Looking for some advice - Old house hunt

[grubeda]

Hello fellow detectorists. This is my very first post to this forum, although I've been visiting this site frequently since I purchased my E-Trac a few months ago. I've been learning so much from all of the informative posts! I had a Whites Classic detector for many years, so this E-Trac is a MAJOR upgrade for me! I live in Northern California, and I have been frequenting the local schools and parks. I have dug a total of 517 clad coins (yes, I'm weird that way and like to inventory everything I find...), only 3 wheaties, and lots of other trinkets including some junk rings, keys etc... I've never found a silver coin or any valuable jewelry. I'm not digging very much junk because I think I'm getting pretty good at telling the difference. Maybe that's the problem...

Last Saturday, I found an abandoned house next to a hiking trail. It's in an area that's open to the public, and there's no problem digging there. A date on the front porch reads 1912. I'm thinking there has to be old coins to be found there. I tried for 2 hours, and only found a dogtag dated 1955, and a 1999 dime. There was trash in the ground everywhere. I was constantly getting signals with the FE in the 20s and 30s and the CO in the 30s and 40s. Every time I would dig a target it would be a rusty nail, an old can, or just scrap metal. So disappointing...

I'm running one of the latest patterns provided by NiagracountyNY (Jewlry-coin 2 most used.ptrn). My other settings include: Sensitivity: Auto +3, Audio: Multi-Tone, Sounds: Conduct, Deep: Off, Fast: Off, Trash: High, Ground: Difficult. I always perform a Noise Cancel before I begin. I own Andy Sabisch's book and have read it twice. I sweep low and slow. I have watched every video on YouTube posted by Vidslayer, NiagracountyNY, neswiper, and gibsondan. I operate my E-Trac just like they do and I can pinpoint targets precisely. I'm just not finding the older coins.

Should I be digging more of the signals I believe are trash? Is it just simply that Northern CA (SF Bay Area) has few old coins to offer? Any advice to offer me would be greatly appreciated!

 

[coinnut]

Hi, I personally run ferrous 2 tones, and use just enough discriminator to get most of the nails, say FE 27 to 35 I then go slow and listen for the high tones. It will only sound low (grunt = iron) or high (everything else) This may not work in a park, since every target that was not iron will sound, but at a house,where there are many, non coin targets that you may want to keep. That's just how I hunt. Try it. HH

 

[jbow]

Try this, it works well for me. You never know what you might find at a place like that. Maybe a CW veteran moved there... no telling what you might find. You don't want to disc out targets.

Sensitivity: Auto +3,
Audio: 2 tone, Sounds: ferrous, Deep: On, Fast: On, Trash: High, Ground: Difficult.

Pattern: Relic

Digital screen.

2 tone will false much less and the iron will give you the low tone. Pay attention to the high tones, even the "iffy" ones. Try it a bit and you'll get the hand of it. the ferrous numbers will mostly be between 8 and 20 10 but the conductive numbers will be spot on or really close. It is similar to the 2F mode on the F75 as far as the tones go. The fast seperation will help in the trash. Hearing everything will help too... you just have to watch the screen. High tone check the co number if it's good, check the fe number. It will work for you.

Julien

 

[jbow]

Hi, I personally run ferrous 2 tones, and use just enough discriminator to get most of the nails, say FE 27 to 35 I then go slow and listen for the high tones. It will only sound low (grunt = iron) or high (everything else) This may not work in a park, since every target that was not iron will sound, but at a house,where there are many, non coin targets that you may want to keep. That's just how I hunt. Try it. HH

Oh... it work's really well in old parks once you get used to it. It will unmask a lot of good targets the others have missed.

J

 

[grubeda]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the guidance. What you both suggested was to use 2-Tone Ferrous audio, which I don't think I would have ever tried. I'll also change Deep: On and Fast: On. If anyone else wants to offer me additional advice for this tricky area, I'll take it! I'll plan another trip to that area soon and will let you know the results.

 

[NiagracountyNY]

Hello and glad to see youve joined the forum and Th E-Trac club The pattern I think you are using I posted will Not work well on old home sites/cellar holes.It blocks out to much.You will want to run a more open program or just quickmask 24-26 .There are buttons and other relics you will miss with my parks/school/jewlery pattern.Run auto sens up to plus 3 and go slow! And then go slower yet Hit the area from 2 or 3 diffrent angles also.Sometimes iron laying in a certain direction will mask ..Go a diffrent direction and You will hear the target next to that iron.Keep us posted on your progress.Any questions feel free to ask..Good Luck ..HH

 

[CONDUCTOR7E]

I was just at a site identical to the one you're talking about and sometimes it's almost impossible to detect sites like this.I took my time,tried a variety of different programs,ect,ect.The tin roofing scraps,smashed cans,shallow and deep,and bottle caps can make you go nuts.The smaller coils definately work better,but still I feel overwhelmed.I personally do not have the time to spend on sites like this. I think that even the mighty E-trac has it's limitations at times!

 

[Barry NY]

had the same problem today like Conductor7E. a 4.5 acre site with house dated 1710 (that's right) for sale but abandoned right now so no one to ask permission to hunt..... 2 barns and pond on the property. there was so much junk i was getting bad signals all over the place - who knows what they used this for over the years. in 3 hours i was only able to recover 3 pennies, one a wheat from 1944 plus all the junk i pulled out - plenty of rusty nails. i went in thinking this was going to be a big silver find day only to come out disappointed. luckily i didn't get asked to leave by the local police dept....oh well - onto somewhere else tomorrow...and BTW those Killer B Wasp's are really great and the Jeff Herke cuff set-up a big improvement over the stock one - much more comfortable - it made the unit actually seem lighter....

 

[grubeda]

Update as promised:

Unfortunately, I'm giving up on this site! I went back yesterday and detected for over 2 hours. I was rewarded with one 1981 penny and A LOT of rusted trash, foil, nails, etc... for my efforts. I changed my settings as suggested to use 2-Tone Ferrous audio, Deep: On and Fast: On. The numbers (both FE and CO) were jumping all over the place.

NiagracountyNY, I also tried your suggestion to run quickmask 24-26. (I still prefer your Jewelry-Coin 2 pattern for the parks though.)

I then went to a local baseball field and found about 30 clad and one 1942 wheatie in about an hour's work, so at least my day ended on a good note.

 

[CONDUCTOR7E]

I have been tinkering around for a bit since I last posted to your question and have had better luck just running the quickmask set at 19-ferrous and auto sensitivity and at times -1.Seems to null the chirps out a bit more and still hit the good stuff with plenty of depth.Slow way down on your swing as well if you are not already doing so.Hit a 1787 Connecticut copper at nearly 10'' using this very setting in a trashy hole.My new hunting mode of choice for these sites.

 

[rbholt80]

try this
manual sens of 23 to 28 no less than 23 very important. some of the guys on here that know me may remember the test i did 8 or 9 months ago. trust me im not crazy with these settings they really work.
now the next most important thing after the manual sense of 23 is to use long tones or smooth.
fast on
deep off


really any setting you want to run with any pattern is fine just as long as your sens is manual 23 or higher and you use long tones or smooth.

next go very very slow in the trash and when you get a blip or peep of anything that sounds good stop the coil on top of it and then barely wiggle the coil over that spot. the tones will start to come threw and you'll hear that wonderful sound of a nice good target come threw a load of trash and junk. its almost like magic.
if you dont do it like this it will just sound like small false signals and iron bleeps and junk and you will keep swinging away for that perfect tone and miss a butt load of good stuff thats hiding in the trash.

search for some of my old post and you can read about the test me and a few others did and what we found.

i personally use a very tight pattern in trash. the etrac is a racist it loves discrimination lol

 

[akelley]

I live in the bay area as well and rest assured there are plenty of old coins around these parts. I've been working an iron infested site at a San Francisco park these past couple months have pulled 8 silvers, and 18 wheats so far. More importantly I learned a lot about the E-Trac and how it reacts to deep rusty iron. It was really frustrating at first, but now I don't hesitate to hunt in trashy or iron patches, since that's one place the majority of competition will bypass for more stable ground. I also keep good records of my finds, so don't be embarrassed as its a great feedback mechanism for fine tuning your E-Trac settings.

You didn't mention the type of turf - is it hard pan soil, sandy, rocky or ? If its hard pan soil, then the oldies aren't likely to be too deep and therefore you can turn down your sensitivity to Auto or Auto-1/2/3. The metal molecules from rusty iron in moist soil can create a pretty large halo, so by turning down your sensitivity a bit it'll help to achieve less iron falsing. But if the soil is loose then you'll probably have to turn up your sensitivity in order bust through the threshold where the old coins lie. A smaller coil (e.g., 6x8 SEF) will definitely help with target separation amongst the trash. You're not going to miss too many old coins with a smaller coil, because again in N. California the oldies won't be so deep the majority of the time.

You'll want to open up your screen so that your discrimination doesn't mask a good signal that's close to a trash target. Finally, I don't dig one-way signals, as the majority of the time they're rusty nails. If the signal sounds good by sweeping in both directions then I'll likely dig, but even better if it sounds off when I turn the coil 90 degrees.

I hope this helps and good luck! PM me if you have any questions

-Alex