Digger Coil on the Way!

[flysar]

After reading many forum posts, private msg discussion with some folks on here and a phone call or two I finally pulled the trigger on a 6" 3kHz Coil to help separate the trash at some old home sites.

I want to thank Old Longhair, Digger, Mapper65, Benzoflex, and others for their patience in helping me with the decision.

The final words of wisdom, others may have said it before but I was to thick skulled for it to sink in, was from Gerry in Boise ID.

I have high mineralized soil, GB 15-18 with a 10.5" 7.5kHz DD coil, so I was concerned that when going to a LF coil my GB would be worse, have to run a lower sensitivity, and would lose depth therefore missing the coils intended target, old silver & copper. Gerry said that the smaller DD coil will see a smaller slice of the ground than my 10.5" DD coil therefore my GB should be better and I could run higher sensitivity than my bigger coil and possibly get more depth; the light came on and the plastic came out.

Thought I'd share the discussion for others to read and I'll report back with my impressions of the coil in mineralized soil in a few days.

Thanks again for all the msgs & forum info & Happy Hunting!

 

[Old Longhair]

I'll be interested to hear how it does. 3kHz is a silver seeker, and 6" DDs will deal with the minerals better than equal size concentrics or larger DDs. I think that you'll like it for your land hunting, but what's the plan now for the "creek/small river swimming hole " hunts that we were discussing? Another coil?

 

[flysar]

I've never hunted water but wanted to keep it as an option, I suppose I could use my 9" concentric & be a little crippled with low sensitivity or as you mentioned... another coil . I am goin to keep my eyes open for a used 6" HF coil but for now I'm hoping the "digger" coil helps me sniff out the silver given my soil conditions.

 

[benzoflex]

I really think it will produce for you..
I can't wait to hear how it works out for you...
Where do you think you'll go first?

 

[flysar]

Right next door, use to be an old homestead and then another home built in the 20's both are gone now and there is iron every where... That will be a good test.

I really think it will produce for you..
I can't wait to hear how it works out for you...
Where do you think you'll go first?

 

[Old Longhair]

If there's something there to be found, that coil will find it. It is a great one to use around old homesteads, as it will differentiate between iron and good targets well. Just go slow and verify targets.

 

[tometusns]

good luck....like my digger

 

[mapper65]

Mine should be here on Saturday! I can't wait to try it out at a few locations that silver has either illuded us or we've found older silver and Indians along with the final years of silver but nothing in between.

 

[flysar]

Coil arrived so I slapped it on and went next door to an old torn down homestead. I found exactly as many many coins as I did with my 10.5" MF DD coil... zip. Doesn't mean it's not there I just haven't found them.

I need some help with whether my machine is working right, if mineralization could be the problem, or if this is normal for the xterra.

Given the low kHz and having read the e-book and several posts I thought this coil was suppose to be very good at telling the difference between iron and coins yet I dug 4 nails today and other small iron. I was getting 42/44 and might bounce to a 34/38 then I'd turn 90 and get mostly iron tones with an occasional high tone. Thought maybe it was a coin with iron as some of the etrac guys say they get or the coil is small enough that is was sorting it out... Nope, iron nail, galvanized screw, rusty iron, nothing even close to valuable.

What do you think?

 

[Old Longhair]

Slow down, dig good repeatable signals, and listen to the quality of the tones. If it breaks, plunks, is scratchy sounding, or is faint....it's junk.
3kHz sorts iron from silver so well that I dug that heart pendant that had rusted iron through the ring it was suspended from. And the SLQ I dug while testing that coil last fall was on edge right next to a rusty bolt, but 3kHz lit it right up.
If you're getting a lot of false high tones on iron, it's most likely a swing speed issue.

 

[flysar]

Oh, I was going slow, those high tones were over the target doing the wiggle that is why I thought I had some keepers.

The targets you spoke of did you get an iron tone at all or just the good high tone?

I was running Disc 1 with only -8 & 48 notched out, 99 tones, what could cause the high/good tones I got?

Should I be concerned about the processor in my 70 as the possible problem? It's rock steady in air tests regardless how fast I move the coin.

Maybe it's my high mineral content, even using tracking I'm only seeing a high of 17 for GB.

 

[Old Longhair]

In most instances there is a tell tale audible difference, but.....
A nail, bolt, stake, or anything that is on end where your machine can only see it from the end with it's mass stacked up under it, will read higher than reality.

I still dig junk. Everyone does. Iron masquerading as something good will most often have a tone that includes a blunt quality that's hard to describe. The nice thing about 3kHz is that it excites good high conductor targets with regularity, so even with trash in the same hole the good tone will still be in there regardless of which direction you swing over it. I always give it a look from more than one direction, and if it changes from say 40-42 to 32-36 or to 46, or if it ratchets down with subsequent passes, then it is likely junk.TIDs that jump more than one or two notches over an isolated target isn't going to be a copper or silver coin. Around here with my conditions, a zinc penny will often try to sneak into copper penny/clad dime range, but can be discerned when looked at from a different angle. Indian Head pennies typically come in @ the same value as zinclons, but again they tend to be a more steady consistent TID, whereas a zinc (especially if starting to corrode or if slightly damaged) will start high and ratchet down or just jump around from 36-34 to 28-32 lacking consistency. The real IH penny will be much more constant.

You're going to dig trash. It's just a fact. But the more time you have on any particular setup, the less trash you will dig. Practice, practice, practice.

 

[mapper65]

I'm anxiously waiting on my mail to arrive today with my new 6" digger. I have the same scenario with an old 1800's property very nearby with an open invitation to detect. We've been hitting this place for the last two years and more recently a few nights a week for a couple of hours. One area is extremely clean soil with very little trash and the other area where all of the oldest coins have been found is moderately trashy with iron. We've had a decent lull in finding anything old until last week when on the same night I found a 1910 Barber and an 1875 Indian about 4' apart in an area that I know we've been over more times than I can count. Those two coins were about 6-7" and are probably the deepest coins that I've found.

Last night I used the 6" HF and only came up with a 1970's penny after two hours of hunting. My Mom using the 10.5" HF coil found a war nickel, a 50's penny along with a fairly modern penny. Based on what we've found so far we have a pretty good feeling that there should be more silver there. Of the notable finds, we've found 3 Indians, a barber dime, silver Washington quarter and two silver Roseys.

I know that there are no guarantees on more silver being there but I really think if the 6" digger is that much hotter with silver and copper especially in soil that has iron and other trash in it, I should be able to find some additional notable coins. We're surprised that with finding the indians and Barber that neither of us have found a merc on this site. We also haven't found any buffalos which I'm not expecting to turn up with the digger coil.