Eurotek low-battery behavior

[PABootymeister]

I've had my Eurotek for a couple weeks now and I've found a lot of quarters, and plenty of other assorted clad. Also an earring, plus my first find was a Sterling silver Jesus pendant. Today I was detecting at a county park and my battery meter finally went down one bar. I was mostly just finding junk at that time. I took a break for a few hours and later went to another park, with the battery meter still down one bar from full. The location was basically an old orchard with short grass. Most of the trees were gone but some were still there. It was the kind of place people go to walk dogs and play frisbee. There was a gently rolling contour. Anyway, I was kind of surprised that I wasn't getting many hits of any kind. The discriminator was turned up to 70, or almost 70. There were plenty of silent ferrous hits that were rejected, and what did register above 70 was always very short and spotty, often not repeating. I got no solid hits at this location at all. Anyway, I'm just interested in hearing a few opinions. Is this more likely caused by where I was searching, or by the battery being down just one bar? It doesn't seem reasonable to just change a battery that has most of a charge left. Or does it?

 

[chuck ky]

I've never used that detector but on my T-2 I still get signals when the batteries get down to just one bar so yours should be fine, just no targwets at that location.

 

[PABootymeister]

That's kind of what I thought, regarding the battery. But I just thought it was a little weird to find nothing while taking random passes all over an area of about 3 acres where many people have worked and played for a long time. I didn't even find a lousy clad penny! Every day many people use this park. There's even a public pool within site of the field. It crossed my mind that a few people have probably MD'd there a few times over the years, and trash is probably often cleaned up being it's a county park, but I still wouldn't expect the place to be this "clean".

 

[supertraq]

Throws coin down on the ground and pass the coil over it and see what happens.

 

[PABootymeister]

I did actually just do an air test after writing my post. I'm geetting the impression that just because I had some luck with quarters and some jewelry early in the game with this detector, that now I need to turn the discriminator down and dig some of the cheaper sounding hits. I found that nickels scored low, like in the 50's. My first hit with the Eurotek was a Sterling silver religious pendant with the discriminator set at 65. Quarters were usually in the 70s or 80's when I dig them, and also with two specimens in the air test. I've also discovered that lots of cans, tabs and caps score in the 80's on the discriminator scale, although the hits aren't quite as solid as say a quarter.

Guess maybe I'll head back to the orchard today and see what happens with some of those weaker hits. I like the spot otherwide because the contour hides you from the road and parking lot.

 

[Mike Hillis]

When the battery gets low on the Euroteks the volume will slowly get softer and softer and softer and softer until you can't hear the responses.

Not all parks are the same and there are folks that get out and detect every day. Research the park and see if it is worth spending more time on.

HH
Mike

 

[Bugar In. USA]

Mine works the same till the battery just flat out QUITS, I usually put a new battery in some time after it's on 1 bar, but i don't panic, just whenever i get around to it, sometimes i wait till the next time i go out

 

[PABootymeister]

I went back there this morning and found a couple things:

-1973 penny
-wood handled folding pocket knife (bad shape!)
-dog tag from Cleveland, OH. The address on the tag was actually for sale on Zillow.com. I got to see the house where "Maggie" lives (or lived)!

 

[Furious T]

If you run your sensitivity at 70, you will miss many targets which might normally register above 70, but are being "masked" by something else, or some things else, and so you are not able to pick them up. eg. there could be a dime being masked by a nickel or a bottle cap or piece of foil...your detector is not being given the chance to "see" it. These other objects may not necessarily be directly above the good target, just close enough to confuse your detector. You are not giving yourself a chance to pick up any gold jewellery, and you will be reducing the depth capability of your detector, so good targets on their own may not been "seen". If it is trashy, you will have to put up with more noise from the detector if you reduce the discrimination, but some of that "noise" will be good targets. This is where you now reduce the speed of your swing, and in trashy ground, go very very slowly.

If you have a park where you think there could be targets, there probably are targets.....dont try to cover too much ground in one go....the park will still be there tomorrow.

I would suggest that you try detecting with the disc set at about 40, then, when you get to know your detector a bit better, reduce it further to about 25. Sometimes we need to dig some trash to find out what our detector is actually telling us and how it is getting the message across. HH

 

[PABootymeister]

That's basically what I've started doing with the discriminator as of yesterday, at that spot. This is my first digital detector by the way. As for going slow, that's usually what I do. I go back and forth over an area so I can hear the nuances. I tend to run my Sensitivity hot unless I'm in a tight urban setting, which isn't often when I go detecting.

 

[kt]

No need to run any disc on the eurotek pro at all in my opinion. Just turn the iron volume to where the iron is soft but mids and highs are normal, and go to town.

 

[Furious T]

Good thought kt The less disc you can run with, the better IMO. I guess what I was trying to say (in my usual roundabout way) is that the "short and spotty" hits heard by PABootymeister were probably nothing to do with his battery, but more to do with his level of discrimination.

 

[PABootymeister]

The sweet spots for the Eurotek discriminator are around 40 and 55. Both settings give you the widest variety of tones, with the widest margin for each type of tone. You get a lot to work with that way. If you go up or down from either of those two settings, the margin for certain tones will narrow considerably or become almost non-existent. Actually, I should say there are THREE tones...but all ferrous material ALWAYS flashes "IRON" on the screen even when a high discriminator setting emits no tone for ferrous material...so it's like having a fourth tone if you're watching the screen. The four You get NO TONE(with "iron" icon), LOW tone, VCO tone and HIGH tone. The VCO is the narrowest band by nature, but perhaps the most useful. It's what really lets the Eurotek talk to you.

As I said earlier, my first find was a Sterling silver religious pendant. I found it within minutes of turning the detector on. It was a solid high tone with the discriminator set at 65. A few clad quarters and pennies came a few minutes later. The quarters rang in around 75 or 80.