Not quite sure

[JC99328]

Not quite sure what to think about this park or the machine. It's an old park for this area, in use from the 1860's (officially a park in the 1930's). I was thinking much trash and used the 5.3 the first day. Found 3 pennies and wasted a lot of time with such a small coil and not much trash. Yesterday I put on a 14" DD. I figured to cover some ground. I did too !! I found 4 dimes, none before 2000, or deeper Than 5". I found 14 zinks and a railroaded wheat penny (flattened by a train). I found some deep iron, 12-14", water pipe. I found about every water pipe and cover plate the park water system had buried!! My new gold headphones worked great!!

Next trip out, I'm going with the stock DD coil on the pro. The only area I found with much trash at all were by tables and even there it wasn't too bad. I'm still trying to figure out why nothing but dimes and pennies. The only quarter I found was on the ground as I stepped out of my truck. This area had a bad flood in 1996 and the park was under water for a short time and got some silt but not too bad. It's obvious the parks been hit by other MDers but there should be some deep coins, old coins, in there yet.

 

[Elton]

Some old coins may be masked.. Dig it all for a day..remember some of the readings on items you do not want to dig..

 

[JC99328]

I will do that next outing. I will be out there next Tues if the weather forecast holds up.

I did recheck every hole after digging. In that process, I did find some signals close by that I also dug. The big coil had some bouncing signals that I don't normally dig. I'm curious as to how the stock DD will be in the same area where I found a lot of coins. Also found some trash and gun nails. I didn't really dig much trash. A few tabs and several bottle caps. By not digging much trash I could have easily passed over goodies. First time out with that coil and I did dig a few trash targets to get the feel for it then quit on those readings for the most part. Late in the day I did dig a couple again for reference.

I was wondering about targets in the 70-80's with iron tones. I dug several and it was just iron.

 

[JC99328]

Some old coins may be masked.. Dig it all for a day..remember some of the readings on items you do not want to dig..

Cabin fever is setting in

I felt I was getting some odd readings at times. The 14" DD was noisy. I'm pretty new with this machine and was wondering how much the frozen ground and wet areas had to do with it. In fairly bare areas, it was frozen down 2-3 inches. In grass or light cover just a little frost, maybe an inch and it was usually fairly soft.

I'm looking for any information I can get to improve my hunts.

 

[JC99328]

In it for 3 hrs today before the rain hit. I ran the stock 10" DD coil and it worked well. As suggested, I dug everything for a couple hours and then decided I wasn't learning anything more and just went with readings. I still did not find anything old but my partner has found 2 1949s wheat's. My oldest is 1964 nickle.

What I did different this time, besides the coil, is run 0 disc and 9 gain. I was getting target reads to 10" but the frost still on top is throwing things off. Most were 2-3" shallower than the readout.

Total for the day: 1 quarter, 1 nickle, 5 dimes and 15 zinks. (and a hand full of tabs, one dog tag, one church key, one fence staple, many beer bottle caps, 3 tent stakes, a couple bolts and screws. No photo, all junk tossed in my pards trash can on the way home.)

 

[Nancy-IL]

There's a lot of information here on the past posts. Since you can't get out to detect, take some time and read through the forum. The only other way to get the most out of your MXT is to practice, practice and more practice. You'll get to know your machine well.

In a trashy park, I would use my little 5.3" coil. But the right way is to dig every target. Clean it out because if there are good targets deep, the trash will hide it or make it harder to detect that it's there.

HH,
Nancy

 

[JC99328]

Curiosity got the better of me! I decided to leave the MXT in the truck and take the AT Pro out and go back over the same areas I have been working. I ran both machines with the stock 10" DD coils. Ran both with near max sensitivity and near zero discr. I have an adapter but could not use the gold ear phones on the AT due to a plug problem of some kind. This was a downer.

I found 2 really toasted, deep, zinks in areas I was positive I'd been over. Also dug some gun nails in an area I had previously dug gun nails but I'm pretty sure I was sick of gun nails and had passed over them. I dug them for the h*ll of it.

The AT was much noisier and more sensitive to coil position on the sweeps. As far as finding stuff in new ground, not any difference was noticed. Still only found junk coins and about the same amount. Still have not found any old coins dated before 1964 (nickle).

After that test, I will be using the MXT. Just preferred the feel and overall operation. I did like the lighter wt of the AT but that feature isn't much of a plus, maybe when I hit 80 it will matter more !!??

 

[airscapes]

The Ultimate 13 coil would fix your weight issue over that 10DD anchor. Just something to keep in mind.

 

[rrw]

A park that old may have been filled and resoded/seeded a few times before you got there. Take a good look at some adjacent land to see how the ground level and tree bases compare.

 

[JC99328]

A park that old may have been filled and resodded/seeded a few times before you got there. Take a good look at some adjacent land to see how the ground level and tree bases compare.

This is an old state park. Highly unlikely it's ever been sodded but it has had a quite a few floods over it dropping silt. About 4-5" down in my digs, I've hit the old yellow clay. Not unlike the surrounding farms. Part was dug up when a bark beetle infestation killed many of the large pines. The trees were logged out and replanted and the area repaired. Actually I've not dug in those areas.