set the Tracking toggle switch to Track. The machine is now set up for Ground Balancing. Find ground that is free of any metal targets first, this is a must. Listen to the Threshold tone and begin pumping the search coil up and down above the clear spot of ground. Usually just a few pumps and the Threshold levels out with no change in pitch of the tone. Once you have acheived this hold the coil still and switch the tracking toggle to fixed. Then switch your All Metal toggle to Disc. Setting it to Iron Mask is your choice. You are now ready to go detecting. If you have the DigiSearch digital readout module then put a quarter on the ground and sweep it making sure you are getting a good tone. Calibrate the readout to 180 for a quarter. Listening to the changes in pitch of the tone is very important. High conductors will give you a nice high pitch and low conductors will be a low pitch. The Sovereign GT takes some getting use to but with regular practice it will start to click. The DigiSearch readout helps if you have that too. Another very important point is to have a slower than normal coil swing. It isn't fast but the slow swing pays off because this is a good machine. It is a misunderstood machine but can get deep and find the good stuff. Again practice makes perfect. It will also do well at the beach if you are near one. The GT can be a bit heavy and so I would recommend a Swingy Thingy cord to help support it better. I hope this is helpful and gets some more finds for everyone. Oh one more thing I should say is that the GT doesn't track the ground in the Discrimination mode and so you might want to repeat the GB'ing if you move to another area. Good hunting and be safe all!

John Tomlinson,CET

John's Detectors