and every other detector you ever get a hold of. That's what I do and it's helped me for 47 years of having fun!
aSaSSino said:
Thank you everyone, I'll make some practice with this new knowledge, and with the Monte nail board... I made dozens of tests but it seems that everything was wrong, the nail board seems the most difficult test to try detectors!
There are so many 'test' we can do that we set-up, but some of the best 'test' are those we encounter when out hunting in natural environments. Where nothing is 'controlled' and then the best we can do is duplicate an encounter, as close to exact as possible, and then learn from it.
I have hunted in and amongst iron nails especially since I first worked some of my favorite ghost towns in 1969. From 1965 thru '69 I was mainly hunting urban sites, such as parks, schools, yards, parking strips, etc., and while did come across iron nails, they were
never in the abundance that I usually encounter in my preferred sites. Ghost towns, homesteads, building tear-down locations or where buildings have been destroyed by fire, renovation work where sidewalks have been torn up, old campground sites, and so on and so on.
Once I shifted to hunting older town sites and similar places in the spring of 1969 i began learning how best to deal with hunting in iron. It's a little tougher today due to our modern detectors, or at least a lot of them. The Nail Board performance Test is an absolute copy of an easy-to-duplicate encounter in the old ghost town of Frisco, Utah.
It was Memorial Day Weekend of 1994 and the abundance of iron nails were scattered on the ground at the hill-top where the old school
used to stand. Laying there ion the surface and in plain view, and boxed-in by four (4) different-sized iron nails, was an Indian Head penny. I relate the story in an article on the www.ahrps.org website under Tips & Techniques and how I knew which makes present would detect the visible Indian Head, and which one probably wouldn't (sometimes based upon the higher level of Discrimination they were using.
I had my note paper with me as I was doing some field evaluation so I just placed a sheet of paper on top of the coin and nails. Then picked them all up and I was able to get them placed on a sheet of thin cardboard, and I have used this for 17 years now in seminars, one-on-one demonstrations, or just when evaluating detectors.
I had it duplicated in the exact position and now this exact placement is duplicated on the Nail Board Performance Test 'kit' that I offer. It is very easy to see it, and easy to adjust a detector so that the iron nails are rejected, then when the coin is placed in the marked location between the nails, it can be an eye opener for many who have not experienced hunting in iron nails (or other small iron).
Yes, the Nail Board performance test is quite a challenge, but when I do four tests for an audience to learn whet their detectors can do, the other three test conditions, along with the Nail Board, can do a lot to help educate folks as to the 'How To' to try and get the best performance, as well as let them learn the limitations many makes and models have in some challenging conditions.
If you get an actual Nail Board Performance Test kit, I'd like to hear your response to how the Gamma (or other models) work for you.
Monte
