Mike Hillis
Well-known member
Sunday morning I took the F19 out to hunt fringe depth targets.
I figured I'd go visit an old park down in the river bottom where targets would sink deeper, and there would be a good chance of maybe finding something old.
Got there and set up. Set my V-break on 34, Max volume, Max Gain, Ground balanced at 81.6. and took off looking for a faint, one or no bar signal based upon the signal strength graph.
I've never hunted this place before, though I have always thought about it so I was pretty excited to be there. And so I was caught completely off guard by the sheer volume of the low conductive trash that blanketed this park. I've never experienced quite this level of non-ferrous trash. Or should I say, this level of non-ferrous trash with a detector that liked it so well.
Right there I knew this wasn't going to work out well. The F19 design is for relic hunting, looking for non-ferrous targets in iron trash environments. Not looking for non-ferrous targets in a high non-ferrous trash environment. But I was here and so I went forward.
Took a few minutes to cope with the noise before I could start to focus on small signals. Finally started isolating some that appeared to be deep. The signal strength meter was one bar, they pinpointed deep and small, but the TID reading was fairly low, in the fifty and sixty range. Upon recovery they turned out to be small foil at about 4 to 5" deep.
About this time I'm also starting to notice this place has mosquitoes. I'm not used to mosquitoes. Mosquitoes and West Nile Virus
So I decided to try something different. I raised the disc up to 65, set the v-break to max, so 80 and above was high tone VCO and 66 to 79 was low tone. I thought it would get rid of the foil and help isolate better targets. Unfortunately I was still finding small foil at 4 and 5 inches.
My last hole looked much better, a mostly stable 80ish number that only had one bar. So I plugged it, stuck my pinpointer down in the hole and didn't hear anything and started digging. Nothing in the dirt, nothing in the hole, tried the plug again and found a small piece of foil on the bottom of the plug. Another piece of foil at 4-1/2 to 5". But I'm thinking that the number was too good for a piece of foil, maybe there is still something down in the hole. So I put my pinpointer down in the bottom and get a very faint vibrate. Thats got to be good news so I keep digging.
I'm down about 8" and the pointer is still going off. I'm down about 10" and the pointer starts to vibrate better....so i keep going, cutting through a few little pencil size cottonwood roots. I get down below 12" and start to think something funny is going on....
So let me tell you about the TRX Bulleys pinpointer.....it can leave you arm deep in an empty hole ,,,,,
To be fair it wasn't the pinpointers fault. I did something with the button and didn't know it. Me and the TRX are new and I need to understand it better.
To wrap this up. At this location, during this hunt, all my small fringe depth targets were small foil down close to the 5" mark.
The good news I came away with on this hunt was that I found a location where it appears hunters cherry pick the coins and leave all the low conductors in place. Which means I can come back with my GSII and cherry pick the gold rings out of all this low conductive trash.
Sorry the F19 fringe depth hunt didn't turn out like I had hoped. I'm hoping to see a good unit in the hands of a dedicated relic hunter posting something soon.
HH
Mike
I figured I'd go visit an old park down in the river bottom where targets would sink deeper, and there would be a good chance of maybe finding something old.
Got there and set up. Set my V-break on 34, Max volume, Max Gain, Ground balanced at 81.6. and took off looking for a faint, one or no bar signal based upon the signal strength graph.
I've never hunted this place before, though I have always thought about it so I was pretty excited to be there. And so I was caught completely off guard by the sheer volume of the low conductive trash that blanketed this park. I've never experienced quite this level of non-ferrous trash. Or should I say, this level of non-ferrous trash with a detector that liked it so well.
Right there I knew this wasn't going to work out well. The F19 design is for relic hunting, looking for non-ferrous targets in iron trash environments. Not looking for non-ferrous targets in a high non-ferrous trash environment. But I was here and so I went forward.
Took a few minutes to cope with the noise before I could start to focus on small signals. Finally started isolating some that appeared to be deep. The signal strength meter was one bar, they pinpointed deep and small, but the TID reading was fairly low, in the fifty and sixty range. Upon recovery they turned out to be small foil at about 4 to 5" deep.
About this time I'm also starting to notice this place has mosquitoes. I'm not used to mosquitoes. Mosquitoes and West Nile Virus
So I decided to try something different. I raised the disc up to 65, set the v-break to max, so 80 and above was high tone VCO and 66 to 79 was low tone. I thought it would get rid of the foil and help isolate better targets. Unfortunately I was still finding small foil at 4 and 5 inches.
My last hole looked much better, a mostly stable 80ish number that only had one bar. So I plugged it, stuck my pinpointer down in the hole and didn't hear anything and started digging. Nothing in the dirt, nothing in the hole, tried the plug again and found a small piece of foil on the bottom of the plug. Another piece of foil at 4-1/2 to 5". But I'm thinking that the number was too good for a piece of foil, maybe there is still something down in the hole. So I put my pinpointer down in the bottom and get a very faint vibrate. Thats got to be good news so I keep digging.
I'm down about 8" and the pointer is still going off. I'm down about 10" and the pointer starts to vibrate better....so i keep going, cutting through a few little pencil size cottonwood roots. I get down below 12" and start to think something funny is going on....
So let me tell you about the TRX Bulleys pinpointer.....it can leave you arm deep in an empty hole ,,,,,
To be fair it wasn't the pinpointers fault. I did something with the button and didn't know it. Me and the TRX are new and I need to understand it better.To wrap this up. At this location, during this hunt, all my small fringe depth targets were small foil down close to the 5" mark.
The good news I came away with on this hunt was that I found a location where it appears hunters cherry pick the coins and leave all the low conductors in place. Which means I can come back with my GSII and cherry pick the gold rings out of all this low conductive trash.
Sorry the F19 fringe depth hunt didn't turn out like I had hoped. I'm hoping to see a good unit in the hands of a dedicated relic hunter posting something soon.
HH
Mike
O me.... 