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Metal Detecting 101....

A

Anonymous

Guest
Let's get a string going on this one. All imputs on generic setup, coil selection, detector settings, site evalustion, sweep speads, sensativity settings, etc welcomed so we can all learn more.. Good luck--JD
 
Regardless of your specialty, coins, relic, jewelry hunting, etc, your sought after target signal can be either isolated, camouflaged, partially masked, or 100% masked by iron or minerals or both.
Your level of knowledge of detecting in general, familiarity with your detector, patience, and determination, determines which style of hunting you perfer, and the typical types of signals you go after most of the time.
Want more finds? Buy the best detector you can afford, hopfully one that is known to be a proven performer in your part of the world finding your perfered type of target, learn its operating characteristics, then study the following styles of hunting for their pros and cons. So which type of detectorist are you?
Cherry Picker Pete- only digs “isolated targets
 
Running too much sensitivity and high discrimination (pull-tab or greater) are the biggest mistakes newbies make. Those are great setting for an open park with very few targets many feet apart and full of pull tabs but will not work at old sites loaded with nails and other iron rubbish.
Proper setup procedure of Sensitivity to unmask good targets-Analyze a small area of the site first before searching. Use high sensitivity and all metal mode to determine if lots of “obvious
 
The amount of energy conducted for each trash metal is known and can be eliminated by the electronics. The bad news is-
1) Many valuable rings and gold coins have almost the same identical conductive properties as typical aluminum trash from foil to all the different types and broken off parts of pull tabs. This aluminum range is also the gold range due to it being not being heavily alloyed with better conductive metals like copper and silver. The older thin 18K gold rings will read close to foil and nickels, the more modern 10K rings will read closer to the penny. The one dollar gold coin will read close to foil, the 2.5 as a nickel, the 5 dollar in the pull tab range, the 10 dollar reads like a new zinc penny and the 20 dollar double eagles read like a pure copper penny. Never use more than iron rejection unless you have to(ex pull tabs everywhere) in order to find any of these items
2) Coin masking- usually caused by a coin or rings lying next a nail. Can only be found one way- use only the modest amount of iron rejection needed to eliminate 75% of the nails typically found at a site. In your test garden, or air testing, you will notice is the control is set properly which is just enough to eliminate medium size nails, you will get a decent signal from a coin lying next to it due to signal averaging ( warm water story I told you). A slower sweep will allow the detector to reset and separate the targets better. Increase in mineralization will cause the amount of dialed in discrimination (only on analog detectors) to move higher so you must bury a nickel size piece of crumpled foil at each site and set the level to just accept it if you want to unmask all nonferrous targets lying next to a nail. Any more discrimination than this will cause you to not locate small 18K god rings and small gold coins. A copper or silver coin next to a nail usually reads as a nickel which is just above foil in conductivity.
3)Some depth is lost (only on analog detectors) -about 1 to 1.5 inches at pulltab rejection level. You can check this out by air testing a penny on your detector. Remember, Max depth is using no discrimination, then increase to your preset levels to determine what the probably ID is. Some pros hunt this way with their analog detectors. Digital detectors with programmable notch discriminators are far superior in many ways and should be seriously considered.
Three good reasons to keep the elimination level as low as you can unless forced to increase it due to an outrageous amount of aluminum trash in the area. Many successful detectorist search in the “All Metal
 
Here is your chance to really learn your detector’s operating characteristics and practice your swinging, discrimination, pinpointing, depth readings and retrievals in the comfort of your own backyard. This will give you the confidence to go out and knock on doors and come home with cash or old coins or both!!!
Most beginners do not built one and therefore never become a metal detector expert except after many hundred hours of trail and error resulting in giving up the hobby very quickly or missing out on some great finds for the first year of their new hobby if they do stick with it for the long haul. In the beginning, keep it simple, as time goes by you can make one more and more complex and improve your skill by learning how different combination of trash, coins and rings at different distances and different depths from each other sound on your detector. It will always talk to you but how well you understand its language will determine how much trash you leave in the ground and quickly you locate valuables.
First Test Garden:
Needed: nickel, penny, dime, quarter, medium size nails, and 2-3 different types of pulltabs. Check the area in your test garden in the “all metal mode
 
Basically there are three types in different sizes- coplanar, Widescan and Mono.
Coplanar- has both the transmit and receive windings of its antenna on the same horizontal plane. Usually, the transmit is in the middle of the coil and the receive section is around the outer perimeter of the coil. Pinpointing is excellent, detection depth in low to moderate soils is the best. Magnetic field is shaped like a bowl and has one drawback- targets close to iron may be discriminated out, and each scan must overlap its predecessor by half in order not to miss deep targets. An 8 inch one is standard on most detectors.
Widescan- Also called DD (double D) since the transmit and receive windings are arrange to look like two Ds back to back. This forms an area in the center of very high energy that is less susceptible to interference from ground minerals and covers more area without gaps in the magnetic field. Great for salt water beaches. Very little overlapping is needed compared to a Coplanar coil to prevent good targets from being missed as one sweeps the coil back and forth while walking. Is famous for recovering goodies lying close to iron since the magnetic field is only about 2-3 inches wide and in areas of high mineral concentrations like the beach or mountains that would require reducing the sensitivity by half or more when using coplanar coils.
Mono- Used only on PI. The unit is either transmitting or receiving but not both simultaneously like the VLF units, therefore, only one thin, lightweight coil is needed.
Size- Larger is not always better but does have its advantages. A twelve-inch can cover 600% more ground than an eight inch. About 20% more raw depth too, however, in areas where the buried objects are close together, a smaller coil can actually get more effective depth by its ability to detect between targets and get the deeper ones. A large coil in a target rich environment will only detect the shallowest target, which is usually modern ferrous and nonferrous trash. Many times newbies find and remove only this surface layer of junk and later a pro detectorist comes along with better knowledge and equipment and has a field day easily recovering deep goodies that were previously masked. 5 and 6-inch coils are very popular for this type of site. 12-14 inches are popular for open fields out in the country where signals are very few but usually goodies if you have your site. 8 inch come standard with most detectors since it is a great comprise for depth and target separation. Most newbies give up on a site before it has a chance to produce anything of value. Only the correct selection of detectors, coils, headphones, digging tools, retrieval methods proper for the sought after find will consistently produce for the dedicated detectorist.
 
<span style="background-color:#ffff00;">Usually, the transmit is in the middle of the coil and the receive section is around the outer perimeter of the coil. </span>
Hmm, I think you meant to say this the other way around? <img src="/metal/html/smile.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=":)">
 
Only been doing this for a couple of months and I just wanted to let you know that I found your postings very helpful... especially the tips on unmasking and hunting in trashy areas. Both are very frustrating to a newbie. (with a CZ-20) <img src="/metal/html/smile.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=":)">
 
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