I know there are mixed feeling on the Conf reading I find if its reading real high it's right ' but you get a solid 80-90 reading repeated, sweaped at diff. angles but no conf at all and reading at least 12" deep, Dig it or not, I would dig but thats not the question keying in the data the mach. is giving me what is it telling me, computer telling me "have no IDEA" well @ least 6 times at the beach I dug it and it was a deep coin, mostly a clad dime, you might be missing alot if your passing up those NO-SHOWS.
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Confed. Readings
- Thread starter shooter
- Start date
boxofchocolates
New member
Shooter, I always dig if I got high numbers......To me the conf. indicator is just something to help with the ID......If you got a coin reading and you got several bars lit up it is reading that coin well.....That dosen't mean if you don't have a good confd. reading not to dig,it may be on the outter most of detection depth.......Always dig the good numbers IMHO......HH.....Dan
PS I hope I'm not being misunderstood on what I'm saying......Always dig the good numbers....always dig the good sounds.....Always dig with high numbers one way as well that has nothing to do with the confd. indicator.....it is just another tool you can use if you want to
PS I hope I'm not being misunderstood on what I'm saying......Always dig the good numbers....always dig the good sounds.....Always dig with high numbers one way as well that has nothing to do with the confd. indicator.....it is just another tool you can use if you want to
In the case of a machine with "confidence" indication, by analyzing signals other than the ones you see on the screen and hear through the speaker/headphones, the machine knows some stuff you don't. At the same time, there's gobs of stuff you know that the machine doesn't know, from how fast you're swinging the machine to what kinds of targets might or might not be present, and what you are willing or not willing to dig. The knowledge of the user is so essential to successful beeping, that a beeperist swinging an inexpensive machine but who knows how to use it, will beat a user swinging an expensive machine who doesn't know how to use it nearly every time.
A metal detector knows nothing for sure about what kind of target you just swung the searchcoil over, all it can do is make guesses at probabilities based on a very limited amount of electrical information. A high "confidence" score means the machine is pretty sure that it knows what the electrical characteristic of the target is (independently of other variables such as ground signal, electrical interference, how you swept over the target, etc.). But like any machine or person that makes guesses, its own opinion of how good its guesses are or aren't, are themselves guesses.
So, the "confidence" score is just another piece of information that you add to what you already think you know. Then your decision whether or not to dig that beep becomes a somewhat smarter decision.
--Dave J.
A metal detector knows nothing for sure about what kind of target you just swung the searchcoil over, all it can do is make guesses at probabilities based on a very limited amount of electrical information. A high "confidence" score means the machine is pretty sure that it knows what the electrical characteristic of the target is (independently of other variables such as ground signal, electrical interference, how you swept over the target, etc.). But like any machine or person that makes guesses, its own opinion of how good its guesses are or aren't, are themselves guesses.
So, the "confidence" score is just another piece of information that you add to what you already think you know. Then your decision whether or not to dig that beep becomes a somewhat smarter decision.
--Dave J.
i dig the deep ones with good numbers, even without confidence bars, Ive gotten several deep Mercuries that way, and a number of Wheaties also. If I think it might be something huge, that I m not looking for that day i will pass it by..I agree the machine is making the best judgment it can, but as you know sometimes is wrong.
Sorry a little off topic but I just started Mding and today was my first hunt. I was getting readings of 90-100 a lot today at 6-8 in deep and all I come up with was nails. am i doing somthong wrong? or just reading my MD wrong? i had a hard time GB ing very heavy iron rich soil
From my own 'newbie' experience, I can tell you that if you are at the edge of a stronger signal, the machine will often give a high reading. For example, if you pass the coil close to a tab, it may give a reading anywhere in the coin range, however, if you continue to move the coil toward the source of the signal (keep moving the coil until to you get the strongest tone), you will often see the reading drop from the coin range to tab or below. This may not be your case, but, it is something I noticed early on.
Regarding the GB, I was in an area yesterday where I could not get mine to balance. I believe it was due to a high concentration of iron ore clay and EMI. No matter what I did to the threshold, sensitivity, etc., I could not get a balance. Later in the day, I went to another park and all was well.
I hope the signal deviation is a result of what I mentioned, as it is an easy fix. Keep in mind that you could also have another, worthwhile, target close to a tab. That is where circling your target, getting reading from all four sides, will give you a better 'picture' of what you are looking at.
Regarding the GB, I was in an area yesterday where I could not get mine to balance. I believe it was due to a high concentration of iron ore clay and EMI. No matter what I did to the threshold, sensitivity, etc., I could not get a balance. Later in the day, I went to another park and all was well.
I hope the signal deviation is a result of what I mentioned, as it is an easy fix. Keep in mind that you could also have another, worthwhile, target close to a tab. That is where circling your target, getting reading from all four sides, will give you a better 'picture' of what you are looking at.
dlassy said:Sorry a little off topic but I just started Mding and today was my first hunt. I was getting readings of 90-100 a lot today at 6-8 in deep and all I come up with was nails. am i doing somthong wrong? or just reading my MD wrong? i had a hard time GB ing very heavy iron rich soil
Diassy, what you're describing is the phenomenon called "wraparound", where iron minerals in the soil throw the target ID and discrimination off by throwing weak iron metal (in your case deep nails) signals to the opposite end of the ID spectrum. I won't bother you with the technical details of why this happens other than to say that it does happen, and you've given a good description of it.
The good news is that there are ways to deal with it, and the bad news is that nobody likes those ways.
1. Reduce the sensitivity setting far enough that deep nails won't be detected. Of course this will cost you on the deep coins: win some, lose some. The cost may not be as great as you suppose: in most trashy areas, it's as big a challenge to find the shallow good stuff as to find the good deep stuff. This is why some machines that don't have much sensitivity still produce well in the hands of a user who knows how to use the machine. A couple days ago I posted about this in detail on the Bounty Hunter forum (sorry, don't remember the name of the thread).
2. As you're checking out the target, violate the rule that you should swing flat, and dip a bit over the target. This will usually eliminate a wrapround target. A coin target will usually drop in ID value but will often not drop into the iron range. If you've got a machine that gives numerical ID value, under these conditions you might choose NOT to discriminate iron out but to rely on observing how numeric ID readings change, as well as the "feel" of the target. "Feel" takes some experience, it's not a quick fix for a newbie.
3. Crisscross ("X") the target. A coin will usually give fairly similar results regardless of angle, whereas an iron target will usually give very different results depending on the direction of sweep over the target. As a very general rule of thumb, repeatability means a good target and nonrepeatability means a bad target.
Hunting a trashy site in bad dirt is a tough way for a newbie to get started, but it sounds like a good site and if you regard it as an intense learning experience rather than getting too frustrated, your skill level will advance quickly.
Wishing you the best,
--Dave J.