Noob Safari questions/advice

[EdStrange]

Hello all...

New to safari, not especially new to detecting (grew us as an army brat detecting with a 1980's era machine.. loved it!)

anyways... bought a new safari, and read Andy's book. I live in the thumb if Michigan, and am hitting a lot of corn fields, public parks.. fresh water beaches. My problem is.. the machine is going nutso. I am having to noise cancel constantly... and find myself getting a decent signal, only to dig a hole.. and find nothing.. or, have that nice signal turn into 2-3 signals of differing numbers.

I found a few pennies today... but the dig consisted of having to dig, get weird signals... re noise cancel.. rescan the hole.. to ultimately find the penny (35 to 37)... but I'd also get 20... 14... 31... etc... and after digging, sifting... and using a pin pointer, the hole only gave up the penny.


Is this normal? Going from old school knowledge to the new stuff is driving me a bit bonkers. he he... fun.. but it gets annoying to.

Any thoughts?

 

[ual10]

what sensitivity are you using..? use auto if you have not done so. Also check trash density, set to high if there is a lot of iron in ground. In manual sensitivity it will jump around in heavy iron if set too high. A small coil works better in heavy trash/iron, I use a 6x8 sef coil. The 11" stock coil picks up everything in high trash and can be frustrating in my opinion, better for clean soil. Something to consider...

 

[EdStrange]

Thought about that too... a new coil..

My setting today were auto sensitivity, High density (factory setting), 11 coil... running "coin" program for discrimination.

Machine seems very chirpy... likes to make a lot of noise, but most of it is not "hitting"... i.e. it'll chirp a 30... then nothing, even after a few slow sweeps, change of direction/angle... ect... then chirp again at 12... then nothing.

I will say that when I hit my wheat penny, it made a definite tone. It very well might be a very trashy area.. with some iron in the soil. Found many old pull tabs too...

 

[kschae4]

Ed, well, you've hit a variety of sites,so I doubt there's the same possible emi at each location. I almost exclusively run in auto sensivity too. Some folks here like to run at 15-17 manual sensitivity or higher, that is,until the chirping disappears. Try it, may settle that puppy down a bit. In addition, if you're using corded headphones, make sure there's no fraying near the jack. Oh yeah, you can also reset the detector, holding the power on button in for a few seconds, maybe that'll clear things. HH and we look forward to seeing many recoveries posted here.

 

[EdStrange]

Thanks!

I will try it.The first beach I hit was full of charcoal from campfires... heheh... definitely noisy!

So, if I hold the power button in, it "resets" the detector?

I'm going to hit some cleaner ground tomorrow.. an old local cornfield... and try these new settings. Thanks again for the help!!

 

[kschae4]

Correct. Good luck and a slow swing will get you target separation (try the 11" coil) along with depth at the cornfield.

 

[Prep1957]

First before you noise cancel,go to all metal,auto sensitivity,and find clean ground to noise cancel in.depending on how much trash you have set trash setting.Since you are new with Safari I would set my Disc.13,14,15 open.16 to 25 closed.26 to 40 open.Minis 10 to plus 12 closed until you get use to machine.Also get rid of headphones if you can you will be surprised on how you can "Read" your targets with stock speaker.Goodluck I hardly ever look at target ID only in set up.You also should learn to locate your targets using sweep method without using pinpoint if you are using pro coil Andy explains it in his book.

 

[1CoinAndRelicMan]

I've found that while at some sites using my FBS800 coil. That I am having to run sensitivity at 6. When I run on setting 7 there are far more false signals. Chirps that go away, this site has definite age and is trashy also. I have disliked auto sensitivity from the start. On my sovereigns, I often set it up manually by how the machine sounded.

 

[TellYaWhut]

In the iron filled areas I search, auto-sensitivity causes way too many ghost signals. Experiment with using a low manual sensitivity setting. Auto is good for open areas with less trash. Other coils...8x6 or smaller are aesome at old house sites. Thanks

 

[Mtnmn]

There should be no need to be constantly noise cancelling. If your chirping is caused by EMI, then you will need to manually cut your sensitivity back. Chirping can also be caused by small pieces of iron and other trash, but there should be a regular pattern to it as you sweep your coil back and forth. I have almost never have gotten a "true" false target signal (not chirping) with the Safari. Either I didn't pinpoint accurately enough (which happens) and the target was off to one side of my plug or else it was deeper than the depth of my plug in which case it usually is a large deep target reading like a shallower target. Anymore I pay strict attention to my depth indicator, if the Safari says it's 4", you can pretty much be assured under "normal circumstances" that if it is a coin sized object, then it will almost always be found within that 4" range. If I don't find a target, I rescan the hole to see where the target really is. Sometimes if the ground has a relatively high moisture content a coin size target may be found deeper than indicated, especially during the spring of the year and for several days after a rain.

 

[Dave400]

Make sure you make a test garden.You can learn alot from it.Good signals most always repeat.I always hunt in coin and jewery,auto sens.Try sweeping over the target only two or three times.Continued sweeps could change the numbers.Even a bad target could sound good with continued sweeping.

 

[The Fog]

Prep has some pretty sound advice if your just getting use to the machine, I can only add that when your target #'s are all over the map it's junk. A good target will give you a good repeating tone with the VID #'s close in value , 32-33, 36-37, 14-15, etc. etc. It is a chatty machine but you will learn to read through what is just trashy chatter and mineralized soils and a good target. If your getting mixed #'s and dificulty finding where to dig I bet most of the times you're digging junk. Stick to clean loud repeating signals until you get used to the machine. Hang in there it takes some getting used to... i hated my machine for the first 3 months... absolutely love it now that we're on speaking terms. ( you can put me in the non-headphone wearing club as well... that would drive me batty.)