Deus...not good for So. Calif. parks???

[unearth]

I'm beginning to believe that the Deus is not a good match for So. Cal. parks. It works great when the target is four inches deep or less and it works good, and deeper, in the dry sand at the beach. I've had my Deus for about 3 years and have yet to get a good handle on using it at parks in So. Cal. Yes, I've found some items at 5 or 6 inches but hardly any lower, unless they were a bigger item, and not without chatter. I've tried many different programs and many different settings. I've tried Calabash's settings, Andy Sabisch settings, Squirrel1 settings and others. Now, I know their settings, where they live, may not work in So. Cal., but I used them as my starting point and made changes as I felt needed. But, I cannot seem to find a program setup that sounds like some of the videos I have watched where the target is between nine and 12 inches down and the signal is singular, not mixed with a lot of other sounds. An example would be some of Calabash's video's where the signal he receives from deep buried targets is quite easily recognizable.
Today's park hunt left me wondering if I was missing many good targets. Not necessarily just silver or gold, but anything but trash. I couldn't tell, in most cases, if I was passing over a good target or not because of the not very clear signal I was receiving from the Deus. It may be that I wasn't getting over many good targets at all, just trash targets mostly. I'm not sure. My good target ratio to bad target ratio was one to 12. And the one was usually a zinc penny.
Maybe the parks here in So. Cal. are so littered with trash that a clean target is not that easy to get with a single frequency detector?
Any insights or thoughts on this dilemma would be appreciated. And if there is anyone who has detected So. Cal. parks with a Deus and has had great success, please don't hesitate to chime in or PM me.

 

[calabash digger]

How old is the park?? Might not be any deep coins there. Hunting modern trash is tough. Doe you have a test garden ?? If you don't make one and put some coins in the ground and listen to them and try different programs in a CONTROLLED environment where you can control whats going on and get to know the sounds of your machine and see what settings work best where your at. My program or Andys or anybody elses might not work for you.

 

[squirrel1]

Unearth,

In the park while over clean ground, when bobbing coil, how much of the mineralization meter shaded?

How are you ground balancing your Deus?

 

[unearth]

Calabash ~ Veterans Park is where I was today. The site was a veterans hospital built in the 1940's. The 1971 earthquake severely damaged the hospital so it was closed and it was turned into a park and re-dedicated in 1979 as Veterans Park. As for a test garden, I have one. I buried a copper penny at four inches; a nickel at six inches; a clad dime at eight inches and a clad quarter at ten inches. I could hear nothing but the copper penny with either the standard nine inch coil or the nine inch HF coil. I put a post on this site a few days ago and Squirrel 1 posted a program that I tried and then I could hear the penny and the dime, but not the nickel or the quarter. The penny was a good sound, but the dime, if I was at a park and walked over a dime like this I probably would have missed it. The sound was very weak but there. As I stated in my previous post the mineralization bar through out my yard hits between two and five. Also there is a telephone pole in a back corner of my yard. EMI??

Squirrel 1 ~ The mineralization bar read between three and six or seven depending on where I was in the park. I GB the deus using the pumping method after finding a quiet, clean spot, and then use manual. About every 30 minutes or so I would GB again using the pumping method and then go with manual.

It didn't seem to matter much. The sounds were still not very discernible unless it was a three to four inch target. Targets that were on the surface or an inch or two down gave a very distinct, very recognizable sound. Maybe the park just has to much crap in it, too many small pieces of whatever to give a clean sound?? I'm pretty much at a loss at this point.

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

When you turn on the Deus, be away from any metal and make sure you hold your coil as far from the ground as possible until you hear the coil sinc up with the control unit.

Put your silencer at -1
Run Disc around 6-10
Sens up to where it just begins to chatter then adjust for stableness
Personally, I wouldn't set the detector to hunt in 4kHz because your TX values are frozen at 3 and can't be adjusted down.
For DEEP coins, I run Reactivity at ZERO (0). REMEMBER THAT. The higher the reactivity the less depth. The higher the reactivity, the better the detector resets going from iron to good target but there's a trade-off in depth. Less Reactivity = more depth.
After adjusting Reactivity, hit "Expert" and put silencer at -1.
Audio Response 5-7 to hear the deep coin. If you can hear it at 5, leave it at 5. If you can't hear it at 5 bump it up to 6 etc.

I used to not be able to hear my 9" copper penny in my coin garden. Now it hits loud and clear. Your soil is more mineralized than mine so you may have to adjust your TX #'s to suit.

 

[calabash digger]

squrriel 1 is his ground just that bad? Unearth have you tried any other detectors in your garden if so what kind of depth are they getting?

 

[squirrel1]

If a Deus user is seeing more than half scale when bobbing coil in the minerlization meter.
What should a deus user be doing.

Now if a person sees 3/4 filled in meter this is getting really high for mineralization.

What can a Deus user do?

Depth will be affected he, make no mistake.

Running reactvity settings of 0, and 1 are taboo.

Silencer setting of -1,,,mandatory.
A good ground balance mandatory.
With more Deus experience here, a slightly lower GB than actual,ground phase reading can yield a touch more depth.

Running 18khaz highly recommend.

Now all the above for max depth for higher soil minerlization.

Uaing 11" coil, suggest reactivity levels 2.5 or 3.

Slow your coil sweep big time.
You can't sweep like calabash does in his videos,,his ground is mild.

Also, targets reporting tonally can have a more irony sound to them,,,especially fringe depth detectable.

Users in areas like this.
Should highly consider burning a clad dime in similar soil, and do a few checks.

There is quite a bit of difference between say a half meter presentation with mineral index meter, vs 3/4 scale.
The 3/4 scale kinda dirt needs utmost detector setting configurations.

Also be very mindful, when changing freqs on Deus, ground balance will need to be done for each freq.

TX power 3 is TABOO, will not help a user one iota, only HURT.

Target ID can be very compromised in soil like this.

It really becomes almost, dig all nonferrous.

How does Deus compare here to other detectors for calling deeper nonferrous actual nonferrous.

Really tops in class for Vlf detector.
Granted actual true Vdi of targets swept, will not be accurate on the deeper.
Deus is a touch deeper here than Minelab fbs /fbs2 units.
But fbs/fbs2 units will provide more accurate ID of deeper targets.

All Vlf units in this kinda dirt, will at some point start telling a user an ACTUAL nonferrous target is tonally a ferrous target.

Some thing I forgot to say.

Take calabash's' soil.
A 7" dime.
Calabash in his milder soil, his coil " from center" can be off quite a bit and he will get some thing tonally to alert him to target. It might not be perfect but enough for him to do a double take and eventually locate target.

In higher mineral dirt,,,this error for coil center displacement to alert on this 7" deep target not as wide. Meaning you sweep this target, and are off the center somewhat, user may get nothing (if using say did level 6) or if using full tones and lower disc,,user may hear only an iron tone,,hence will not be alerted to target to do a double take.

So coil progression in areas with higher mineral soil is KEY.

 

[Architex]

Also, since deep targets will begin to sound like iron, remove ALL disc above zero or you may not hear the target.

 

[calabash digger]

thanks guys for helping him out as tough soil I haven't had the pleasure of dealing with.

 

[Old California]

I seldom use the Deus or today's top end single frequency detector's for California parks, They are extremely sensitive to bits and piece's of aluminum that ID as deep high conductive. However, They will detect with decent depth including the deus with the right settings but you'll dig an enormous amount to trash before a deep coin surfaces.

If you're in the LA area or Central valley maybe we can meet at a Park, Use our Deus to compare with different settings and coils. Would be a fun outing, The Deus can Detect with decent depth in our park soil but like I mentioned it loves bits and piece's of aluminum. The old T2, MXT, F-75 and other sensitivite detectors are the same, They too love pits and piece's of aluminum.

Some park soil are more minerlizes than others, even the slightest can effect depth. But, With proper settings the Deus can get decent depth on our West Coast parks.

I've moved to using Pi's for deep park coins when ground conditions allow, mainly because of mineralization, extra depth and ratio of false digging are about equal.

HH, Paul

 

[unearth]

Thanks all for your help. I will keep using your suggestions on how to remedy this dilemma. By the way, my CTX couldn't detect anything but the penny either, if I remember correctly.

Paul, I sent you a PM.

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Users in areas like this.
Should highly consider burning a clad dime in similar soil, and do a few checks.

Should he use gasoline or wood to burn a clad dime? This might be bad in California with all the forest fires they have.

 

[squirrel1]

Users in areas like this.
Should highly consider burning a clad dime in similar soil, and do a few checks.

Should he use gasoline or wood to burn a clad dime? This might be bad in California with all the forest fires they have.

Correct don't use gas.
Instead "bury" dime.

 

[unearth]

Users in areas like this.
Should highly consider burning a clad dime in similar soil, and do a few checks.

Should he use gasoline or wood to burn a clad dime? This might be bad in California with all the forest fires they have.

Correct don't use gas.
Instead "bury" dime.

Tony N...what a jokester

 

[zac]

Unearth,
I'm in Los Angeles hunting Griffith Park, Echo Park, and Elysian Park. I've been using the Coin program of Andy's, but then after seeing Calabash's video I started using the full tone Sifter program (I think from Gary). So far I've found four silver dimes. After a two hour hunt I end up with $3-$6 in modern clad, no zinc pennies, and about 5-10 rusty bottle.caps. I'm not going for gold so I ignore all the lower tones. It gets crazy around big old trees. It's doable but not as much fun as a baseball field or an area with less trash. Also I'm constantly adjusting my GB.

 

[sdbirder2]

I'm in San Diego with a 3½ month old XP Deus, 11' coil, 4.0 & 4.1. It is significantly better than my AT Pro. My favorite program is Gary Hot with full tones but at @ 2.5 or 2 reactivity rather than 3, closely matching ground balance, occasionally dropping frequency and going to 3x power.

The only weak point I've found is around wet sand. Eventually I'll get a Minelab CTX 3030 or a PI detector for that realm.

Be sure to hold the coil high up in the air, away from any metals during the startup calibration process until you get to the speaker question. I got totally skunked a beach one morning due to that mistake It was the thick metal railings on the stairway down to the beach...

I have a small 20x10' grass patch in my 1900's backyard that I've thoroughly cleaned out with my AT Pro. The XP Deus extracted a couple of deep silver dimes, invisible to the AT Pro even with very high electromagnetic interference chattering from the power lines above.

If you're still having issues maybe you have a defective unit and should send it back for a checkup.

 

[dixiedigger57]

Hey Paul, hope all is well. I am starting to experiment more with my MXT in prospector mode in back yard. I have a few little spots I have proverbially cleaned out with the vlf settings. found silvers and relics of brass in the standard vlf settings. been there many many times. private property, only hunter, little acre plot in edge of woods. I know there is stuff there still, its just soooo deep, I have uncovered stuff in bottom of holes after getting the known target. . and it has a lot of iron and rusty tin bits. so I hope to do well this fall when it cools and the ticks are not as bad. I will be using the prospector mode and using a Eldorado Umax I got from Sandman with the 9x8 coil.

hh Carey

 

[Digger 45]

In central California i use the Sifter program in the parks and on the dry sand on the beach with good success on the wet i use the wet program and turn up the audio to 4, works well to about 6" and so much lighter than my Sand Shark, but it has its place also.

 

[Old California]

PM sent Carey,

Thanks and keep up the good hunt glad you're finding prospecting mode working for you, that's my secret mode to use

HH, Paul

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

PM sent Carey,

Thanks and keep up the good hunt glad you're finding prospecting mode working for you, that's my secret mode to use

HH, Paul

Hi Paul,
What is the prospecting mode?
What are the settings? Sounds interesting. Does one need to use an HF coil for that mode?