..Well it ain't that easy to get to the finer art of coil sweep, just trial and error with your favorite settings on your preferred metal detector on a naturally buried target found, not a fresh buried coin. With my slow motion 2 and 3 filter detectors like my IDX Pro or MX5, I use a side to side sweep speed of about 2 seconds, just count 1000/1...1000/2 for swath of about 30 inches. With my faster sweep 4 filter models like my XL Pro or 5900 CB.... I can set up with a smaller coil like the 5.3 BullsEye and by raising the SIGNAL BALANCE and adjusting the GROUND BALANCE to just a bit positive. I can almost swing as slow as the 2 or 3 filter detectors mentioned. One neat thing though about the ultra slow sweep speed 2 and 3 filter detectors is you can go along at a snails pace and get good targets that are masked by iron or aluminum trash. BY using a slow sweep with the 6½" coil, overlapping the coil inch by inch.. that is the winning ticket to unmasking.
..Coil overlap is not talked about much and I move forward inching along listening for masked type signals. I move like a turtle in the trash, why hurry? The old manuals state that you should overlap not any more than ½ of coil diameter. This is too much overlap when you consider how tiny the signal is on an 8" dime with a small concentric coil. The audible signal does not cover much area and if you are over lapping sweeps at ½ of coil diameter you are going to miss that 8" dime. There are some who would say use a DD coil in that situation as you would not have to overlap as much, what I am saying is what we are looking for is like finding a needle in a haystack. It takes a slow and methodical search at the right LOCATION to find the hidden treasures that lay beneath our feet.
..Then there is a technique of slowly raising the coil over the found target while using short sweeps and listening to how the signal drops out, I have found that big iron stays loud and then suddenly drops out. Smaller non-ferrous will gradually and softly drop out with that wonderful modulation if your detector has this excellent feature.
..Coil overlap is not talked about much and I move forward inching along listening for masked type signals. I move like a turtle in the trash, why hurry? The old manuals state that you should overlap not any more than ½ of coil diameter. This is too much overlap when you consider how tiny the signal is on an 8" dime with a small concentric coil. The audible signal does not cover much area and if you are over lapping sweeps at ½ of coil diameter you are going to miss that 8" dime. There are some who would say use a DD coil in that situation as you would not have to overlap as much, what I am saying is what we are looking for is like finding a needle in a haystack. It takes a slow and methodical search at the right LOCATION to find the hidden treasures that lay beneath our feet.
..Then there is a technique of slowly raising the coil over the found target while using short sweeps and listening to how the signal drops out, I have found that big iron stays loud and then suddenly drops out. Smaller non-ferrous will gradually and softly drop out with that wonderful modulation if your detector has this excellent feature.
