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Out again for a short hunt today with the F70...
Posted by steveg
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Out again for a short hunt today with the F70... February 13, 2011 05:04AM |
Went to an unoccupied, dilapidated home today, built in 1930 for about 2 hours; I just recently got permission to hunt this property. This is only about 2 miles from where I live, still in the country (away from town and thus the more substantial EMI).
Turning the machine on, running sens up to 99 and putting it in all metal mode, I heard little interference/EMI, but still set it on the frequency with the least noise. Then, I ran thresh. up to 9, and it was STILL quiet! I ground balanced and started swinging, and quickly found out that the machine-gunning multi-tones had made a return! However, this time, I knew it was trash in the ground (given how quiet the machine was with the coil stationary and off the ground during my setup process). So, I lowered sens. to 70, lowered thresh. to 0, and set disc. at 6 (then later raised it to 15 to cut out some more of the machine gunning), and 4 tone. Running it this way, it was seeing a ton of stuff in the ground, but it was manageable; it was not overloading my brain. There was just a TON of trash; it was even hard to find clean spots to ground balance. The most frustrating part of the machine is what I think you all refer to as "iron falsing." I was getting occasional cracks and pops where an iron signal was trying to break through the disc, but that wasn't an issue. However, mixed in with those cracks and pops were lots of very short, staccato high-tone falses. THIS is where most of the noise on the machine comes from -- these non-repeatable, very short-duration high tones. I guess there's no way to cut down on those, which is fine. I'm learning to accept them, ignore them and just look for the good repeatable tones. My concern is this -- I am guessing that a deep coin, near the fringes of detection depth, would also give a short, staccato high tone mixed in with some lower tones, and also sometimes would not repeat due to the depth -- i.e. similar, I fear, to the iron falses. So, my concern is that as I learn to raise the "filter" on my brain and ignore these high "falses," I fear that I'm also "filtering" what might be the occasional hint of a deep coin. Any thoughts there folks? I mean, These falses occur so often that you almost HAVE to just ignore them to maintain your sanity -- but I sure don't want to develop a bad habit where I get to the point that it's just second nature to ignore the transient highs, and in the process also missing the deep deep coins. Thoughts?
Anyway, focusing on the more repeatable signals, I tried to dig everything from about 30 TID on up-- since at this old of a site, I didn't want to miss any goodies. I dug a TON of junk; several pieces of rusted flat iron, iron washers, bearings, valves, a lead toy army soldier, mason jar lids (no caches!
), etc. Only two pennies, both modern zinc. Other problems at this site are that it is WAY overgrown in most areas; 6" deep grass that was screaming for an F75/T2 LTD with boost process! Anyway, to handle the grass, the only thing I knew to try was raise sens. to 99 (since I was able to do that and keep the machine EMI-quiet) -- and then sweep as low into the grass as I could without getting hung up. I'm sure I wouldn't see anything real deep doing that, with this F70 and no boost, but I was getting iron hits.
One thing which was really cool, and shows the potential of this machine (potential which I am of course FAR from being able to tap!) happened when I got a fairly repeatable mid 60s tone amongst some iron being (mostly) discrimated. After digging a ton of flat, rusty iron the whole hunt, I assumed this to be another...though the tone seemed maybe not "high" enough to be what I'm used to seeing as "falses." I pinpointed it to 6", and so I dug a plug, searched the hole; still there, dug deeper. Checked my dirt pile in pinpoint mode, and it was there. I reached in and pulled out a 90 degree bent, rusty nail. I sat there and said "I guess I was fooled again -- a bent nail must give a medium-tone false instead of high." I sat there a bit frustrated, but checked the pile once more in pinpoint mode. Another hit. I pulled out a 1" piece of a rusty nail. I thought OK, that must be it -- two nails, somehow that must have been the reason for the "different" false. But, instead of pinpoint mode, I checked the pile once more in disc mode, and to my surprise I got a solid low to mid 60s tone. Checked the pile once more, and found it -- just a zinc penny, but still, I was impressed to see this machine be able to find that penny nearly co-located with at LEAST two nails under the coil as well. This was with the concentric elliptical 10" coil. Cool stuff!
While I didn't find anything of value, I AM getting an education on this machine! Incredibly sensitive, and learning how to deal with the tremendous amount of information that barrages me in a junk-filled site. Next time, I think I'll try the 5" DD coil, and see if I can pick some better targets out from amongst the junk. While much of this multiple-acre site is too overgrown to do much with, I really feel like once I clean out more of the trash in the areas that are hunt-able, and in the process get more hours of experience and education "driving" this F70, I might be able to get into something good at this site!
Steve
Oh -- one other thing I found interesting, and which confused me for a bit. I had ground balanced multiple times today, always low 60s. However, when I hit that high grass, and turned sens. up to 99, and then re-balanced, my phase was 43. I thought "that's not right," so I moved a bit and tried again. 43. Hmm...so I went with that setting for awhile, without any apparent problems. Tried again in about 15 minutes -- phase still 43. Did the maxed sens. cause my ground phase reading to be different? I may have read something recently talking about this, (thanks TerraDigger), but I'm not positive. Anyway, just interesting.
Turning the machine on, running sens up to 99 and putting it in all metal mode, I heard little interference/EMI, but still set it on the frequency with the least noise. Then, I ran thresh. up to 9, and it was STILL quiet! I ground balanced and started swinging, and quickly found out that the machine-gunning multi-tones had made a return! However, this time, I knew it was trash in the ground (given how quiet the machine was with the coil stationary and off the ground during my setup process). So, I lowered sens. to 70, lowered thresh. to 0, and set disc. at 6 (then later raised it to 15 to cut out some more of the machine gunning), and 4 tone. Running it this way, it was seeing a ton of stuff in the ground, but it was manageable; it was not overloading my brain. There was just a TON of trash; it was even hard to find clean spots to ground balance. The most frustrating part of the machine is what I think you all refer to as "iron falsing." I was getting occasional cracks and pops where an iron signal was trying to break through the disc, but that wasn't an issue. However, mixed in with those cracks and pops were lots of very short, staccato high-tone falses. THIS is where most of the noise on the machine comes from -- these non-repeatable, very short-duration high tones. I guess there's no way to cut down on those, which is fine. I'm learning to accept them, ignore them and just look for the good repeatable tones. My concern is this -- I am guessing that a deep coin, near the fringes of detection depth, would also give a short, staccato high tone mixed in with some lower tones, and also sometimes would not repeat due to the depth -- i.e. similar, I fear, to the iron falses. So, my concern is that as I learn to raise the "filter" on my brain and ignore these high "falses," I fear that I'm also "filtering" what might be the occasional hint of a deep coin. Any thoughts there folks? I mean, These falses occur so often that you almost HAVE to just ignore them to maintain your sanity -- but I sure don't want to develop a bad habit where I get to the point that it's just second nature to ignore the transient highs, and in the process also missing the deep deep coins. Thoughts?
Anyway, focusing on the more repeatable signals, I tried to dig everything from about 30 TID on up-- since at this old of a site, I didn't want to miss any goodies. I dug a TON of junk; several pieces of rusted flat iron, iron washers, bearings, valves, a lead toy army soldier, mason jar lids (no caches!
), etc. Only two pennies, both modern zinc. Other problems at this site are that it is WAY overgrown in most areas; 6" deep grass that was screaming for an F75/T2 LTD with boost process! Anyway, to handle the grass, the only thing I knew to try was raise sens. to 99 (since I was able to do that and keep the machine EMI-quiet) -- and then sweep as low into the grass as I could without getting hung up. I'm sure I wouldn't see anything real deep doing that, with this F70 and no boost, but I was getting iron hits.
One thing which was really cool, and shows the potential of this machine (potential which I am of course FAR from being able to tap!) happened when I got a fairly repeatable mid 60s tone amongst some iron being (mostly) discrimated. After digging a ton of flat, rusty iron the whole hunt, I assumed this to be another...though the tone seemed maybe not "high" enough to be what I'm used to seeing as "falses." I pinpointed it to 6", and so I dug a plug, searched the hole; still there, dug deeper. Checked my dirt pile in pinpoint mode, and it was there. I reached in and pulled out a 90 degree bent, rusty nail. I sat there and said "I guess I was fooled again -- a bent nail must give a medium-tone false instead of high." I sat there a bit frustrated, but checked the pile once more in pinpoint mode. Another hit. I pulled out a 1" piece of a rusty nail. I thought OK, that must be it -- two nails, somehow that must have been the reason for the "different" false. But, instead of pinpoint mode, I checked the pile once more in disc mode, and to my surprise I got a solid low to mid 60s tone. Checked the pile once more, and found it -- just a zinc penny, but still, I was impressed to see this machine be able to find that penny nearly co-located with at LEAST two nails under the coil as well. This was with the concentric elliptical 10" coil. Cool stuff!
While I didn't find anything of value, I AM getting an education on this machine! Incredibly sensitive, and learning how to deal with the tremendous amount of information that barrages me in a junk-filled site. Next time, I think I'll try the 5" DD coil, and see if I can pick some better targets out from amongst the junk. While much of this multiple-acre site is too overgrown to do much with, I really feel like once I clean out more of the trash in the areas that are hunt-able, and in the process get more hours of experience and education "driving" this F70, I might be able to get into something good at this site!
Steve
Oh -- one other thing I found interesting, and which confused me for a bit. I had ground balanced multiple times today, always low 60s. However, when I hit that high grass, and turned sens. up to 99, and then re-balanced, my phase was 43. I thought "that's not right," so I moved a bit and tried again. 43. Hmm...so I went with that setting for awhile, without any apparent problems. Tried again in about 15 minutes -- phase still 43. Did the maxed sens. cause my ground phase reading to be different? I may have read something recently talking about this, (thanks TerraDigger), but I'm not positive. Anyway, just interesting.
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Re: Out again for a short hunt today with the F70... February 13, 2011 11:36PM |
Mr. Dankowski --
Yes, just FULL of inspiration!! The DVD is on my list, and will be purchased shortly. Can't wait to see it, but especially now the part where you discuss these "coin amongst nails" issues!
Hunting away from the structure is another "DUH" that I didn't think of, but makes sense. Will do next time I'm there.
Finally, I understand ground balance can change drastically on a give site, but here I was a consistent 62 or 63 all day. That's why I wondered if raising sens. from 70 to 99 could result in a change in the ground phase reading -- or, was I really just over a different patch of ground at that point, and it was simply coincidence that it happened just after I had raised sens.?
Steve
Yes, just FULL of inspiration!!
The DVD is on my list, and will be purchased shortly. Can't wait to see it, but especially now the part where you discuss these "coin amongst nails" issues!
Hunting away from the structure is another "DUH" that I didn't think of, but makes sense. Will do next time I'm there.
Finally, I understand ground balance can change drastically on a give site, but here I was a consistent 62 or 63 all day. That's why I wondered if raising sens. from 70 to 99 could result in a change in the ground phase reading -- or, was I really just over a different patch of ground at that point, and it was simply coincidence that it happened just after I had raised sens.?
Steve