Ok, so im still playing around with the gt I bought inside the house, doing air test and stuff trying to get to know the machine a little, because I cant get out for the rain. Anyway, ive been playing with the notch, and disc on it. I dont know if im doing anything wrong, but I've got it in disc, and I'm trying to notch out pull tabs but they still sound off. Even if I turn the notch full clockwise, they still sound off. Im wandering if im doing something wrong here, or if the notch isn't working. I can get them to stop sounding off, I have to turn the disc knob full clockwise to get the machine to stop picking them up. But the notch doesnt seem to be doing anything. I tried it with the sensitivity knob in auto, and also manual. suggestions?
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help with gt notch
- Thread starter Czhunter
- Start date
Critterhunter
New member
The notch on my GT kills about a 12.5 digit spread if memory serves, so if I say raise it just high enough to hardly kill a 165 tab, it will then kill all targets down to 152.5 on the conductivity scale. The discrimination dial will only go as high as to kill I think around zinc pennies or just a bit below or above that maybe. Some crank disc to full in heavy trash when in a hurry and call that "silver mode", but in reality you're still going to dig clads and such. But for notch, are you in disc mode? If so, take any tab by it's self and sweep over it with the coil at least 3 or 4" away or more, and slowly raise the notch until it just kills it. If that isn't happening then something is wrong, because I scanned in a large selection of random round and square tabs without being selective digging when finding those at various sites, and found that 99.9% of all tabs start at 149 and range up to 169. A 20 digit spread, which is outstanding due to the super high low and mid conductor resolution of the Sovereign. One it's strongest points, as it makes for land hunting strategies on land for rings, buttons, relics, or certain older coins (such as fatty indians or gold coins) that read lower on the scale. You can avoid most tabs by noting the most common numbers for them at a site and dig everything 1 digit off.
Here's a video I did notching out tabs, then placing coins under those tabs and showing that they would now sound off, due to the gaps in the tab surface that lets the detection field curl around them and bleed down into the coins they are laying right on top of. When this happens the sum conductivity of the "tab" is raised, thus the tab and coin now sound off...
http://youtu.be/hkGUuBvYLQI
Here's a video I did notching out tabs, then placing coins under those tabs and showing that they would now sound off, due to the gaps in the tab surface that lets the detection field curl around them and bleed down into the coins they are laying right on top of. When this happens the sum conductivity of the "tab" is raised, thus the tab and coin now sound off...
http://youtu.be/hkGUuBvYLQI
I am in disc mode. I took a tab off a new can of soda to use. I started out with notch fully counter clockwise while waving the tab in front of the coil. As I would wave the tab in front of the coil, I would increase the notch clockwise, and it will still pick it up all the way across the board.
The disc and notch will not disc out the new zincs or anything higher. The notch has to be set higher than the disc to work as it can not notch out something that is already disc out.
This is the first thing about the disc and notch many don't know. Now also there is some pull tabs that are bigger and will not disc or notch out, but in most cases you should be able to notch or disc out them, the lower reading one you can notch out completely while the higher reading one you will still get somewhat of a signal. These will not sound just right as they will be broken up and not complete like a good target sound like. In my case when I am hunting in a area where there is a lot of these type of tabs and get tired of listening to them I will turn up the notch all the way clockwise and may still hear them, but they just don't sound as good as a coin will and with the notch this high I will still get my IH pennies, some of the older wheats and the new zinc made after 1982. If I don't want the zincs I don't dig shallow targets and only those that are deeper sounding.
If you can get some different pull tabs and try the notch with the round tabs you should be able to notch them out to a complete silence when going over them,those that come on the new cans of soda or beer will be those that read higher and are the ones you will get a broken signal or those that just don't sound right even maxed out.
Rick
This is the first thing about the disc and notch many don't know. Now also there is some pull tabs that are bigger and will not disc or notch out, but in most cases you should be able to notch or disc out them, the lower reading one you can notch out completely while the higher reading one you will still get somewhat of a signal. These will not sound just right as they will be broken up and not complete like a good target sound like. In my case when I am hunting in a area where there is a lot of these type of tabs and get tired of listening to them I will turn up the notch all the way clockwise and may still hear them, but they just don't sound as good as a coin will and with the notch this high I will still get my IH pennies, some of the older wheats and the new zinc made after 1982. If I don't want the zincs I don't dig shallow targets and only those that are deeper sounding.
If you can get some different pull tabs and try the notch with the round tabs you should be able to notch them out to a complete silence when going over them,those that come on the new cans of soda or beer will be those that read higher and are the ones you will get a broken signal or those that just don't sound right even maxed out.
Rick
CZhunter,both the 10 & 8 inch Tornado coils can separate blended targets very well.Example 167 will turn into a 180 with a slight movement of the coil or in case of those without a meter a tone change.Why risk to null out a good target by using too much discrimination or notch,I have found both silver and gold in heavy trash by using this method.HH Ron
deepdiger60
New member
C Z in the almost 4 years i used my GT i never used notch why take a chance and not get a gold ring some pull tabs and gold have the same # on the target meter . Jim
That is a good point with the Sovereign with all its different tones it makes. A beep and dig detector most wanted to disc or notch out pull tabs in some of the real infested area of pull tabs, but with the Sovereigns we get a different tones with different items so we can tell which are coins and which are pull tabs so we can decide which pull tabs signals we want to check out further, As some of us have seen after we have dug some of the questionable ones from experience we can see a difference in some gold rings and pull tabs. I have used the notch too at times, but it is rare as I like to hear everything the coil goes over and and use what the Sovereign is great for and that is giving me the info with the tones and meter readings and let me decide if I want to dig or not. From experience I found I can swing the Sovereign and not notice all the little beep and tones until a certain tones and will stop me dead in my track and check it out with a few swing of the coil.
Rick
Rick
Critterhunter
New member
Czhunter said:
The only tabs, round or square, that I found I couldn't block, were the very rare odd ones that read well up into the penny range (around zinc or a bit above that). Luckily though, at least at my sites, those kinds of tabs are rare, and tend to be old style that are sort of a cross between going from the old round style to the newer square style. They are square, but fatter and bigger for me.
Though rare, there are times I do use the notch. Never at the beach or in the water of course, but on land for two different reasons when the situation arises. When a site is loaded with tons of both old round and new square tabs, to the point where it's a total distraction when I'm after old nickels, I'll raise it just high enough to block a 165 tab #, and now I'm blocking about 84% of all know tabs I've randomly sampled and graphed percentages on. I can then fine tune it a bit higher or lower as the type of tabs dictate at a site to silence some particular pesky ones. When I've done this my nickel count goes through the roof in a bed of billions of tabs. Yea, tabs for me start at 149 and go up to 169 about 99.9% of the time, and nickels have a distinct lower tone and more of a "round" "boing" sound to them to draw my attention, but just the same I find it easier to concentrate some days by silencing the tabs.
Also, when I'm in the mood to gold ring hunt on land at a tab heavy site, I'll do the same deal above (raising to just barely kill a 165 tab #). Our graphing of over 100 truly random and non-biased rings shows that about half read in the foil range, and that no greater numbers of gold rings read in the nickel or tab zones as is often said in detecting circles. My theory is that saying got going via detectors with poor low and mid range VDI resolution. Meaning a much wider range for "nickels" or "tabs", and so more gold rings were found in those zones. Then, people would say "If you want to find gold rings dig the nickel zone", and so the numbers then got biased as more and more targets were targeted in that particular zone or the tab zone. I've seen similar ring graphing done with truly random test pools of rings (in other words, rings not found by selective digging certain zones), and they seem to pretty much jive with our numbers. Most rings, or about half or so, are below nickel in the foil zone.
Here's a thread with further info on these percentages we grafted and further notch using strategies in certain situations. That said though, most of the time I never touch the notch or the discrimination dial and keep them at zero. Mainly I only use the notch for the above situations here and there, or say when I've got a hangover and I'm just stick to death of hearing all those tabs blast me...
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?21,1720979,page=1
Mel Parker
Member
the new style tab, old style tab open, old style tab folded all at once but you will still get the beaver tail. If you notch out the beaver tail the other three will come in. Good luck!
Critterhunter
New member
Excellent advice. Also, the beaver tail is usually pretty easy to eliminate. Often they'll read in the 120's to 130's and be jumpy in ID and sick in tone based on which way you sweep over them (it'll change from various directions, where as a round target like a nickel won't). I do have some of these beaver tails fool me to thinking they are nickels will they some times read in the low 140's, but often I know what they are based on the jumpy ID/sick tone they usually have. I've found most round things like nickels will tend to lock onto 1 or perhaps 2 numbers no matter which way I sweep over them, and will have a nice "round" "boing" sound to them. Odd shaped items will tend to change by 3 digits or more depending on sweep direction. Not to say some nickels, such as at depth or on edge, might not roam by 3 digits or more depending on angle of sweep, but rarely do these targets tend to turn out to be nickels or anything else round when they roam by 3 digits or more. The trick is to do the constant short wiggle or sweep at the fast pace to derive the best ID and tone out of a target. If it doesn't settle down and lock in then think odd shaped trash.
More on tabs- In the larger "splitting hairs on rings" thread, which is linked to the condensed splitting hairs thread, we graphed the random round and square tab test sample pool we acquired from various random sites. If you look on that chart, you'll see a distinct bell curve in the 149 to 169 number range, and interestingly there are 4 or 5 numbers listed that show no tabs at all within that span of 20 digits. Oddly I've found that identical tabs, bent or twisted at least to some extent, will often still give the exact same VDI # as an identical one that is flat and in perfect shape. Not always of course, but often.
More on tabs- In the larger "splitting hairs on rings" thread, which is linked to the condensed splitting hairs thread, we graphed the random round and square tab test sample pool we acquired from various random sites. If you look on that chart, you'll see a distinct bell curve in the 149 to 169 number range, and interestingly there are 4 or 5 numbers listed that show no tabs at all within that span of 20 digits. Oddly I've found that identical tabs, bent or twisted at least to some extent, will often still give the exact same VDI # as an identical one that is flat and in perfect shape. Not always of course, but often.
OK, so these ID numbers are with a different detector so they don't match the Sov meter's readings; but I'd just as soon dig a couple hundred tabs and get one of the gold rings in that range as I would leave the tabs and rings in the dirt. That is, as long as I can still bend over to dig!
Cheers,
tvr
Oh ... that folded tab at 45 is about a 42 when not folded and about 40 to 41 without the beaver tail at all; then scale linearly for the Sov meter readings.
Cheers,
tvr
Oh ... that folded tab at 45 is about a 42 when not folded and about 40 to 41 without the beaver tail at all; then scale linearly for the Sov meter readings.
Critterhunter
New member
The thing you have to remember, is that the conductive scale of the 180 meters on the Sovereign has very high resolution from foil all the way up to copper pennies. I'm not saying no other detector has such high resolution, but I am saying that I've not owned or used another machine or know of one that has such high conductive resolution in that low to upper mid range of target VDI.
The scale of tabs we graphed is about 20 digits wide, and included round tabs with or without tails, along with various styles of square tabs as well. I even found that many identical round tabs, in various stages of being bent or crushed, often gave the exact same VDI # to each other. Not always, but often.
For the above reasons, the nickel "zone" on the Sovereign is fairly distinct in both tone and VDI #. Typically spanning about 141 to 146 in VDI (around 143 or 144 is most common for me), but can dip down into the upper 130's if the nickel has degraded badly in the ground. Most foil (again, not exclusively, but in general) will read below the nickel range. Usually when I dig a junk target that read in the nickel range it is can shards or very big blobs of foil, but often I can tell those by the distinctive "fuzzy edge", harsh, or "hollow" sounds they have, lacking the "round" or "boing" sound of a nickel or other round objects. And, by sweeping at two 90 degree angles and wiggling over the target, I can often see oddly shaped trash change by 3 digits or more depending on angle. Nickels can do that, but it's rare for me, in that most of the time a 3 digit or more changing target that won't seem to settle down turns out to be odd shaped junk.
Because of the extremely high conductive resolution in the low and mid range, nickels are rather "easy kills" with the Sovereign, and the long detailed audio improves the chances for success when doing that to tell target traits.
The way I look at using the notch in rare situations, is when I'm at a site loaded with a billion tabs (never the beach though...too easy to scoop there so why pass anything?), I look at it like playing the odds in Vegas when betting on a poker hand. Do I want to bet all out on every hand (IE: Dig all those tab signals), or do I want to hedge my bets and bet on hands that seem like winners (IE: Targets not having a tab VDI #, even if they are only 1 digit off). Rather than make it my life's work to dig all those tabs, by avoiding them and digging all else I feel I've increased the ratio of probability for treasure versus treasure. In other words, by avoiding tabs I'm prone to dig less junk for the rings that might lurk there. Sure, I'll miss some rings doing that, but it's the effort versus the results thing. By our numbers I should be able to avoid the tabs, and still recover the vast majority of rings present at a site.
Look at it this way, if somebody took 1000 junk ten cent dime store rings, ranging in a 20 digit scale (like tabs) and scattered them across a site, would I rather dig all those up to find any gold ones, or would my time be better spent to avoid those numbers and dig all other ones?
It's a question of strategy in the time involved as to just what angle of attack to approach. Sometimes rather than avoid the tabs, instead I'll just pick a likely small spot of activity at a park (such as a large opening between trees where a Frisbee or ball might be thrown), and dig each and every "tab" out of there. Often when I do that, I'll simple avoid digging any coin signals (zinc penny on up), but even that is a trade off, because in fact there are many gold rings that read well up into the coin range...But once again it's the treasure versus trash ration...If the site is loaded with zincs then I won't dig those. At least not the shallow ones.
Further still, one of my favorite strategies is to judge the depth of tabs and foil at a site, and then "travel back in time" by digging all foil/tab range signals that are deeper (and thus older in age) than when tabs or foil became common place at such a site. One friend used this strategy last summer, and ended up digging a gold ring cut in half by a lawn mower, which read well into the foil range if I remember right. When I asked what the ring read like and heard that, it prompted me to ask him why in the world he decided to dig that signal, and his response was something like "it was deeper than the common junk". It again reminded me that digging some signals, or even all signals, deeper than the common more modern trash (such as round tabs) at a site can be very effective.
Yes, the only true way to find all the gold rings, masked coins, buttons, and relics, is to dig it all above iron, but I'm just not in the mood to do that every single day. Any strategy applied, real or imagined, by the very nature of just doing something "different", can have productive results, even if the strategy wasn't exactly a sound one. Just by virtue of your approach being different than others, it can make things happen. Still a game of chance? Yes, but so is gambling, but still yet I'm sure we all know somebody who seems to "win all the time" when they go to Vegas, and usually they've got some very odd superstitions or techniques that they apply.
On that note, I know of one local hunter who seems to always be finding rings on land. He seems to have developed an "eye" or "feel" for where to hunt, and also claims to be able to hear the difference of a ring with the same exact VDI # as a tab. Who am I to argue with him? I can't deny his results, so something is going on here that I can't quite put a finger on. Maybe his beliefs and strategies aren't sound, but even if his success has all been by chance, the point is he's getting results, and I just shake my head every time I hear about some new ring he just dug up.
To be fair to myself though, or at least in the way I rationalize it, I don't hunt for rings nearly as much as I old coin hunt. Even though it usually takes a lot of silver coins to equal the scrap value of one ring, there is just "something" about seeing that silver rim sticking out of the dirt that draws me in. I think physiologists should classify this sickness as "Silver Psychosis"...
The only thing some consider a "drawback" about the VDI scale on the Sovereign, is that all coins above copper penny are grouped into the 180 #. I don't find that to be a drawback myself, because when after old coins I have two rules- If it's shallow then I only dig it if it's masked badly, because somebody might have missed an oldie at shallow depths. And, if it's deep then I dig it as well, because it might be out of the range of other machines.
I've dug too many silvers with machines that could tell you coin types, that were telling me it was a penny or some other clad. Due to minerals, being on edge, being masked, being deep, or even due to just plain old dry conditions. For that reason, I don't care what kind of coin it is, because I'm digging. Only coin I really care about IDing when in the mood for it is zincs, and also many copper wheats and such will roam in the 177 to 179 range, or if they do get up to 180 they'll take their time. Same deal with clads. A dime takes a bit longer to hit 180 than a clad quarter, and still yet silver dimes or quarters often jump real quick like up to 180 and are almost "effortless" at it. That's how I can sort of judge coin types if say I'm clad hunting and only after quarters or such, but that's a rarity for me.
Also, I had issues with the "float" of the VDI scale when a machine could make distinctions between various coins, because the conductive resolution between those various coins is often very fine, which then makes things "floaty" and tends to talk me out of digging a deepie or masked one because I start thinking it's trash, even though I know it's just the normal ID float due to the finer distinctions between coins.
I just want the machine to lock onto and grab a possible coin as easily as possible when at depth or in trash, and in a sense it's like the old saying that "a bigger net catches more fish". That's one of the reasons I did so well with my QXT Pro, even though it didn't get nearly the depth of my GT, and it's also one of the reasons why the GT has done so well for me. Only when avoiding pesky trash do I want the highest resolution possible, and the GT has that in spades for me.
The scale of tabs we graphed is about 20 digits wide, and included round tabs with or without tails, along with various styles of square tabs as well. I even found that many identical round tabs, in various stages of being bent or crushed, often gave the exact same VDI # to each other. Not always, but often.
For the above reasons, the nickel "zone" on the Sovereign is fairly distinct in both tone and VDI #. Typically spanning about 141 to 146 in VDI (around 143 or 144 is most common for me), but can dip down into the upper 130's if the nickel has degraded badly in the ground. Most foil (again, not exclusively, but in general) will read below the nickel range. Usually when I dig a junk target that read in the nickel range it is can shards or very big blobs of foil, but often I can tell those by the distinctive "fuzzy edge", harsh, or "hollow" sounds they have, lacking the "round" or "boing" sound of a nickel or other round objects. And, by sweeping at two 90 degree angles and wiggling over the target, I can often see oddly shaped trash change by 3 digits or more depending on angle. Nickels can do that, but it's rare for me, in that most of the time a 3 digit or more changing target that won't seem to settle down turns out to be odd shaped junk.
Because of the extremely high conductive resolution in the low and mid range, nickels are rather "easy kills" with the Sovereign, and the long detailed audio improves the chances for success when doing that to tell target traits.
The way I look at using the notch in rare situations, is when I'm at a site loaded with a billion tabs (never the beach though...too easy to scoop there so why pass anything?), I look at it like playing the odds in Vegas when betting on a poker hand. Do I want to bet all out on every hand (IE: Dig all those tab signals), or do I want to hedge my bets and bet on hands that seem like winners (IE: Targets not having a tab VDI #, even if they are only 1 digit off). Rather than make it my life's work to dig all those tabs, by avoiding them and digging all else I feel I've increased the ratio of probability for treasure versus treasure. In other words, by avoiding tabs I'm prone to dig less junk for the rings that might lurk there. Sure, I'll miss some rings doing that, but it's the effort versus the results thing. By our numbers I should be able to avoid the tabs, and still recover the vast majority of rings present at a site.
Look at it this way, if somebody took 1000 junk ten cent dime store rings, ranging in a 20 digit scale (like tabs) and scattered them across a site, would I rather dig all those up to find any gold ones, or would my time be better spent to avoid those numbers and dig all other ones?
It's a question of strategy in the time involved as to just what angle of attack to approach. Sometimes rather than avoid the tabs, instead I'll just pick a likely small spot of activity at a park (such as a large opening between trees where a Frisbee or ball might be thrown), and dig each and every "tab" out of there. Often when I do that, I'll simple avoid digging any coin signals (zinc penny on up), but even that is a trade off, because in fact there are many gold rings that read well up into the coin range...But once again it's the treasure versus trash ration...If the site is loaded with zincs then I won't dig those. At least not the shallow ones.
Further still, one of my favorite strategies is to judge the depth of tabs and foil at a site, and then "travel back in time" by digging all foil/tab range signals that are deeper (and thus older in age) than when tabs or foil became common place at such a site. One friend used this strategy last summer, and ended up digging a gold ring cut in half by a lawn mower, which read well into the foil range if I remember right. When I asked what the ring read like and heard that, it prompted me to ask him why in the world he decided to dig that signal, and his response was something like "it was deeper than the common junk". It again reminded me that digging some signals, or even all signals, deeper than the common more modern trash (such as round tabs) at a site can be very effective.
Yes, the only true way to find all the gold rings, masked coins, buttons, and relics, is to dig it all above iron, but I'm just not in the mood to do that every single day. Any strategy applied, real or imagined, by the very nature of just doing something "different", can have productive results, even if the strategy wasn't exactly a sound one. Just by virtue of your approach being different than others, it can make things happen. Still a game of chance? Yes, but so is gambling, but still yet I'm sure we all know somebody who seems to "win all the time" when they go to Vegas, and usually they've got some very odd superstitions or techniques that they apply.
On that note, I know of one local hunter who seems to always be finding rings on land. He seems to have developed an "eye" or "feel" for where to hunt, and also claims to be able to hear the difference of a ring with the same exact VDI # as a tab. Who am I to argue with him? I can't deny his results, so something is going on here that I can't quite put a finger on. Maybe his beliefs and strategies aren't sound, but even if his success has all been by chance, the point is he's getting results, and I just shake my head every time I hear about some new ring he just dug up.
To be fair to myself though, or at least in the way I rationalize it, I don't hunt for rings nearly as much as I old coin hunt. Even though it usually takes a lot of silver coins to equal the scrap value of one ring, there is just "something" about seeing that silver rim sticking out of the dirt that draws me in. I think physiologists should classify this sickness as "Silver Psychosis"...
The only thing some consider a "drawback" about the VDI scale on the Sovereign, is that all coins above copper penny are grouped into the 180 #. I don't find that to be a drawback myself, because when after old coins I have two rules- If it's shallow then I only dig it if it's masked badly, because somebody might have missed an oldie at shallow depths. And, if it's deep then I dig it as well, because it might be out of the range of other machines.
I've dug too many silvers with machines that could tell you coin types, that were telling me it was a penny or some other clad. Due to minerals, being on edge, being masked, being deep, or even due to just plain old dry conditions. For that reason, I don't care what kind of coin it is, because I'm digging. Only coin I really care about IDing when in the mood for it is zincs, and also many copper wheats and such will roam in the 177 to 179 range, or if they do get up to 180 they'll take their time. Same deal with clads. A dime takes a bit longer to hit 180 than a clad quarter, and still yet silver dimes or quarters often jump real quick like up to 180 and are almost "effortless" at it. That's how I can sort of judge coin types if say I'm clad hunting and only after quarters or such, but that's a rarity for me.
Also, I had issues with the "float" of the VDI scale when a machine could make distinctions between various coins, because the conductive resolution between those various coins is often very fine, which then makes things "floaty" and tends to talk me out of digging a deepie or masked one because I start thinking it's trash, even though I know it's just the normal ID float due to the finer distinctions between coins.
I just want the machine to lock onto and grab a possible coin as easily as possible when at depth or in trash, and in a sense it's like the old saying that "a bigger net catches more fish". That's one of the reasons I did so well with my QXT Pro, even though it didn't get nearly the depth of my GT, and it's also one of the reasons why the GT has done so well for me. Only when avoiding pesky trash do I want the highest resolution possible, and the GT has that in spades for me.