What percentage of iron signals are really keepers?

Tom, in your guesstimation, what's the percentage of iron signals a detectorist receives when hunting the wet water in discrim. mode that are actually deep keepers (rings, jewelry) that the detector is ID'ing incorrect? Watching the DVD's yesterday, I found the 'good finds' averages you spoke about very interesting. Wanted to take it a step further though...

Let's suppose a hunter was hunting the wet sand up to about knee deep & received 50 iron signals on his detector (again, in disc. mode obviously) over the course of his hunt. How many of those are keepers (rings, jewelry, coins, etc.) that are incorrectly reading as iron if you had to take a guess?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/2011 08:38PM by njnydigger.

I'm not Tom........but I find about 48 out of 50 irons are just that........iron. But when they are not.........usually real keepers.......makes it worthwhile. Personally, learning your machines iron idiosyncrasies is probably the most important skill one can develop.

I believe you refer to the 'fringe-depth' INCORRECT ID.

First.......... very few targets in the wet salt sand......or....... in the water...... are jewelry items anyway. ((( Yet.... certainly enough of them are good 'keepers'; hence, we keep coming back to the beach ))).

Secondly........... I would speculate that approx 40% of the "false ID's"........ are still non-ferrous targets. This is a VERY hard question to answer..............as 'Brand X' detector may 'false-ID' in the units last 5% of it's fringe depth capabilities...........................and....................'Brand Y' detector may 'false-ID' in the units last 1% of it's fringe depth capabilities. This will dramatically 'skew' the results.

is it me or do others find the same results in dirt too

caretaker --

I'm with you...I was thinking "why did the original post refer to iron signals in WET SAND only?" I have this issue in the dirt as well!

Seriously, though, I will say that I fully agree with TerraDigger -- learning your machine's response in iron is of UTMOST importance; I still have alot of learning to do in this regard with my Explorer, but am slowly getting better at knowing what is under my coil, fe or non-fe, before digging...and this was the biggest stumbling block I had with my F70, as I've said many times on here before. IMO, once you figure out how your machine (whatever one you happen to use) responds to different-sized iron in different types of ground and ground conditions, you are well on your way to being a very good detectorist...

Steve

Electronically....there is a phase-angle differential between wet salt mode....... and dirt mode (non 'salt' mode)...... that presents a different percentage of mis-ID 'iron-falsing'.............yet, the principle still remains the same. Learning how fringe-depth targets respond..... IS very rewarding.

I find its not only the detector that affects the results but its the hunter setting up their equipment wanting to push the envelope. For me dirt hunting has all the added issues of size, minerals, moisture, and a lot more targets in that 7 gal of soil that processor is attempting to read than the beach. Id certainly dig more of the fringe targets on the beach than i have in Indiana soil. Just because of the lost time required digging a hole id say the pay off just isnt there. I know ... someone is going to say you just remove a little dirt and the targets can be IDed. That said.... our parks are really starting to get picked over and like Tom said learning these responds may have its rewards. I have been hunting a local beach and yesterday i noticed crown cap... really deep ones on an SE not only hint in the lower right... but lower and upper right. I dug a wheat penny a good 12 to 14 inches down that danced all over the top screen left and right.... and never settled.

Dew

I feel on land or sea the percentage has to be very low on keepers verus iron thus I feel learning what the audio is telling you and all machines differ to cut down the odds is what its all about lest you break your back digging.
Having said the above a thin gold chain or tennis bracelet with diamonds may make it all worth while.

I do know get yourself an old Tesoro that hipmounts for fresh water and a bobbi pin or fishhook will cackle but a small gold chain will hit as an example..with disc. at zero....

Once found a several thousand dollar thin gold bracelet for a woman loaded with diamonds and it registered a #2 using a Whites which is just a tad above iron so that ought to tell you something...and yes I used mixed mode audio accepting -10 to #10 and it really works if you have a Spectrum or XLT....

Dew,

That bottle cap.................then the wheat penny....,,,,,,, were very good observations on your part. It is not a fault of the unit you were using; rather, the fact that those targets were 'fringe depth' targets. To learn the nuances of your unit......in regards to 'how' it responds to 'fringe depth' targets .... is (numerously) rewarding.

Im liking this beach hunting Tom. Without a lot of minerals you can really isolate deep targets and acquire some information you might not get while dirt hunting. However, those things learned can be applied when back on solid ground. Get the Xcal this weekend ..... its on its way. Then the fun starts. As much as i hunt im hoping to learn it quickly.

Dew

Very easy unit to learn/operate. A bit heavy....... but worth it.

I've dug a lot of deep iffy iron to high coin bouncers on my F75 LTD, and not once has it panned out.

On the other hand, on my CZ-70, I can get an iron to coin bouncer and have found several deep silver dimes that way.

YMMV.

Same here with F75 but on the beach
with just a threashold waver i have dug some goodys.

gman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Same here with F75 but on the beach
> with just a threashold waver i have dug some
> goodys.


Just a fluctuation in the threshold eh?

My bouncers on the T2.....almost always iron..like yours.....but a few have been co-located targets.......a 1916s Barber in EF was the last one It was 4" deep with a big old nail next to it......disc was zero....it was a high-low reading.

What is interesting is most of us are talking about detectors with VID or TID screens. What do the SOV, Xcal or other tones ID machines handle this question? Are most of these machines used on the beach where they tend to ignore iron?

Dew

dewcon4414 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What is interesting is most of us are talking
> about detectors with VID or TID screens. What
> do the SOV, Xcal or other tones ID machines handle
> this question? Are most of these machines used
> on the beach where they tend to ignore iron?
>
> Dew


The Sovereign is a metered machine (optional), in addition to the meter it has some of the best audio out there, conveys a lot of info, but like any detector out there, you'll still dig some iron when turn hunting.

My V3i is really sensitive with iron, seems to false a lot if the GB is not PERFECT.
A better question for me is "What percentage of good target signals are iron?" eehehhe

I do wonder about iron signals being good targets and I run a very low tone (5) which is just a ticking sound to alert me to the presence of iron. The sound really doesn't give much of a feel to target size as a long beep, as it is short and just repeats. I think I may have to start pinpointing the iron more often to make sure it's not coins. I know this is possible if I have my ground balance off. A few hunts ago I buried a coin at only 4"-5" at a site to get my filters and recovery speed set and the coin was mostly sounding like iron. Clearly I had ground balanced over some target, most likely iron, so that alerted me to needing a perfect GB with this sensitive detector.

Costume jewelry
Stainless Rolex
Swiss Army Knife
Sunglasses
Cell phones
Key rings
etc.........

Let me take this a bit further.

What percentage of say iron ONLY tid on the f75 are keepers. Personally I have never recovered a keeper from a solid but deep iron id reading.

I always dig bouncy iron to non ferrous signals and find a lot of silver and wheats that way, but tried digging the deep iron signals that id, and no luck. Btw, I'm talking about thousands of signals dug land hunting. I also hunt in AM all the time.

Less than 1%