The place I wanted to go was full of soccor players, so I had to chose an alternate site. I went to a park that I hunt on a rotating schedule. Still one section I hadn't got to yet, so I parked by it.
First thing I had to do was turn down the sensitivity because I was right under a transformer. I tried it at 80, but then had to bring it back to 60. Then cycled through the freqency shifts until I found one that seemed quieter than the others.
We are dry. This has about 2-3" of topsoil overlaying the base soil. The top soil is dry and the base soil is like a rock. Some times you find a hollow where the top soil is deeper, but three inches was the norm here. No targets were retrieved over 3" deep. Not because there wasn't any, but because it is just too dry to dig a hole. If I couldn't probe it, I left it in the ground. Broke the end off the handle of my probe in that stuff today too, prying up a cap. I don't know where the topsoil came from, but it was full of stuff that caused alot of small signal falsing in places. Not everywhere, but in some specific places.
Anyway. I set up in audio mode 4, GB at 87, 4 bars on the Fe graph, Disc raised to 45 and started looking for caps. The first few I found behaved themselves and read as zincs like good little caps. These were corroded but not rusty like an older one would be. They stayed around the 77-79 range. Then I started getting high coin high tones. When I got a high tone, I looked to see if it was a nickel high tone or a high coin high tone. These where high coin high tones and just what I was looking for. I called them caps because the number bounced from 85 down to 80 with out really locking on. Sometimes the numbers went higher, but most seem to stay down below 85. On some of them a 90degree sweep would drop the tone and the numbers out of the high tone range. On others it was just the number bounce that gave them away.
The Fe meter didn't work very well for me as a cap id, as I was already looking a 3-4 bars. Sometimes it would spike, sometimes it was already at a 4 bar and the cap wouldn't make it read higher.
The bobbing technique that worked so well in my air test....well, I couldn't get it to work at all. I couldn't even get a signal by bobbing the coil over the cap. I pinpointed and all to try to get it dead over it, but no signal. I don't know why it worked in air and not on a shallow 2"-3" cap but it didn't.
On to more caps. The 3b mode really causes target ids to bounce. I never got a lock on a cap in the 3b mode. I also didn't get a lock on corroded zinc pennies either.
What seems to be the best id is the bouncing number, combined with the audio, dimes give a sweet sound as compared to the caps I dug, as well as the broad pinpoint. When I pinpointed and then retuned, the coins were nice and small while as the caps were broader.
There was one time that I called it Cap because of the TID number bounce that turned out to be a copper cent laying with 2 zinc cents. One signal that bounced between 85 and 79.
Didn't have any trouble with tabs or foil. The T2 called them right everytime, even giving an overload signal on the larger wads. Canslaw stayed where it belonged.
My best find of the day was my very first Susan B. Anthony dollar coin. It was a surface find covered by grass clippings. Hit a solid 90. All the other coins were laying below the top soil on the base ground.
Had a buddy for part of the hunt. Little boy with the "what you doing mister?" questions. Should have seen the quizical look on his face when I told him I was hunting bottle caps! He brought me several after that till I managed to lose him
Conclusion. The rusty caps hit high tone. In dry ground with shallow 3" targets, I didn't have a problem identifying them by the number bounce, a 90 degree turn or the pinpoint response. The 3b mode really bounced for me. The bobbing method did not work. I dug up some 14 odd caps. The only coins I dug were 2 copper pennies, 3 zinc cents, two dimes (sweet sound) and a Susan B. Anthony dollar. Foil and canslaw are, well, foil and canslaw. I called all but a couple correctly.
Let me take a moment to mention headphones. My Timberwolfs have been out of commission, so I have been using a pair of walmart specials. They say 17 ohms, but who knows. The sweet sound of the three inch dimes were unmistakable. I could tell they were dimes. Now I have no idea how this is affected by depth. Or how soil moisture will affect the caps at depth, other than making their pinpoint broader, but the audio is good. I have to leave that to others until we get some rain or snow or I get enough time to drive somewhere.
Happy
