Finally getting around to.....

digging a test garden. I haven't planned it on paper but I've been sanitizing the area with an earth magnet and detector. Unbelievable, the amount of ferrous in the ground. From powder size to nail size. I have to pinch the tiny bits off the magnet. No wonder the f-75 was freakin out there. I'll have to get out the tiller....more work than I expected but, has to be done.
I bring this up because I'd like to get some ideas on the best way to lay it out. I mainly hunt old home sites, farm fields and woods for old coins, buttons, jewelry etc, never clad. I have many samples to use. What do you say guys?

Hey Ozzie,

Sounds like you have the right idea with your garden. Im using a rare magnet too on a old site, theres just too much iron and no way around it.

[www.findmall.com]

VERY good Ozzie. ((Eye-opener......isn't it!!!)).

I would bury mostly clad dimes, one fairly deep nickel.....a small 10Kt gold ring.......and one half-dollar.

Should the deepest be 10"? Also, should I bury I.H and large cents and silver? Why only clad when I only go for the old coins? Any masking scenarios?

Tom.... dont you have a DVD on test gardens?? I hunt some of those same type areas you hunt ozzie. This may be dumb of me.... but id use the test garden to tweak my detector and know its functioning correctly. Otherwise you dont have nearly the same conditions and expect the same results at all. Those fields i hunt are depth killers with hot rocks, minerals, iron, rust, brass ect.... and those are the ones that were long gone before the 1900s. Add all the trash anything standing after 1930s and they are tuff to hunt. The pay off is fantastic if you get your detector tweaked.... but ive found it easier to tweak it in the field on found targets. A test garden gives you some standardization ... you know what your coils should do and get to learn your settings. Im not certain the readings will be what you can expect in the field since at any depth these reading may be totally different based on whats being processed and averaged to give you a TID.

Dew

I buried a test garden arond 20 years ago and I think the neighbors felt I lost it after retirement ..fast forward to today and is a valuable tool in testing a unit. As far as what you bury my advice its your call as you know what you are looking for in your hunts....Yes I have a silver dime and small gold ring along with clad at various depths..
Unfortunately going to have to give it a few years of weathering before its just ball park testing and tough to imitate a target thats been in the ground for 75-100 years or so but in years to come will be a valuable tool.

PS: do make a map as over the years going to be tough to remember whats where and depths etc..

Dan... what kind of MOVEMENT and coverage have you noticed in the targets... or can you judge that? Surely after 20 years this has some affect on the targets.... like minerals, dropped iron, and depth. Do we need to keep it sanitized or do we care? Going back to another thread.... when we buy a new detector how do we know what the reaction should be with this detector? If you havent used many detectors you could get some miss information much like air testing.

Dew

Unfortunately 20 years ago never thought of cleaning out the masking junk but think about is your average hunt area sanitized?......Most items have dropped an inch or less and the gold ring is getting tougher to hear and laid flat when buried may have turned or perhaps dropped as it was buried at 4 inches...Indian head penny seems louder but of course probably leached into the ground causing a halo of sorts...Even after 20 years probably still ballpark against coins buried for 100 years. Next time you get what you know is that deep goodie in the field try different detector settings as it sure helps the learning process...

Yes "eye opener" it is. I think I will keep sanitizing the area and then taint some of the targets myself. Then I'll know when testing, what's going on...I hope. Lots of food for thought.....thanks guys!

A clad dime for testing purposes is sufficient. No need for silver dimes. Indian Head pennies are slightly lower in conductivity as a modern zinc cent; yet, a modern zinc cent makes for ample test-target. If you can ID and dig clad dimes and zinc cents.......you will most certainly dig large cents.
I would like to say 10" depths; yet, your mineralization dictates. Try different depths until you find 'fringe' parameters. Yes, the entire front/beginning of the Real World Hunting Techniques DVD covers test-garden data.

And, once again, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, that DVD is a must-have...

Steve

You bring up a good point Tom. Ive noticed a lot of people want to make a test garden with the thought of duplicating what they will find in the field. I cant see that happening unless like Dan its been there 20 years. The down side to a test garden i see is many times you are disturbing and sanitizing the soil and placing targets in it that move without knowing if they have turned or sunk. I see a test garden as just that a way to test your equipment... be it current or new. Which will give you reasonable expectations of how they work. Its important to know your equipment is working properly.... or should i say ISNT working properly. However, to expect the same results in the field just likely isnt going to happen. I think 99 percent of us could only use the results to know we have a problem and send the detect in for service.... or that we just bought a piece of crap. Even then if you dont know how its supposed to operate the only thing you have it to compare to is... what you have been using (and learned hopefully) not what you just bought. Test gardens are great tools, but learn your detector and how it operates thoroughly so you make needed adjustments in the field. Pay attention to what you are digging and why you dug it then make adjustments to YOURSELF. Keepers are deep now days you have to learn what they sound like and be able to adjust yourself and your equipment to changing conditions if you cant you are just going to be digging targets others have just missed not those others didnt know were there.

Dew

Dew,

A standardized test-garden is for the detector. A 'complex' test-garden is for YOU.

((( This is audio/visual explained in the DVD ))).

steveg Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And, once again, at the risk of sounding like a
> broken record, that DVD is a must-have...
>
> Steve


Yes, a must have, I've watched mine atleast 6 times.
Seems I see something new each time.
Well worth the money too.

After work and when the sun dropped behind the trees, I figured I'd work on the test garden. It was a 100 degree day and the black flies were a nuisance so I only filled the 10" deep hole with a clad quater and the 9" deep hole with a clad dime, that's as far as I got. The rest of the holes are dug but not backfilled. The backfill in the two holes, sanitized.

Before backfilling the two holes I placed a straightedge across the hole and measured plumb from the coin to the straightedge, so these measurements are spot on. Packed the dirt tight with a hammer in 2 inch stages. I went in the house and got the old f-75 turned it on and I'm getting a little interference so I went thru the freq's and picked the quietest....still emi. cranked it up, GB'd it, 0 disc, 4 tone. swung it over the 10" deep quarter. I couldn't distinguish the hit because of the bit of emi. Swung over the 9" deep dime and I did get a slight high tone and I mean slight.....Hmmmmm not happy with that.

Went back in the house to get the cz-3d and was thinking, if this machine dosen't detect the 10" quarter, I'm going to be in a bad mood. Set it up, GB'd it, sens on 5, enhanced mode Oh and I have on the 10.5 " coil. Fingers crossed, I swing it over the 10" deep quarter and bam! bam! bam! bam! Holy cow, I think I'm going to have to dig a 12 13 or 14 inch deep hole for this cz. Swung over the 9" deep dime, same thing....sweet. The only problem, and I don't know why (help me on this guys) was the pinpoint wouldn't sound on the quarter and just a peep on the 9" dime. By this time I'm soaked with sweat and the bugs are biting, so that concludes the test for the day. Happy about the cz, not so with the 75. Hoping the emi IS the problem.

Yes......EMI can be a show-stopper. Try the 8" coil (or even the 5" coil) on the CZ......and see how it performs. You will see why (in fairly clean areas) the CZ is still THE 'benchmark'. (((( and it's a 1986-1990 invention platform )))). Never assume 'newer-is-better'.

I was telling my friend about the results and he said, get the ML SE (his machine that I borrowed) and see if it hits the 10" deep quarter. So as I was on the phone with him I got out the SE, noise cancel, manual sens all the way up, deep on, all white screen except a couple ferrous blacked out. Swung it over the 10" deep quarter and nothing... I didn't expect that. Passed it over the 9" deep dime and I got a slight warble. Basically the same results as the 75. I'll be playing around with the test area when the wheather gets back into the 80's..... too hot. 8" coil on the cz is next.

From my last post--Tom why do you think the czs' pinpoint didn't pick up the 10" deep quarter?

Out of range for pinpoint mode.

Or..............when you invoke pinpoint on the ground...yet.....away from the target; the pinpoint partially 'nulls' due to the mineralization of the ground; subsequently detuning the sensitivity of the detector......just enough so as NOT to be able to pinpoint-detect the target when you finally bring the coil over the target.

Question for Tom, I know you are a stickler for details and the need to sanitize the soil in a test garden for accurate data acquisition. BUT... how do you keep your test targets from sinking in the dirt and remaining at the depth you buried them? I mean, if you bury a coin at 10", what's to stop it from sinking to 11" a year or two later?! I have thought about this a lot and I'm just curious as to how you keep your test garden "calibrated". Thanks in advance!

"Happy hunting" - Schultzie

In my test-garden..........targets sink at a rate of 1" every 4-1/2 years.

My solution is easy...........exact length (pencil diameter) wooden dowel rods ... with the coins attached by glue on one end.

((( I had to implement this a few years ago..........as I became tired of the necessity of 'recertifying' the test-garden every few months ))).