First time inland with LTD. Broke the century mark

My buddy and I hunted an old house site where a house has just been removed. It was my first time out with the F75 LTD and I wasn't expecting too much since I haven't had much experience with the machine, but was pleasantly surprised that I used it fairly effectively even though I know I need a lot more time with it to get the max out of the LTD. This site dates back to the TOC, and the ground is an absolute carpet of junk. In fact, I couldn't even find a spot that I could decently ground balance, but I did manage to find one small spot and did my best to balance it before I started.
I decided to keep the stock coil on even though it was common to have 2-3 targets under the coil at one time. The target separation was such that it was easier than I thought to pick out the higher tones between the lower junk tones.
Settings: sensitivity 85-90, disc. 5, 1 tone (but had to switch to 3 because there were SO many targets), notch off, and Boost Process. Aggressive settings considering a site like this and my lack of experience, but I really wanted to see what the LTD could do at close to optimum settings.
To sum it up, I can clearly see what others mean by 'looking for goodies within the noise'. I set the sensitivity just below where the EMI was silenced, but still heard cracking and stuccado noises the majority of the time while detecting, although it was easy to pick the higher tones out of the noise. This was fine with me since I prefer detecting on the edge of a machine's capabilities. After about 3 hours, I developed audio fatigue and called it a day.
Found a total of around 50 coins, mostly from 60s and 80s), but the best coin was an 1899 Indian Head penny. Also found other period items including an antique gold plated pin, an old padlock and a small brass or copper cat and some other unidentified targets. We also cleared several pouches of junk out of the area. All in all a great first day out.
We're planning several more trips back to the site soon and hope we can clear more of the surface junk so we can better pick out some weaker (older) targets.

I do have a couple of questions for the more seasoned veterans:

How do you set ground balance at a site like this?
Do you prefer using the small coil at a very trashy area even though you lose depth vs. the stock coil?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2010 11:26AM by Gary in Daytona.

Gary,

Congrat's on breaking the 1900 barrier. (It's not easy in FL).
In Florida.....Grnd Bal is not needed.
You could use the 5" DD coil......and have good success, , along with the stock DD coil.

i put the 5" coil on my omega , detecting a local ball yard. While you don't cover much ground, it will be much easier to seperate each target. I detected a strip that was between the concrete and metal fence, 3' x 75', and found 78 coins.
One coin was over 6" deep. I would have gone bananas trying to use a larger coil there.

Thanks Tom. Wasn't by much, nor a a nice silver coin like your last one, but I made it a goal to come out with 1 or 2 good targets to show the machine's strength. Guess that did it! You're right about not breaking that 1900 mark often in Florida, a very rare event indeed. So, this ground balance thing has me puzzled. You don't ground balance at all before you start hunting no matter the site?

I'll try the smaller coil on the next trip, but I was really honestly surprised by how well the separation was with the stock coil. Unfortunately, this is a site that we won't have a lot of time to clean all the shallow targets out due to upcoming development, so I want to cover as much ground as possible each trip.

I wonder what clown sold you that ltd...if I found him I would kick his butt...

Gary, , , you are going to find out that it appears that the GB function on your unit appears to be 'non-functional'. MOST all FLA has nothing to Grnd Bal to.

Yes, the large coil is very surprising as to how well it separates adjacent targets. MUCH better than other detectors with very small concentric coils.