Find's Treasure Forums

Welcome to Find's Treasure Forums, Guests!

You are viewing this forums as a guest which limits you to read only status.

Only registered members may post stories, questions, classifieds, reply to other posts, contact other members using built in messaging and use many other features found on these forums.

Why not register and join us today? It's free! (We don't share your email addresses with anyone.) We keep email addresses of our users to protect them and others from bad people posting things they shouldn't.

Click here to register!



Need Support Help?

Cannot log in?, click here to have new password emailed to you

Air testing vs Real world

dbax

New member
I wanted to get some good solid numbers on gold and silver readings. I had been digging lots and lots of pull-tabs looking for those elusive gold rings. Got my F70 11" DD out and ran some gold and silver rings, then silver coins and then some clads. Everything going good, nice depth and similar to what I was finding in the field. I then got some of the trash I had brought home to see if I could get some hint of a difference between the gold ring I found and the pull-tabs I had been digging. I waved the pull-tab ----------- again I waved the PT ------------ Silence! Huh? I tried another and another, tabs that I had dug on signal in the 21-25 range were suddenly silent in the air test. My Disc level was working fine, a setting of 17 which would still allow the gold to read but would cause me to dig as deep as 8" for a pull-tab. Now, here on the kitchen table ( don't tell my wife) the tabs of various sizes were being Disc out. Okay, so now I do not want to change any of the settings. This morning I went out and right off got a steady low bleep in the gold range. I dug down 6" -- pull-tab. Four tabs later and it became obvious, air testing and the real world mean different things. Has anyone else noticed this anomaly ?
 
I must ask you, how deep was the pull tabs?
Were they the beaver tail tabs?

Try two air test for me PLEASE?

Take a US Nickel,
Take one of those tabs you found,

Air test them at a low enough discrimination setting that the detector will pick them up.

Get an ID number on them at like 3"
then 5"
then 8"

Then the next test is to set the disc level to just where the same items are discriminated out @ 3" (not any higher) and then see if as you increase the distance with them from the coil if they come back in at some point.

Mark
 
I might add one thing. Of all the gold rings I've found, 9 out of 10 (actually more like 18 of 20) have been either a women's or young girls ring. These gold rings always read just above foil to right past a nickel reading. All the heavier gold rings read at or above the pull tab range. The majority of lost rings will be from the female species so concentrate more on these signals and your odds will increase greatly for a good find. Now that being said, at times I'll still dig the tab range, especially if the ID numbers seem a little off compared to a regular tab. Final note, concentrate your time hunting in the areas where there has been a lot of people, especially the girls.
 
My brother MarkCZ above is on to something with his nickel pulltabs testing. I did the same thing a few weeks back when I was testing a little coil on my 1270 and I was running pretty high disc and was still getting the deeper pulltabs, like past 3 or 4 inches. I was telling brother Mark about the problem and he reminded me of the depth issue.

First of all it is not the air testing that is the problem it is in the detector.

Here is another way to look at Mark's testing that he requested you to do. Just run your disc low enough to detect all those objects and then change the distance from the coil and record your numbers, I think this will be your light bulb moment. You will see the number are going up as the distance increases.

Now we just got figure out how to overcome this problem.

Mark's brother Ron both in WV
 
I have found more than my share of gold and I will tell you that it can come in anywhere from lower foil on small rings up to zinc for large class rings so there really is no rhyme or reasn to this.
The bulk of my gold rings were at something in the nickel areas, (lower nickel, usually), and all over the foil areas and just a few at tabs.

Air testing and what you find when they are in the ground can indeed be different, and soil conditions might affect those readings too, like bone dry soil vs. damp.

Most every gold ring I have found was a solid repeating signal and I always dig those wherever they are in the entire disc range.
Lots of pull tabs and other trash come in solid too, with stable numbers and not much jumping, but gold for me has ALWAYS been solid from most directions.
 
My last gold ring was 14k and hit 55 soild and a nickel is usually 58. I think weight, alloy and shape shift thru the spectrum of IDs. I hit a nice woman's wedding ring thet had three ribbons of diamonds crisscrossing in front and it really muddied up the signal like a badly eroded zinc penny.
 
early 60's will and do get detected in the ground with about all Fisher units I have used.. The F75 and most likely the F70 rounds up it seems on those pull-tabs.

Some will even ring in as a High coin signal. Once out of the ground the discriminator takes them out. I think it has to do with the metal mix those tabs were made out of. ..Leaching around the tab..orientation of the tab in the ground etc....
 
The reason I ask for the test in the way I did is because ALL my metered detectors (ALL OF THEM) do the same thing with Nickels and those Beaver Tail tabs! As the distance increases with them from the coil, they move up the ID scale! They do it air testing and they do it in the ground.
That's why people will sometimes find a V-nickel in the lower copper penny range, it was deep enough that it went up the ID range that far.

No! other US coins do not do that, when they get deep enough that get a little high end jumpy.

My questions in my earlier post was to find out what type of tabs was dug,
How deep where they,
And if in some air test those targets go up the scale on his detector like they do on all of mine.

Like my brother said, put them close to the coil, then run the disc up just to where they are disc out, then air test them out to the 6" to 8" range and see if they stay discriminated out! I bet they don't.

I'm really not crazy! I can repeat this again and again with many detectors in my test garden as well as air testing.

I first discovered this playing with my 1266 one day. I was in my yard where my test garden is and I have several nickels buried at different depth, 3" 4" 5" 6" 7" and 8" (two different one at 4") I was just hunting my yard with the 1266 in high disc when I went across my nickel patch and the detector went off over all the ones that beyond the 5" range!
So I brought in in the house and did some air testing, some results!
I tried the Coinstrike, some thing! (two different Coin$trikes)
Then the Omega, yep!
And yes its the same with the 1270.
Its been awhile sense I had my XLT but I'm thinking it did the same thing.

I have another brother "Greg" I was out hunting with him one day early this past fall, he was running a Bounty hunter set on HIGH DISC and came over to me carrying a War Nickel that he got at about the 4" range (using a small coil). My the response to my post on this subject I get the idea that everybody thinks I'm either nuts or just stupid.

Now, so far in limited test the Tejon doesn't seem to do this, but I want to do some more testing to make sure.

I have more nickels buried in my yard than all my other coins combined, I've played with those things for over two years trying to make sense out of them.
I watched a couple of LONG F5 videos the other day (a forum user) and he was digging 8" beaver tail tabs when he had them disc'ed out LoL! I put a post up asking him for some air test but it went ignored. He had nickels notched in and kept digging foil LoL! the clad he was digging was 8" so I'm pretty sure the nickels was hitting somewhere near the zinc range or maybe screwcaps.

So, I'm pretty sure the F5 is going to do the same thing.

Mark
 
Guys before you blow him off I think you should try some testing for your self, I have seen with my own eyes my brother Mark doing this testing and what he says is for real. Easy to test for your self, please do.

Mark's brother Ron both in WV

MarkCZ said:
The reason I ask for the test in the way I did is because ALL my metered detectors (ALL OF THEM) do the same thing with Nickels and those Beaver Tail tabs! As the distance increases with them from the coil, they move up the ID scale! They do it air testing and they do it in the ground.
That's why people will sometimes find a V-nickel in the lower copper penny range, it was deep enough that it went up the ID range that far.

No! other US coins do not do that, when they get deep enough that get a little high end jumpy.

My questions in my earlier post was to find out what type of tabs was dug,
How deep where they,
And if in some air test those targets go up the scale on his detector like they do on all of mine.

Like my brother said, put them close to the coil, then run the disc up just to where they are disc out, then air test them out to the 6" to 8" range and see if they stay discriminated out! I bet they don't.

I'm really not crazy! I can repeat this again and again with many detectors in my test garden as well as air testing.

I first discovered this playing with my 1266 one day. I was in my yard where my test garden is and I have several nickels buried at different depth, 3" 4" 5" 6" 7" and 8" (two different one at 4") I was just hunting my yard with the 1266 in high disc when I went across my nickel patch and the detector went off over all the ones that beyond the 5" range!
So I brought in in the house and did some air testing, some results!
I tried the Coinstrike, some thing! (two different Coin$trikes)
Then the Omega, yep!
And yes its the same with the 1270.
Its been awhile sense I had my XLT but I'm thinking it did the same thing.

I have another brother "Greg" I was out hunting with him one day early this past fall, he was running a Bounty hunter set on HIGH DISC and came over to me carrying a War Nickel that he got at about the 4" range (using a small coil). My the response to my post on this subject I get the idea that everybody thinks I'm either nuts or just stupid.

Now, so far in limited test the Tejon doesn't seem to do this, but I want to do some more testing to make sure.

I have more nickels buried in my yard than all my other coins combined, I've played with those things for over two years trying to make sense out of them.
I watched a couple of LONG F5 videos the other day (a forum user) and he was digging 8" beaver tail tabs when he had them disc'ed out LoL! I put a post up asking him for some air test but it went ignored. He had nickels notched in and kept digging foil LoL! the clad he was digging was 8" so I'm pretty sure the nickels was hitting somewhere near the zinc range or maybe screwcaps.

So, I'm pretty sure the F5 is going to do the same thing.

Mark
 
MarkCZ

Ran the test -- but first a confession -- I had forgotten all about the NOTCH setting -- I had TABS "notched" out :crazy: Still, in the field I have been getting readings on the Beaver tail pull tabs :pulltab: in the gold ring range of 23-24. With the NOTCHing removed the pull tab reads 46-48 repeatedly. The small pop tabs read closer to nickels in the 34-35 range -- the nickels read 31-32. In the field the nickel reading is very reliable and I find a lot of nickels, but I also dig a lot of the flat pop tabs. The Beaver style :pulltab: I have dug as deep as 8" with a reading in the 22-24 range, and that is with the TAB on the machine NOTCHED out.

Nickel 31-32 -- at all depth, up to 6" where it loses the signal -- at 5" depth the nickels get jumpy reading from 28 to 40 as the signal gets weaker.
Beaver tab -- 46-48 -- at depths to 7"
Beaver when Notched -- silent -- in the field 22-24
Pop Tab -- 34 -36 - in the field 28-35 -- I dig a lot of these for nickels up to 4"
gold ring -- 22-23 up to 5" then the signal is lost unless it is locked on the sweet spot then it will air test at 8" in the SL speed setting
Gold ring -- original find, at a park in about 2" of soil, read like a weak zinc penny ??

I have not noticed any variables in the readings in the Air Testing, the reading appear to be consistent and repeatable until the depth is maxed out and the signal is lost. I can squeeze greater depth with the SL setting, sometimes as much a 2" gain. That is the setting I was in when I got a solid gold reading at 9" and dug up a beaver tail tab. The ID signals seem reliable and repeatable in the Air Testing, but in the field they change a little. The gold ring I dug up, reads a steady 22-23 but when I dug it I though I was digging a clad penny?? I think REVIER mentions something about this. When I saw it was gold I did not care what it read -- so, now I dig all the pennies and the tabs. What gets me is the when these are Notched out they don't read in the Air Test, which is right, but they seem to change form, like some kind of shape shifter and come up in a different ID. So, while the Air Silent part was my stupidity, there is still a wonderment about gold reading like zinc at times and Beaver tails reading like gold.

My plan is to now remove all NOTCHING and see if the tabs become properly ID and do not shape shift. While this has been an annoyance I have found quite a bit. Went out this morning found a nice Silver Ring, 30 quarters, 31 Dimes, 8 nickels, 41 pennies, 15 which were coppers, two beaver tails, 15 pop tabs, 12 bottle caps 20 pieces of foil, all pretending to be rings -- Yes, the foil is notched out but the demons they are they have found a way around the foil reading and appear as something else. And yes, I bring them home and trash them, never to be dug again. The ring was at 4" deepest coin about 7". After cancel the Notching I will report back if the targets presented better ID. I should do like you and set up a test field in my backyard. --- No honey, I'm just planting those bulbs you like so much :cheekkiss:
 
Hi everyone I just wanted to thank everyone for their input. this is the greatest site and I have learned so much from everyone. The input on this subject is fascinating and thought provoking. Thank you all for the great info and suggestions. One thing leads to another -- one discovery uncovers the answer to another. Thanks again, Dan
 
Well, that's a positive note that with the F70 the Nickels and pull tabs don't go up the ID scale as they get deeper. I've been trying to get some other people using different models to do the depth air test so I can get some idea of some other models that do and don't have this issue. I've never thought that the issue is with ALL detectors, but without some air test up from some people on the forum its hard to see a pattern outside of the units I have excess to.

That's a bunch for your help!

Mark
 
Same experience identically to what Dbax posted on nickels deeper than 5", good signal but the TID drops to 28ish...fresh drop nickels in wet grass can be all over the place like in the square pulltab range, just not as loud and with a more solid whack...I run such a low sens, the targets are tight and a guy can raise the coil to help determine depth and target composition for the most part, but by the time a fellow does this, it is generally easier and faster just to stoop and stab anyway...one of the best rings I've found was in the pulltabs signal though, and my personal wedding ring is identical in signal tone, strength, signature of a square pulltab...Revier has had me digging all signals anywhere near the zincs...solid penny, slightly higher and slightly lower in the high 50's...but for sure the majority of gold rings will be below those numbers with most being nickel on down...A gold Girls class ring will be at 37, a mens, at 61...right smack in those tabs and pennys...so hunting a high school sportsfield, those are the tones I key on...I seldom dig any deep target in the 40's, since those are most likely beavertail pulltabs...though I do have a very nice plat/gold ring that TIDS right in there at 48...so now what? Gold ring and chain hunters really do have to dig it all...only answer is to key in on certain gold losing locations, and get very fast with retrieval methods so the odds are in your favor?.
Mud
 
Markd CZ -

Thanks for the confirmation Mud -- Here is some more info. I admit I have been lazy -- I want to spend time hunting not messing with numbers -- So, I take what others say and go with that, but you know that old saying, "Seeing is believing" well friends, that holds true here. I found that with a Sens setting of 50-60 the nickel signal would stop at about the 5" range, the beaver tail tab would start to peter out loosing it at about 7" -- so, I set the Sens up to 90 and guess what" the beaver tail tab :pulltab: at 11" and the nickel at 9" -- That's not all ---

I took a nickel, brought it in on the coil with no side to side movement and the coil did not read it until it was about and 1" away. This led me to playing with the speed at which the target moves across the coil face. Now, this, to me sounds crazy but the fast you move the target the deep it is read, slow down and the shallower the depth. Thinking back I have found this to be true in the field but I did not know what I was experiencing. This would explain Mud's weed whacker approach. This would also explain why the little wiggle over a target is so good at pin pointing it. So, search slow and loose the deeper targets -- wait, wait, I mean swing slow and miss some deeper targets. Also, the fast moving coil tends to skip over the Bottle Caps the F70 likes to read, not all but most. A slow moving search -- I mean, a slow moving swing over the surface sees the Bottle caps down to the 4" range a lot of times as a quarter, speed the coil movement up and the bottle cap drop our or jumps around in the nickel range but is tool scattered to be a nickel -- A flat pop tab

My original settings are as follows Disc = 16 Sens = 50 Thres = -3 Tone = 3 and Notch = 26

Now with Notch off and Sens = 90 and with fast moving target --

Dime solid at 6" starts breaking up at 7"
Quarter solid at 8" starts breaking up at 9"
Nnickel at 9" nothing past that
Beaver tab 11" nothing past that

Slow moving targets seem to drop off 2" in depth, across the board and also causes some "jumpy" readings, even on good targets until you get the target in the "wiggle" sweet spot. This answers a lot of in field confusion for me. I read this on guy, on a different forum, that said the SENSITIVITY level does not matter much above 50 that the signal is reading "out" as strong as ever it is the return signal that is being controlled. I thought this meant the Sens setting was jus to quiet the machine down -- Not -- sure, it will quiet it down but then turning the machine off will too. I have found hundreds of coins some as deep as 8" with a 50 Sens setting, 30 some rings, only one gold ring, and it is this that has me researching a bit more. thanks you all of you sharing I think we can all come up with some answers to solutions to a pretty good machine. The fast swing speed is a revelation to me. I knew it worked and it was Mud that put me on this but what I did not realize is the slow swing speed may be a determent to this machine. Even when zeroing in on a target you wiggle the coil back and forth rapidly -- more food for thought.
 
Well, I thought I would do some air testing with a few of my detectors and a Nickel so people can see what I'm talking about, here is what I came up with, (I just used what coils were already mounted on the detectors)

The Omega (it holds up better with the 11" DD than it does with the 10" concentric, (I'll test the concentric later)
Notched out Nickel @ 3" (that's an ID range of around 57)
The Nickel came back in @ 8" at an ID of 64-67 (Above the Nickel Notch setting)

The 1270 (Beep and Dig, no meter)
Nickel disc out @ 3" at a disc setting of 5.5 (number scale and a dial)
It came back in @ 7"

Disc out @ 7" at a setting of 6.5
it came back in @ 9"

Disc out @ 9" at a setting of 9

The 1266 with the tiny 3.75" coil mounted on it.
Nickel disc out @ 3" at a setting of 6.5
Came back in @ 4"

Disc out @ 4" at a setting of 7
Came back in @ 5.5"

Disc out @ 5.5" at a setting of 9
Came back in @ 7"

Disc out @ 7" at a setting of max
Came back in @ 8"

Coinstrike,
ID Reading @ 3" = 10
ID Reading @ 5" = 10
ID Reading @ 6" = 10 (it did jump up a little here)
ID Reading @ 7" = 18 (At this range the tone ID went up to the next higher tone as well)
ID Reading @ 8" = 18 (with it jumping a bit higher on some of the sweeps)

Pull tabs act the exact same way as the Nickels with these detectors. I've not found any other US coin that acts this way.

Mark
 
MarkCZ -- I went back and did the nickel test again with the new sens setting at 90, then 70 and because of the extra depth, I think, the nickel would read solid nickel range out to 3" then it would jump around a bit, 28-31 out about 5" then in the 7-8" range it would bounce in and out of the nickel range of 31-34. So, as you observed their does seem to be a variable reading at different depths of the AIR Test. But this is in the SL speed setting, the dE speed setting seem more stable but does not have the depth the SL setting exhibits. I already know the dE setting picks up a return signal very fast, with a quick sweep speed and when testing the SL I found it did the same, I could not swing the coins across the coil too fast and ad differing depths. I am going out in the morning with this F70 turned up a bit. Dan
 
Okay, I finally got out for a little field testing:

. I made sure thing would be NOTCH out, and the Sens set at 70 and speed at SL -- so, what I found out was interesting, to me anyway. The Beaver Tail Tabs :pulltab: began to read in the low 40s on the scale. When NOTCHED out (tab reading) these pesky things moved to a reading in the low 20, but only if in the ground, they were silent in the air test. That is why I called them "shape shifter". Let's not confuse the beaver tail tabs with the square tabs, the do not read the same. Okay, so I took the Notch off and guess what, I found about 8 beaver tail tabs in the 42-45 range about 6" deep. Now, backing up a bit, to when I stepped out of my vehicle, positioned all my tools and headed out for the park ball field. I hit a dime right off, about 3" down, first 5 minutes, two minutes later a GOLD ring!! No kidding -- steady 43-45, about 4" deep, 6" if you count the 2" air space.
The nickels were few and far between, only found 2. What I did notice is that the nickel reading seemed much more stable when Notched in -- what I mean is that I canceled out Iron, foil, and tabs in the old settings and this left nickels readable in the nickel range. And I found a lot of nickels, the Square Tabs would read in this range also, even when they were canceled out. It seems they moved from the tab range down into the nickel range when taken out and the Beaver Tail tabs would move down into the foil range -- this would only happen in the field, in the air testing these would remain silent. Once I removed all Notching and must used Disc at 16 to cancel iron did the foil and the tabs begin to read correctly in the field. Now I know what I am looking at, and the Gold ring I found, right in the middle of the Tabs range. The Square tabs still, when close to the surface, will read like a nickel. But, I'm after rings, not nickels and not tabs and there is not telling how many rings I have missed because of looking for nickels. It will be fun, however, re-hunting the areas I have hunted many times already, with the new settings, and like I said, within a few minutes of my first hunt with the new settings I turned up a gold ring in the tab reading range -- the other gold ring I found previously read in the foil range and this confused me -- only I did not know I was confused. Now I know, gold rings are not constant. More -- the beaver tabs would bounce around in the tab range while the ring was a constant tone, this may be the key to not digging so many tabs of either variety, but for now, I will dig them all. Thanks for all of the great info -- air testing will confirm setting, then field work will confirm you cannot rely on the air testing as the truth, it is only a guide. Then again, maybe the machine I have, the F70, is not working right? :stretcher:
 
GOLD?! :surprised: Post a pic! must have been a good sized one to ring up 43-45 with your settings...I'm guessing 14k and @ 8gr..or maybe a 10k and at least 9gr? .thats really cool dbax!:clapping:
Mud.
 
Hi Mud, guess we are both early risers. What is that old saying? Oh, yeah, the "early bird gets the worm, right? But then we aren't birds, are we --------- well, I'm not. Actually the ring was not a fat one.

I made a big mistake. I saw the stone was missing, and spread the soil out looking for it, but no luck, "oh, hum" I thought and went on my way -- later I thought I should have gotten a plastic bag from a trash barrel and scooped up some dirt around the find and later, at home, sift through for the stone. Ah, heck, always smarter after the fact -- I'm headed out for another hunt and will head back to that spot and do just that. Who knows maybe I will find it.
Later, Dan
 
Hummmm all the stones are missing...yeah, go scoop up the dirt and have a go..nice find.
Mud
 
Top