I a thr
Member
Well I have been reading this forum for some time and have detected for 38 years. I just FINALLY got my Etrac and used it for about 4 hour on Sunday. I may have made the mistake of taking it to the worlds trashiest spot to begin with???? I have this old city park that has produced many IH's and Barber and Merc dimes in the past but there is a boatload of trash masking coins that remain. How do I know there are coins left you ask. Here is my story.
In the past 10 - 15 years I have detected this park many many times and the old coins have gotten few and far between. Recently some new playground equip was installed in the park and an area about 30'X50' was cleared of about 5 -6" of sod and topsoil. I was fortunate enough to be able to re-hunt this area prior to the new bed of wood chips being install and was totally amazed at what was recovered. In the short time available before the new area was cover to never be hunted again I found 3 Barber dimes, 4 IH's 3 Nickels, 3 old Wheaties, and 2 Mercs. These finds were another 3+ inches deep after the 5=6" were already removed, for a total of approx 8 - 10" deep. Now this tells me that there are several more to be found in the remainder of the park. Two thing made it hard for me to recover these remaining coins which was depth and trash masking. My thoughts are that the new Etrac should help resolve this issue. Here is what I found my first time out with the new Etac. I hunted with 2 different coils the 11 " Stock coil and a 5" SunRay coil. The problem was that the 11" still covers so much area that the trash in the ground made it very difficult to ever separate any signals. Depth was excellent, but so much trash I couldn't separate. In trying the small 5" Sunray coil it helped in separation but was unable to get the 8 - 10" depth required to locate the remaining coins. Now I know I have read about people in their trashy areas but this park is so bad w/nails can-slaw, pull tab, foil, & screw caps that with the small 5" coil on a very slow sweep will null over half to two thirds of the sweep.
Well enough rambling , if anyone has some tips for this trashy spot I would be much appreciative. I hope this is not a foolish question.
One other thing I noted was I wanted to see what numbers I got on a half dime so placed it on the ground and with the 5" coil it read a 12-35 at about 2" above the coin. I then raised it to 4" above the coin and it read a 14-35. Then finally at approx 6" it read a 17-35. My question is is this typical for the ferrous No. to increase that much on deeper coins?
Hope to get some input!!!
Bill
In the past 10 - 15 years I have detected this park many many times and the old coins have gotten few and far between. Recently some new playground equip was installed in the park and an area about 30'X50' was cleared of about 5 -6" of sod and topsoil. I was fortunate enough to be able to re-hunt this area prior to the new bed of wood chips being install and was totally amazed at what was recovered. In the short time available before the new area was cover to never be hunted again I found 3 Barber dimes, 4 IH's 3 Nickels, 3 old Wheaties, and 2 Mercs. These finds were another 3+ inches deep after the 5=6" were already removed, for a total of approx 8 - 10" deep. Now this tells me that there are several more to be found in the remainder of the park. Two thing made it hard for me to recover these remaining coins which was depth and trash masking. My thoughts are that the new Etrac should help resolve this issue. Here is what I found my first time out with the new Etac. I hunted with 2 different coils the 11 " Stock coil and a 5" SunRay coil. The problem was that the 11" still covers so much area that the trash in the ground made it very difficult to ever separate any signals. Depth was excellent, but so much trash I couldn't separate. In trying the small 5" Sunray coil it helped in separation but was unable to get the 8 - 10" depth required to locate the remaining coins. Now I know I have read about people in their trashy areas but this park is so bad w/nails can-slaw, pull tab, foil, & screw caps that with the small 5" coil on a very slow sweep will null over half to two thirds of the sweep.
Well enough rambling , if anyone has some tips for this trashy spot I would be much appreciative. I hope this is not a foolish question.
One other thing I noted was I wanted to see what numbers I got on a half dime so placed it on the ground and with the 5" coil it read a 12-35 at about 2" above the coin. I then raised it to 4" above the coin and it read a 14-35. Then finally at approx 6" it read a 17-35. My question is is this typical for the ferrous No. to increase that much on deeper coins?
Hope to get some input!!!
Bill
Now if I can just defeat the old saying about "teaching an old dog new tricks" !! 
Hardrock (Trash density can be beat!!!!)
So they would go out to the park at low traffic times (like at night, or super early .....and be gone by 7am) and do the following: They took flat shovels, and cut out a kitchen table sized section, to about 6" deep. They would either roll back the turf, or put it in carefully handled strip sections on a tarp, etc.... Then they would hunt the sub-ground, get the old coins, and then put the turf back in, tamp if back down, and PRESTO! You couldn't even tell they'd been there. Heck, probably less invasive than cutting plugs, eh? Naturally this would only work in nice moist turf, and would only be worth the time if old coins were very abundant and simply no other way to reach them. And of course you'd have to have b*lls of steel to get up the nerve to do this. But it worked for them. True story!