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Thanks for the gold, Tom!
Posted by diggwr27
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Thanks for the gold, Tom! October 13, 2014 04:35PM |
I have been hunting a site I call the iron mine all summer, an old farm house stood here and there is iron from huge to mediun to small buried all over this area plus about a million nails and other small bits of rusty wire and other junk.
Hard to believe that they knocked down this old house and took most of the wood away but somehow managed to leave every bit of metal at this site.
Many have tried hunting here, once, as far as I know only one lone silver dime is all that has ever come out of this crazy place for anyone else and some of these guys were MD club members that were very experienced and were using some top end machines.
I hunted here a ton in the past myself, never found much of anything using several different detectors and coils but even with all the past frustration I knew there had to be a way to get through all this mess and have more success.
A few months ago I showed up with my F70 and tried something new to me, high power all the way with sense at 99, thresh at 9, All Metal, SL speed.
Tons of signals but I looked for a few higher numbers on the screen and some fleeting good higher than iron tones and worked those signals to determine if they were real non ferrous targets or just false high tones thrown off around the perimeter of all the rusty items that littered almost every inch of this place.
There are no solid stable signals here, everything is masked one way or another and the best I could do was notice a few blocks of higher numbers mixed in with all the iron lower numbers but over time and with practice I slowly suceeded in digging up some great targets and I was fooled less and less by all that iron.
I still dug some of the more odd iron signals because they could be pretty cool, but most of those nails I can leave in the dirt with confidnce by this point.
I tweaked the settings a bit in repeated visits, lowered the thresh a bit, the sense too, a switch to the much faster DE speed seemed to help a lot.
After spending time here this summer with all of my coils, the F75 DD, the 5" DD sniper and the 10" elliptical concentric I think I have done pretty good and have learned so much about sites like this and the capabilities of the F70.
I even went back with my Vaq one more time and using what I learned dug another good target also surrounded by iron and from the same 6" depth area all the other good targets seemed to be hanging out.
A few more visits and the good targets seemed to be thinning out so time to try some new settings to see if they could work even better and I could squeeze just a few more good targets out of this challenging site.
What I chose was something I knew about but had not yet tried and that was Tom's idea of mono tone and disc low at 4 or under.
This was a revelation...DE speed, sense at 85, thresh turned down to 0 or even under to -1 and -2 and the extreme jumping seemed to go away for the most part, each and every target which by this time were pretty much iron only were still there but one by one they showed up on the screen and were stable and recognizable as I slowly moved the large DD coil around this site.
I went over an area where I had dug a few wheaties before, not super old in the 20's and teens like a different area where I also found silver, but all in the 40's and I thought I cleaned out this area pretty well.
Using this new method I discovered I had not...one more high number target showed up surrounded by iron and this time it was still a bit jumpy but I had a much smaller block of only about 3-4 mid 70's numbers show up on the screen and pretty much stayed there.
This is what popped up, again from that same 6" depth and again in the same hole where a few bits of iron also made a home.
Like I said, a revelation, an "AHA" moment I call these where I learn a lesson that sticks with me and might even change the way I think and hunt.
I had to try these mono tone settings at my regular park areas and see if they would work, areas with not so much of that iron problem but with plenty of normal can slaw, foil, tabs and all the other junk we have to deal with.
I am happy to report that it does...or seems to, anyway.
Usually in parks I hunt in 4H tones and listen for good tones before I look at the screen.
I use the large DD coil a lot but even with the small DD sniper in that heavy trash the bottle tops can be a problem so I still keep the disc down at about 4 and rim all those jumpy high tone high number targets to se if they drop down to lower numbers and even iron which they do most of the time.
I can cover a decent size area pretty efficiently this way, I skip most targets that jump more than 2-3 numbers scanned fron 2 different directions because most of the time these turn out to be trash and only dig all the stable signals I come across that stay within that 3 number jump or sound really good and I have been pretty sucessful.
These would be shallow targets at 6" or less where most of my good targets seem to be, of course if they are deeper and especially at 8" or more I realize that those numbers on the screen might not be credible so I use the tonal info much more in those cases.
In about 4 hunts in some trashy areas in my parks I have practiced this mono tone method, got more comfortable looking at the screen which is what you pretty much need to do and have gotten pretty good at using these settings.
The stability with the one tone seems unreal, very little jumping at all and even at an area right next to some high power lines at the edge of a park I was hunting, an area where my F2 would go nuts and even my pretty quiet most of the time Compadre and Vaq would talk to me, the F70 was unusually stable and quiet...like those power lines and absolutely no EMI sources were anywhere in the vicinity.
I found a bunch of clad in these last few hunts, a few junk rings, avoided digging most trash and plucked a few other good targets I had missed in previous trips to these same areas like a couple scout neck slides.
Then, in an area I can guarantee I have hunted before with several detectors and coils because it is right near the area where I park in the vinity of a picnic pavilion, I came across a nice solid signal in the foil area.
It was surrounded by other trash and I was using that big coil, thresh at -2, DE speed and sense on 85 not way lower which I usually switch to in areas with heavy trash.
That signal still came in solid and clear with very little jumping, a steady 23-25 numbers on the screen with small movements of the coil and well within my rule of digging all solid signals no matter where they showed up.
999 times out of 1000 this signal would usually be foil like a gum wrapper, a sports drink cap insert, a condiment package or a small piece of can slaw and that was what I expected to dig.
Like every time I dig up something unexpected I was surprised.
I opened a small hole and about 3" deep I see the edge of something small, round and gold in color.
Plucked it out, cleaned it off and looked inside and saw the numbers I love to see...14k plus a P which means plumb.
Not huge, only 1.3 grams, totally disguised as foil, totally surrounded and masked a bit by other trash and using this mono tone setting and the big coil it still showed up loud and clear like a red flag was sticking up out of the ground begging me to dig it.
Tom, I might not use this new method I learned all the time or I might use it as my prime hunting settings I don't know yet...I have more sites to revisit and more experimenting to do, but I can say that I might not have ever thought about using this mono tone method if I didn't read about in it one of your compilation posts/threads that I bookmarked and study.
I do know that this is just one more technique and tool that will definitely come in handy in the future if needed.
This piece of gold I fully credit to you so thanks!
HH
Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2014 04:44PM by diggwr27.
Hard to believe that they knocked down this old house and took most of the wood away but somehow managed to leave every bit of metal at this site.
Many have tried hunting here, once, as far as I know only one lone silver dime is all that has ever come out of this crazy place for anyone else and some of these guys were MD club members that were very experienced and were using some top end machines.
I hunted here a ton in the past myself, never found much of anything using several different detectors and coils but even with all the past frustration I knew there had to be a way to get through all this mess and have more success.
A few months ago I showed up with my F70 and tried something new to me, high power all the way with sense at 99, thresh at 9, All Metal, SL speed.
Tons of signals but I looked for a few higher numbers on the screen and some fleeting good higher than iron tones and worked those signals to determine if they were real non ferrous targets or just false high tones thrown off around the perimeter of all the rusty items that littered almost every inch of this place.
There are no solid stable signals here, everything is masked one way or another and the best I could do was notice a few blocks of higher numbers mixed in with all the iron lower numbers but over time and with practice I slowly suceeded in digging up some great targets and I was fooled less and less by all that iron.
I still dug some of the more odd iron signals because they could be pretty cool, but most of those nails I can leave in the dirt with confidnce by this point.
I tweaked the settings a bit in repeated visits, lowered the thresh a bit, the sense too, a switch to the much faster DE speed seemed to help a lot.
After spending time here this summer with all of my coils, the F75 DD, the 5" DD sniper and the 10" elliptical concentric I think I have done pretty good and have learned so much about sites like this and the capabilities of the F70.
I even went back with my Vaq one more time and using what I learned dug another good target also surrounded by iron and from the same 6" depth area all the other good targets seemed to be hanging out.
A few more visits and the good targets seemed to be thinning out so time to try some new settings to see if they could work even better and I could squeeze just a few more good targets out of this challenging site.
What I chose was something I knew about but had not yet tried and that was Tom's idea of mono tone and disc low at 4 or under.
This was a revelation...DE speed, sense at 85, thresh turned down to 0 or even under to -1 and -2 and the extreme jumping seemed to go away for the most part, each and every target which by this time were pretty much iron only were still there but one by one they showed up on the screen and were stable and recognizable as I slowly moved the large DD coil around this site.
I went over an area where I had dug a few wheaties before, not super old in the 20's and teens like a different area where I also found silver, but all in the 40's and I thought I cleaned out this area pretty well.
Using this new method I discovered I had not...one more high number target showed up surrounded by iron and this time it was still a bit jumpy but I had a much smaller block of only about 3-4 mid 70's numbers show up on the screen and pretty much stayed there.
This is what popped up, again from that same 6" depth and again in the same hole where a few bits of iron also made a home.
Like I said, a revelation, an "AHA" moment I call these where I learn a lesson that sticks with me and might even change the way I think and hunt.
I had to try these mono tone settings at my regular park areas and see if they would work, areas with not so much of that iron problem but with plenty of normal can slaw, foil, tabs and all the other junk we have to deal with.
I am happy to report that it does...or seems to, anyway.
Usually in parks I hunt in 4H tones and listen for good tones before I look at the screen.
I use the large DD coil a lot but even with the small DD sniper in that heavy trash the bottle tops can be a problem so I still keep the disc down at about 4 and rim all those jumpy high tone high number targets to se if they drop down to lower numbers and even iron which they do most of the time.
I can cover a decent size area pretty efficiently this way, I skip most targets that jump more than 2-3 numbers scanned fron 2 different directions because most of the time these turn out to be trash and only dig all the stable signals I come across that stay within that 3 number jump or sound really good and I have been pretty sucessful.
These would be shallow targets at 6" or less where most of my good targets seem to be, of course if they are deeper and especially at 8" or more I realize that those numbers on the screen might not be credible so I use the tonal info much more in those cases.
In about 4 hunts in some trashy areas in my parks I have practiced this mono tone method, got more comfortable looking at the screen which is what you pretty much need to do and have gotten pretty good at using these settings.
The stability with the one tone seems unreal, very little jumping at all and even at an area right next to some high power lines at the edge of a park I was hunting, an area where my F2 would go nuts and even my pretty quiet most of the time Compadre and Vaq would talk to me, the F70 was unusually stable and quiet...like those power lines and absolutely no EMI sources were anywhere in the vicinity.
I found a bunch of clad in these last few hunts, a few junk rings, avoided digging most trash and plucked a few other good targets I had missed in previous trips to these same areas like a couple scout neck slides.
Then, in an area I can guarantee I have hunted before with several detectors and coils because it is right near the area where I park in the vinity of a picnic pavilion, I came across a nice solid signal in the foil area.
It was surrounded by other trash and I was using that big coil, thresh at -2, DE speed and sense on 85 not way lower which I usually switch to in areas with heavy trash.
That signal still came in solid and clear with very little jumping, a steady 23-25 numbers on the screen with small movements of the coil and well within my rule of digging all solid signals no matter where they showed up.
999 times out of 1000 this signal would usually be foil like a gum wrapper, a sports drink cap insert, a condiment package or a small piece of can slaw and that was what I expected to dig.
Like every time I dig up something unexpected I was surprised.
I opened a small hole and about 3" deep I see the edge of something small, round and gold in color.
Plucked it out, cleaned it off and looked inside and saw the numbers I love to see...14k plus a P which means plumb.
Not huge, only 1.3 grams, totally disguised as foil, totally surrounded and masked a bit by other trash and using this mono tone setting and the big coil it still showed up loud and clear like a red flag was sticking up out of the ground begging me to dig it.
Tom, I might not use this new method I learned all the time or I might use it as my prime hunting settings I don't know yet...I have more sites to revisit and more experimenting to do, but I can say that I might not have ever thought about using this mono tone method if I didn't read about in it one of your compilation posts/threads that I bookmarked and study.
I do know that this is just one more technique and tool that will definitely come in handy in the future if needed.
This piece of gold I fully credit to you so thanks!
HH
Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2014 04:44PM by diggwr27.
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Re: Thanks for the gold, Tom! October 15, 2014 11:06PM |
tnduke Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Digg. Thanks again for your report and the pics
> that support the report. I know it takes a long
> time to put together such a detailed breakdown
> with all those pics. For you, in your site, it
> sounds like you needed to use the entire feature
> set on your detector: Both audio & target ID to
> wrest the goodies from the trash. Good Job!
>
> I've been using a Deus for almost 4 months and I
> love it, but I would be reluctant to tell you to
> get a Deus (or anything else) for those sites. I
> would make only one suggestion; keep doing
> whatever you are doing now. It's working!
>
> I also agree with your comment about giving credit
> where due; NASA-Tom has helped me so many times.
> His comments about the Deus have been enormously
> helpful to me. Tom is both a gentleman and a
> genius, a rare combination indeed.
>
> I'm looking forward to your next report. Best of
> luck.
>
> Duke
Only my first season with the F70...just 8.5 months total so far.
I think I am only scratching the surface on understanding what this thing is really capable of.
I know I am way further along in the learning curve because of what I have learned from other owners and a ton of what I read in Tom's posts.
When it comes to the technical stuff and using them in real world experiences those posts are my bible.
Went to another park yesterday still using these one tone settings and getting more comfortable with them on every hunt.
Plucked another silver goodie from the middle of a ton of trash.
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2014 11:13PM by diggwr27.
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Digg. Thanks again for your report and the pics
> that support the report. I know it takes a long
> time to put together such a detailed breakdown
> with all those pics. For you, in your site, it
> sounds like you needed to use the entire feature
> set on your detector: Both audio & target ID to
> wrest the goodies from the trash. Good Job!
>
> I've been using a Deus for almost 4 months and I
> love it, but I would be reluctant to tell you to
> get a Deus (or anything else) for those sites. I
> would make only one suggestion; keep doing
> whatever you are doing now. It's working!
>
> I also agree with your comment about giving credit
> where due; NASA-Tom has helped me so many times.
> His comments about the Deus have been enormously
> helpful to me. Tom is both a gentleman and a
> genius, a rare combination indeed.
>
> I'm looking forward to your next report. Best of
> luck.
>
> Duke
Only my first season with the F70...just 8.5 months total so far.
I think I am only scratching the surface on understanding what this thing is really capable of.
I know I am way further along in the learning curve because of what I have learned from other owners and a ton of what I read in Tom's posts.
When it comes to the technical stuff and using them in real world experiences those posts are my bible.
Went to another park yesterday still using these one tone settings and getting more comfortable with them on every hunt.
Plucked another silver goodie from the middle of a ton of trash.
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2014 11:13PM by diggwr27.