High Mineralization help

I apologize in advance if this has been covered previously, using the search feature did not return an answer. Tonight I took the LTD to a friend's test garden, and I unfortunately do not have the details of the test garden, i.e. how old, how clean, etc but the results (or lack thereof) surprised me.

The ground in this area of PA runs "hotter" than most any other area I hunt, the FEO meter runs .1 minimum and more often at .3, with spikes going all the way to 1. The first three items in the test garden were a 9" dime, a 7" dime and a 5" dime. I started with a disc of 1 and sensitivity fairly smooth and stable at about 60......I heard nothing. I moved the sensitivity to 70 and other than chatter I heard nothing. Dropping the disc to 0 and moving the sensitivity to 80 the machine was very noisy and unstable but the coins finally all became barely audible with a small low tone "blip". At 0 and 85 the machine was completely unstable but the signals on the 9" dime and 7" dime became fairly repeatable as low tone audio with VDI in the upper teens to low 20's, the 5" dime was now a jumpy high tone in both directions. I did not attempt any higher sensitivity, nor did I go into AM. I was running in BP in all cases.

My question (concern?) is this.....was it the mineralization making the LTD shrink to a mere weakling as compared to the results I normally get? Could I have done something else to bring these coins to light? A club hunt in the same neighborhood is upcoming and I have no reason to expect the ground conditions to vary much from I experienced tonight, any and all suggestions appreciated.

Dave

"... as compared to the results I normally get."

Please go on...

By "results I normally get", I am referring to having dug many clad and silver dimes at 6" and beyond with normal settings since getting the LTD last year. Another detail I failed to mention was the fact that I had the 5" DD coil on the machine at the time. I realize that asking to hit the 9" dime with the 5" coil may be a bit "hopeful" but I have hit honest to goodness 8 inches on silver dimes with this coil, in much more moderate soil conditions. Also, the GB was running low 60's at this site.

Thanks for the prompt to add details Rebels!!

Dave

Dave.........yes, minerals can be THAT bad; yet, I'm a stickler on 'controlled environments'. I do question how the test-garden was set up/sanitized. It can make a large difference.