Omega 8000 11"DD coil

[Whimpster]

Hi,

I got out yesterday for a few hours here in Nova Scotia..did a little beach detecting with the omega and the 11''DD coil,well it's not a wet sand detector I found out.
I moved into the drier sand and it started to work half decent,got a few hits dug lots of pull tabs and bottle screw caps....as I moved up into the picnic park area I started to find a few coins a dime at 7'' and penny at 8''.
What my problem is being a newbie.... I'm finding it hard not to dig a to big of a plug when looking for a coin or target..can anyone help with some tips on being more precise with digging a smaller plug?
Ya I know about the pinpoint function on the omega and do use it.....but I'm trying to be much neater with my digs and find the 11''DD coil hard to judge the centre of my target.
Got pretty good with the 5''DD and the original 10'' because of the hole in the centre of the coil.
It's the 11'' DD that I would like to be dead on with...chime in folks

Thanks, HH

 

[mudpuppy]

Welcome! I've been running a 11"dd on an F70...I rarely take a digging tool with me. I use a long shaft 1/4" flat screwdriver for all digging in the 5"targets on up to surface. You hit a target, stab it with the screwdriver, ream out a little hole, and extract the target...If its a deeper target, I still stab it, leave the driver right there in the ground, whip out a serrated edge lockback folding knife, cut a little circle around the driver, pull the whole plug out, and the target is centered down in the hole. Its super fast with no trace. Granted, I'm hunting parks and sportsfields looking for clad and jewelry in the top 6" of dirt, but I do stumble upon deeper silver every so often that needs to be retrieved. After a while you wont even use the PP button. Some old guy told me to dig 1000 pennys and dig 1000 pulltabs, so I went out to accomplish both tasks as fast as I could and it taught me a lot about targets, depth, and quick retrieval methods.
Mud

 

[jim tn]

As Mud mentioned,pin pointing targets takes a little practice. My 11" coil for the Omega has a dot on the center spoke smack in the middle and that is the precise pin point spot. X the target a little bit and at the loudest spot the target should be right under the dot. When I first started out with the 11DD I laid some coins down under a piece cardboard and practiced that way. It will come. HH jim tn

 

[mudpuppy]

Yeah, it boils down to practice...sometimes when I dont ground balance, (which is more often than not) the coins are slightly off to the side of that little center mark, usually high and to the left...typically I just keep hunting and stab off to the side a little. I think your unit has modulated audio? If it does, then you will get the hang of how deep a coin is without hitting the PP and looking at the screen. If your unit has DP tones, you wont hardly look at the screen at all except for original set up parameters..If I hit a deep target in the 8" range, I still use the knife to cut a very small plug of sod, and sort of wow out the hole under the remaining grass so its progressively wider at the bottom than the opening at the top. I've got it pretty good though, I am mainly in a sandy loam type soil structure..you can also ream around with a pinpointer through a relatively small hole through the sod for deeper targets depending upon your soil conditions...guarantee once you get several thousand targets under your belt, it just happens without thinking about it. You can even do it in the dark with no light once you get some muscle memory going.
Mud

 

[Whimpster]

Thanks Mud & Jim

I see the dot in the centre of the coil....great,gives me a reference point!!
My soil here in Nova Scotia has no shortage of rocks...so the stab effect may not work well.But yes a ball park or playground may work with a probe tool...will give it a try though.
Got about 8 to 10 hours in so far...I'm starting to learn the sounds and how they can differ...from fuzzy to crisp clear cut offs and yes I've dug just about everything from a old axe to silver spoons and fork.. 5 hot wheels and lots of pull taps and nails.
Thanks again guys for the tips