About the adjustable iron audio

[frittella]

Hello to all,
I am new to detecting (Fisher F44) and I don't really understand how to use the adjustable iron audio.
Would someone be so kind to explain me what are the benefits?
I understand that from 0 to 9 ferrous and non ferrous have the same volume, 10 is nulled out and from 11 to 20 it increase proportionally but...

My questions are (sorry many)

1)How I could get benefits from using the adjustable iron audio?
2)Why should I ear the IRON?
3)Would it just be easier to notch out the iron? (the manual does not say much just "reduce audio fatigue")
4)In what conditions should I activate this function? beach, fields, parks? why...


Some practical examples? please no youtube videos because I don't understand spoken English very good.

Thank you very very very much!!

Francesca.

 

[SenorJuan]

If you hear all the metal in the ground, you are better informed about the terrain you are detecting. You will easily notice increases in activity where more metal objects are likely to be recovered. So you may slow down your swing, concentrate more, maybe even fit a smaller coil. But in a quieter area, there may be few targets, and you might swing slightly quicker.
Weak targets will register as iron, even if they are not. If you are able to, you could investigate weak iron targets more thoroughly. Pinpoint them, ensure you are sweeping directly over the target centre. Try and perform the smoothest sweep, at the optimum speed, from a variety of directions. You may find the 'iron' target will start giving 'non-iron' tones, so you should dig.
Some weak targets will register iron / non-iron differently every swing. It is easier to pick out the targets location if you hear all the responses, rather than 'beep/ silence/silence/beep/beep/silence' etc.
During target recovery, the target response can change. Example: old rotten aluminum foil can give a non-iron response, but when you start digging, the soil disturbance can result in it reporting as 'iron'. If you have 'iron' blanked out, this means your target 'disappears', but with iron audio on, you are still able to locate it.

But in areas with lots of iron, all this iron-tone beeping is annoying, which is why reducing the volume can be a good idea. It makes it easier and less tiring.

 

[frittella]

Thank you very much Juan, could not ask for a better answer.

Frittella.

 

[NE Digger]

For Frittella. While notching might 'seem' like a good idea, notching effectively adds disc, which will always affect performance. I'm in the camp that thinks one should hear everything so one can make an informed decision. Having the ability to mute the iron response while still being able to hear it is a big game changer. I can remember many different tests with the F75 for instance where very low disc settings made a HUGE difference, not only in target response but ID as well.

 

[frittella]

Thank you Digger, the ability to mute the iron seems to be really handy.
I have a last question, why some weak (deep?) targets will/may register as iron?


Frittella.

 

[SenorJuan]

When a target is weak ( small / deep) a detector can still determine that 'it is there', so it should beep. But actually determining the correct nature of the target is much harder - all targets tend to look similar. If a machine had a tendency to categorize all weak targets as non-iron, you would rapidly get frustrated, digging nails etc. So it's better to have the detector call things 'iron' if in doubt.

A more technical reason is that the soil/dirt is itself like a sea of tiny iron. And a weak non-iron item buried in this sea will just not stand out enough, and it merely looks like a slight change in the iron-level of the dirt.

 

[frittella]

This make sense, I was thinking that a weak target will register as iron because conductivity drop due the distance from the coil, i was not considering the dirt in between.


Ty