WhatTheBeep
Member
I've only been metal detecting a year, but I know there are many of you here that have a wealth of knowledge on the subject, so I thought I would ask. I've heard and seen numerous times that air tests don't tell anything about a metal detector's ability, but now I'm wondering if that's the case.
I got a new F70 yesterday and got to play with it quite a while today. After a few hours of actual metal detecting I thought I'd see what various sens and thresh settings would do in terms of air test depths on some coins I'd found. I was surprised to find that sens and thresh didn't make nearly as much difference as I thought they would, but SL speed and Autotune seemed to make a significant jump in how far a penny could be detected.
My question is: under normal circumstances (dirt graph showed 1 bar and ground grab value was 65 and there was no noticeable EMI) can a metal detector detect a target in the ground at a greater distance than the same target in an air test (a coin not on edge for example)? So if I get 10" on a penny in an air test I'm not going to get more than 10" on a penny in the ground under normal conditions, correct?
I got a new F70 yesterday and got to play with it quite a while today. After a few hours of actual metal detecting I thought I'd see what various sens and thresh settings would do in terms of air test depths on some coins I'd found. I was surprised to find that sens and thresh didn't make nearly as much difference as I thought they would, but SL speed and Autotune seemed to make a significant jump in how far a penny could be detected.
My question is: under normal circumstances (dirt graph showed 1 bar and ground grab value was 65 and there was no noticeable EMI) can a metal detector detect a target in the ground at a greater distance than the same target in an air test (a coin not on edge for example)? So if I get 10" on a penny in an air test I'm not going to get more than 10" on a penny in the ground under normal conditions, correct?