Like Some Debate & Opinions On This- SUPER SLOW Pros/Cons To Sweep Speed?

[Critterhunter]

As I and some others have said in the past, it seems the higher you ride sensitive the slower the machine wants you to sweep for best depth, or at the very least to keep the threshold from dropping out. This is also true in very high mineralized ground, even if you aren't riding a high sensitivity setting. By the same logic, it seems like if I lower sensitivity to say past 12 noon then the machine wants a somewhat faster sweep for hardest initial hit on a deep target. However, I know there is debate on this so I'm not convinced myself yet one way or another.

This is the advice I've most often heard from some of the vets on here...Something like go slow. And when you think you're going slow enough cut that speed in half and see if things get even better. All Minelabs want you to crawl, and that means 4 seconds per sweep or longer according to the experts in several Minelab forums for maximum depth and unmasking ability.

However, at super slow speeds I think you may not get as hard of an initial hit on a super deep target, but the threshold will softly change to a new pitch. Then it's time to pick up your sweep a bit and see what it is. Especially by doing short wiggles or super short constant sweeps over the target to bring out the best audio and tone ID. But, as said, when you crawl at a SUPER slow rate the initial hit I think might not be as "hard" as a somewhat faster sweep over it. By my experience going super slow I'll sometimes only get a slight threshold change to a new tone (like say a high tone if I just passed a deep coin), so I watch for any tone changes at all in the threshold's sound and then stop, wiggle, and listen.

Anyway, what is everybody's opinion on this? In your experience when SUPER crawling along do any of you guys think you don't really get a good hit on a real super deep target, but rather just notice a threshold change and only get a hard hit when you pick up your sweep over it to something faster, or at the very least of course when you wiggle or short sweep quick to pull the ID out of it? I'm more curious about that initial "hit" at super slow speed. Do you find it isn't as hard, or is only a tone change, and do you think that a somewhat faster sweep will give a better initial hit on it? After all, we all know by wiggling or short sweeping we pull the best hit/ID/audio out of super deep stuff, so why not using a somewhat faster (not saying fast, just less super slow) general hunting speed to find those real deep ones? I go back and fourth on this, because I've found I seem to get a harder hit on super deep stuff doing a general long hunting sweep if I pick up the speed a bit compared to super slow. Now, the interesting question is, even if that is true, does that mean you are getting DEEPER at that a bit faster sweep, or are you only hitting the target harder? In other words, do you thing a super slow crawl might not hit as hard, or only make a threshold tone change, but in fact it's seeing deeper targets that way then a somewhat faster (but not fast) sweep...And then of course a wiggle/short sweep will of course hit hardest and pull the proper ID and tone out of it, but that's not what I'm asking here. It's the general hunting sweep. SUPER slow crawl and even though the tone only changes in the threshold it's reaching deeper? Or somewhat a bit faster sweep with a harder initial hit is getting deeper?

Please share your experiences on this, as I'm sure many want to know what speed general sweeping should be to notice the super deep stuff the deepest.

 

[Mark ( ohio )]

Critter... I'm not a fan at all......... of the sweep speed that is....It is too damm slow( a thousand 3-4 end to end sweeps ) and takes way too long to cover some ground..I'll keep the G T for salt-water beach hunting, but I'm looking for something else for land hunting..

JMO Mark ( ohio )

 

[Ism]

Maybe my GT is different than others ...maybe it needs to go back to the factory to get checked but I've had this discussion before. The threshold on my GT doesn't change unless I get an initial detectable signal. It WILL null but it won't change from the base threshold tone. Now on to the topic at hand.....I'm a land hunter and what I say is based on that perspective. When I sweep slow 1ft/sec I get less depth than if I sweep at a rate of 2ft/sec. My soil is virtually neutral so my claim isn't going to ring true for someone in highly mineralized soil. I gain 1-2 inches of depth at a faster swing rate and can prove it. This claim has been true with every VLF detector I have owned and the Sovereign proves to be no different. To clarify, I go slow in trashy areas to reduce the crazy falsing and to qualify the high tone as a true coin signal and not iron falsing. But I do that at a sacrifice of depth.
There's always a trade-off so location means a lot in how one operates his/her machine. What is different about the Sovereign GT is the fact that it gets the same or better depth in disc as all-metal. No other VLF detector I owned worked in this manner.

What you say about slow sweep is absolutely true for a PI detector no matter the soil conditions.

 

[Ron from Michigan]

Critter,the Sovereign is a motion detector and it is possible to go too slow.My point stop the sweep over a target and if no motion at all it won't respond to the target.Coil size will determine sweep speed.A slow sweep speed is required in most places to get the max depth and may require a wiggle short quick sweep to get a ID climb or lock(another contradiction for slow sweep to achieve maximum depth) My opinion the Sovereign will give the best depth at slow sweep,and even at a moderate sweep will have more depth than what most Sovereign user's realize.My two seeded hunts using the Sovereign proves my hypothesis. HH Ron

 

[Rick(ND)]

Slow sweep speed is a must for the deeper targets and the separation of targets, it will do OK at a faster sweep speed, but will not get you those deep targets that most will not believe that kind of depth with a detector. Example of one worked out park that is really tough and the play ground equipment is where most people probably have hunted many times, I know I have with all the detectors i have tried hopping to find one coin someone missed. Now with the Sovereign I had been around it several times and got a wheatie or 2, but one day I went super slow and listen very close and could get a couple little tone changes when I would go over a certain spot, so I did the Sovereign wiggle and seen I could get the tones trying to climb, so I dug them and found some very deep coins. I speed up the swing again on one deep one and got no signal at all until I went super slow again and could get the signal. Took over 2 hours and close to 3 to go around this merry go round, but got some nice coins that were deep I had missed by just going slow. This also happened at another old park where i went super slow and got some nice deep coins no one could hear with their detectors and one had a Sovereign too, so when I got a signal I felt was good I would mark it and have him try it and at a slow speed he got nothing, but when I told him to go super slow( moving maybe2-3 inches per second) he was able to hear it. I feel the coil can not see those deep one if it don't have time to see them and by going too fast it can not see them. Now this is not something you would do in some area, but those we know are very old and have been worked hard over the years we will find the most likely spots and go super slow.

 

[Neil]

Critter... I'm not a fan at all......... of the sweep speed that is....It is too damm slow( a thousand 3-4 end to end sweeps ) and takes way too long to cover some ground..I'll keep the G T for salt-water beach hunting, but I'm looking for something else for land hunting..

JMO Mark ( ohio )

Mark thats how I look at it also and it (sov) really does excel at the beach.

 

[Critterhunter]

Good info from everybody. 2 to 3" per second? Wow! Now that's something I have to test at known super deep coin spots.

I'm sure coil choice, mineralization, as well as how high or low your sensitivity is probably determines the speed of your sweep for best initial hit on a super deep target. Probably the best way to find out what your general "searching for next target" sweep speed should be is by playing with your long general hunting sweep speed over a super deep whisper you find at a site and then seeing which speed gives the initial hardest hit. Of course once a target is found then wiggles or short sweeps usually at a fast(er) speed will pull the best ID and tone out of it.

Again though, what I'm most curious about is the speed for deepest hit, if not necessarily the hardest hit. Perhaps SUPER slow might only just change the threshold's tone but not really give a hit per say, but is that getting a deeper response then a harder hit with a somewhat faster speed? An interesting topic, so hopefully others will chime in more about this...

 

[Neil]

Slow sweep speed is a must for the deeper targets and the separation of targets, it will do OK at a faster sweep speed, but will not get you those deep targets that most will not believe that kind of depth with a detector. Example of one worked out park that is really tough and the play ground equipment is where most people probably have hunted many times, I know I have with all the detectors i have tried hopping to find one coin someone missed. Now with the Sovereign I had been around it several times and got a wheatie or 2, but one day I went super slow and listen very close and could get a couple little tone changes when I would go over a certain spot, so I did the Sovereign wiggle and seen I could get the tones trying to climb, so I dug them and found some very deep coins. I speed up the swing again on one deep one and got no signal at all until I went super slow again and could get the signal. Took over 2 hours and close to 3 to go around this merry go round, but got some nice coins that were deep I had missed by just going slow. This also happened at another old park where i went super slow and got some nice deep coins no one could hear with their detectors and one had a Sovereign too, so when I got a signal I felt was good I would mark it and have him try it and at a slow speed he got nothing, but when I told him to go super slow( moving maybe2-3 inches per second) he was able to hear it. I feel the coil can not see those deep one if it don't have time to see them and by going too fast it can not see them. Now this is not something you would do in some area, but those we know are very old and have been worked hard over the years we will find the most likely spots and go super slow.

Right on point with this post Rick. Its really noticeable on the deeper targets(sweep speed).
Also take note thats why the Sov wiggle works to bring up a targets ID, your isolating the target from the ground and you have to move the coil fairly quick so the sov does not reset to the ground surrounding the target. It would be great if minelab increased the reset speed on the sov, a quick reset and still be able to swing slowly is a great combo.

 

[Ism]

In the video I show the settings on my GT then I sweep the coil over a clad dime originally set at 7 inches from the surface of the ground. Since then the earth has heaved and the coin settled some so I'm sure its over 8 inches from the coil to coin. The second coin is a clad dime one inch deeper. There is no threshold change until the initial detection. I have done air and wet and dry earth testing over and over . As you notice, there is no nulling of the base threshold either. I can crank the sensitivity but it only improves detection up to a certain point. I swing the coil out of the way on the second dime to find some iron to return the threshold to its base setting. Then I show the settings to verify that they haven't been changed

http://youtu.be/B9nq9kyE894

 

[imalookin2]

In the video I show the settings on my GT then I sweep the coil over a clad dime originally set at 7 inches from the surface of the ground. Since then the earth has heaved and the coin settled some so I'm sure its over 8 inches from the coil to coin. The second coin is a clad dime one inch deeper. There is no threshold change until the initial detection. I have done air and wet and dry earth testing over and over . As you notice, there is no nulling of the base threshold either. I can crank the sensitivity but it only improves detection up to a certain point. I swing the coil out of the way on the second dime to find some iron to return the threshold to its base setting. Then I show the settings to verify that they haven't been changed

http://youtu.be/B9nq9kyE894

Ism, thank you for the video. I have been reading on here to really swing slow with the GT. My experience is that too slow on my beaches misses targets. I get better target response with a 2 second swing than a slower swing. When I get a whisper or a tone change then I can swing faster and bring it in clearer in most cases. One thing is your are using an SEF and not a stock Tornado. I assume you have done this with the stock coil also with the same results but that is a variable. I keep hearing the processor needs a slow swing for it to work but it seems to work great with my swing. Any slower seems to waste time. I use the 2 second swing (to me that is already slow) on all my coils from the 8" to the 12X15 SEF. I have tried to slow way down but do not see my results going up. Can anyone elaborate why the really slow swing seems to be popular?

 

[OBX Franz]

My first reaction to your video (as soon as it started) was "Man oh Man have I been swinging too fast!" Until I noticed you didn't get a signal until you picked up your swing speed. My swing speeds range from 1-1/2 secs (fast), 2 secs (avg) to 3 secs (slow). I've gotten signals when I wasn't paying attention, then gone back at a super slow speed (reminding myself to go as slow as possible) and got nothing. Then swinging faster, out bounces the signal. One thing I read a lot about is paying attention to changes in threshold. In my experiences (and I am still new) so far, I've rarely to never had the threshold change w/o hearing a target signal first. When it has happened, it's just been from really coarse iron threshold to a little finer iron threshold. When I check the areas it happens at, there has never been a signal or another threshold change, even after removing sand. I will still continue to listen for threshold changes, and investigate them; but so far have found nothing. I'm glad you posted that video, I have spent a lot of time thinking I've been swinging like a speed demon and now I feel a little bit of relief.

 

[Rick(ND)]

I wish I could do a video to show what i am talking about, this does show odd from all my experience with the Sovereign (12 years) in actual detecting and not any reburied coins as my hunting is land of actual targets. My signals are not that loud as yours is and I have nulling and tones most all the time and by going slow it can hear every little signal there is, where as going a bit faster a null or another tone will cover up that little good one of a good target. If you ever while detecting and get one of those weak signal you just barely hear because of the nulling or different tones try swinging faster or slower and see what you think.
I have used the 8 inch coinsearch coil, the S-8 of Sun Rays and the S-12 and it works excellent, never tried that 10X12 on the Sovereign.
Being going slow and looking for those deep targets in well worked areas going super slow sometimes I only hear a slight positive tone change and that is enough for me to do the Sovereign wiggle over that one small area and if the tone is trying to climb I will be going to all metal pinpoint to see if I can get it to give a signal and sometimes it don't as it is so deep so I have to pinpoint in disc. If pick up my sweep speed the signal is gone, slow down and it is back, but these are not 2--7 inch targets, but those at 8-12 inch ones and with the S12 I got one around 14 inches deep. The Sovereign has to have time to see the deep targets, or reset from the last target to see the next one.
If you know of a area like a old park that has been detected to death and feel there should be some older and deeper targets there stand in one spot and swing back and forth real slow and see how many signals you will hear, then swing faster and see how they disappear and may only hear the low tone growl of iron. I find a spot like this around where you know people have been like the old merry go round or one of the big old trees where people sat around as you know most people have been over them and the new stuff will be gone, but there should be many signals around it of deeper items. I know it works great for me and love those old areas where I am told you wont find anything because it been gone over 100s of time as I can go real slow and don't have to listen to those loud hits and spend my time listening to the weak and deep hits.

Rick

 

[Ism]

Rick, we're not on the same page.
You are talking about searching a park with years of trash and picking out coins in between the debris. Of course slowing down is paramount with the Sovereign because of its characteristics.
I bet if you removed the trash instead of cherry picking, you may find even deeper coins by picking up your swing speed.

Once a questionable/deep target is found, every experienced Sovereign user does the "Sovereign wiggle" to improve target response.
The Sovereign wiggle is simply a fast swing over an isolated target. So if a slow swing finds the deep coins, then the "Sovereign wiggle" should lose the target signal....It cant be both ways, that's a physical impossibility.

Ducking behind cover.....
Ran

 

[Neil]

Rick, we're not on the same page.
You are talking about searching a park with years of trash and picking out coins in between the debris. Of course slowing down is paramount with the Sovereign because of its characteristics.
I bet if you removed the trash instead of cherry picking, you may find even deeper coins by picking up your swing speed.

Once a questionable/deep target is found, every experienced Sovereign user does the "Sovereign wiggle" to improve target response.
The Sovereign wiggle is simply a fast swing over an isolated target. So if a slow swing finds the deep coins, then the "Sovereign wiggle" should lose the target signal....It cant be both ways, that's a physical impossibility.

Ducking behind cover.....
Ran

the reason the sov wiggle is done fast is to eliminate the surrounding ground which gives the sov a better chance to properly ID the target. If you were to wiggle it slow the surrounding ground influences the ID. Remember the wiggle is to bring up a targets ID, not to locate a target.

 

[Ron from Michigan]

Ran brings out very interesting points and his video backs them up,but there are a lot of factors involved with the sweep speed for the Sovereign.Recovery time is needed for iron targets close to a good target and requires a slower sweep.Different coils and sizes react different to sweep speed.Rick knows the Sovereign,but with the sweep speed there are a ton of factors,and some contradict logic.Thanks Ron

 

[Neil]

In the video I show the settings on my GT then I sweep the coil over a clad dime originally set at 7 inches from the surface of the ground. Since then the earth has heaved and the coin settled some so I'm sure its over 8 inches from the coil to coin. The second coin is a clad dime one inch deeper. There is no threshold change until the initial detection. I have done air and wet and dry earth testing over and over . As you notice, there is no nulling of the base threshold either. I can crank the sensitivity but it only improves detection up to a certain point. I swing the coil out of the way on the second dime to find some iron to return the threshold to its base setting. Then I show the settings to verify that they haven't been changed

http://youtu.be/B9nq9kyE894

nice video thank you.
a couple of questions:
1. sounds like your run your threshold high, might just be the vid?
2. at about 1:18 in the vid on a right to left swing which is slow you do get a hit and I notice are now scrubbing the coil. how high off the ground was the coil on the other swings.
3. with such a strong response and as you say neutral ground, you should have easily been able to bring up a 180 on your meter, but it bounced all over the place. if you tightened up that swing can you get a 180 on those coins, they are well within range?

I think youve got to tailor your swing speed to each location/situation but by experience I would never hunt at the speed you were swinging at in the beginning of your vid. by my experience that would only net me shallow coins at best....and that could be my soil/where I hunt, but what else can I speak of

 

[Rick(ND)]

In perfect conditions the fast speed can work better possibly, but where to do find find this in the real world, most places most of us detect is where people have been so we have a lot of different trash from over the years. I feel the Sovereigns were made for places such as this and can react with the slower speed much better that with a fast swing of the coil. With the fast wiggle after you find the target is like Neil says will amplify the signal as it will be the only thing it is seeing not anything else.
I was out in NJ a few years back and went to the beach with the Explorer XS I had and I thought my Explorer was broke as the threshold ran so smooth and found I could swing it much faster and still pick up deeper signals, so this idea of going fast may work in these conditions, but not for us that hunt where there has been many people over the years that lost their coins and jewelry.
This is what I like on the Sovereigns with keeping the tone of the last target it sees as I can hear the change much easier than those that give a quick response like the Explorers and E-Tracs do.It is much easier to hear that tone change when you go over a deep target with the Sovereigns and with the real time display on the meter you can see what you are hearing at that time.
As we know the Sovereign is a motion detector and resetting itself all the time and it could be why with a slow sweep speed on your target it didn't see them as it was getting close to the target it is resetting itself so it can not see this target and why the faster sweep speed worked better. Now with the slower sweep speed on most area we work where people have been there are a lot of different targets so we can hear that tone change of a good target that you could not going fast. I guess lot of this has to do with where you hunt and feel on a trash free area going fast would work out OK for you, but where there has been trash or highly minerlized soil I feel you would leave all the deep target for those like me that go slow and listen to the threshold changing.
I will say your video is interesting and get some of us thinking to learn more about the Sovereign. As i have said many times you learn something new each time out with it.

Rick

 

[Ron from Michigan]

I'm always learning also.This post gave me a different prospective,but in my area heavy worked parks require a slower sweep to avoid nulls or missed signals.On the other hand when I used the Sovereign in a couple of comp hunts there were a lot of raised eye brows and snickers.The Sovereign isn't a Whites or a F75 sweep speed wise,but is more honest and hits very hard on targets making it very competitive.Most who have used the Sovereign for a while know in the field this is a great detector.Thanks guys for a great post.HH Ron

 

[Critterhunter]

Loving the debate, as I go back and fourth on this one and am not sure yet which to believe. Early on I believed a somewhat faster (say approaching medium speed) sweep hit deep targets better, but lately I've been considering that perhaps a super slow sweep might not hit targets as hard at first, by say only changing the threshold, but in fact it's seeing deeper. More testing on deep undug targets is called for here. Next time I find a super deep one I'll play with my general long sweep hunting sweeps over it and see what gives. I think sensitivity level can change this though, as well as ground minerals. Higher minerals or higher sensitivity= slower sweep. Lower minerals or lower (say well past noon) sensitivity= faster sweep. That's at least what I noticed in the past, but I haven't played with it enough yet either way on deep undug targets to say for sure either way.

I agree that the wiggle or 3 to 4" short sweeps at a somewhat fast speed pulls the best ID and tone out of a deep target, and also it seems reasonable that the reason for this is that the machine is isolated and KEYING IN ON that small patch of ground signal and eliminating it, where as going slower or wider would change the ground conditions and not pull the best ID out of it...I think anyways something like that is probably happening.

When I do some more deep target testing before digging I'll post my results. I also want to play with turning silent search on and then raising the threshold to where it can be heard again, and see if that acts as some kind of signal or audio boost on super deep stuff when I find it to test, as I've heard debate that this might be possible in the past. I could see why it might work, because when in silent search the machine is boosting target signals above the unheard threshold high enough for you to hear. Otherwise, why offer that feature...when you could just turn down the threshold low enough not to hear? Obviously silent search does something very different to probably "boost" a target above the silenced threshold, so I could see how bringing the threshold high enough to hear again in silent search might somehow at least do an audio boost on the target, if not an actual signal boost.

 

[gear box]

I went out today with a mission in mind. that is when and if I got a good signal that I believed would be something good I would do a couple of slower sweeps at different sens. settings and a couple at much faster sweeps than I am accustomed to. About 45 min. into the hunt I got a 180 that sounded like silver. I always creep along at a slow pace and overlap my sweeps by half the coil. My sens. is almost always set at 11:00 or 12:00. The first thing I did was swing over the spot at a much faster speed and to be honest with you it felt odd to me and the response degraded significantly. With my slow sweep the response was a long classic high pitched tone that you get with silver. There was plenty of time to digest what I just heard and plenty of time for the machine to process the target without going over the target over and over except to pinpoint, but the second I increased my sweep speed the response became a short blocky response. My coil entered the target area with a abrupt, rubbery, stretchy, low tone but peaked in the middle with a short small high tone of silver then left the target with the same abrupt, rubbery, stretchy sound. It was there and gone pretty quickly, I didn't like the small, short good tone in the middle of the bad sounding tone. You would have to be really listening to catch the good tone in the middle of the bad tone. All I had to do is go back to my slow sweep and there was no mistaking the tone. When I turned the sensitivity up to 8 or 9:00 it got worse with both the fast sweep and slow sweep but the slow sweep gave the best response with a high sens. and could easily be recognized by anyone with a good understanding of the Soverreign. Just not as good as my slow sweep speed. Then I turned it down to about 3 or 4:00 and with a fast sweep speed the target barely responded but when I slowed down I got a much better response but still not as good as with a slow sweep and a mid range sens. Well enough experimenting, I decided to dig and it turned out to be 1957-D quarter at about 7 inches. I guess the bottom line (for me anyway) is, I'm going to continue to go slow and learn more where I can. One more thing is, if this had been a small dime verses the larger quarter would the responses of the different speeds and sens. been any different? When I got the short, blocky, stretchy response with the fast sweep speed would I have even heard it if it was a dime?
Good luck Gary