Omega and 4" coil - findings

[earthmansurfer]

I went out yesterday for 3 hours with the 4" coil on my Omega 8000 for the first time. I went through a spot that I had been through before with both my T2 and Omega (both with 11"DD coil). I didn't get any coins but did pull up some non ferrous targets. Everything was in or in between iron. I wouldn't say there is lots of trash, just iron. Every target I am going to mention I checked in modes d2 and d4. I also checked the targets with no discrimination and sometimes in AT (after finding them). I verified that there was iron within inches of all targets.

First I pulled a quarter sized broken clock gear (I think). It hit very hard and I was shocked I hadn't found it before. I found a few dime sized pieces of foil that I probably new were there before but never dug - just verified the id. I found one of those lead seals for sacks of grain. I thought it was a really old coin at first. It hit at 60 and was very in iron. I was shocked. I found a 9mm shell (blank round). I was tricked by iron once and had to work really hard with some other iron like signals. It's much harder with the 4" than 11" coil.

I dug lots of very small targets. I understand now by pinpointing how to avoid them. But it really was a jump from the 11"DD coil for me.

The iron was really giving me a hard time. When the ID was at 99 I knew it was iron, but sometimes it was really mixed. I would get a low iron signal, a high 99 signal and a fairly consistent mid ID signal. Just by the clarity I suspected it was iron. I have to dig more of those to verify.

The 4" coil was much harder for me to use regarding the iron falses. But at the same time I could hunt in and between the iron like I couldn't with the 11". I asked on another thread this:

one negative thing about the Omega compared to the T2 and this is almost odd - The Omega sees through iron better but it also falses on it more. I am starting to understand the falses better and I think it's worse with the 4" than the 11". Anyone know why regarding these last two points?

A response:

Is the 4" a DD.and maybe it's just getting a better hit on the iron being smaller..So it..
is only seeing the target under the coil..whereas the 11DD will see a bigger area and hit on the good and bad target at the same time..If Omega is like all other F75, T2, F70 etc etc it up averages what it sees in your processor..So you may get a higher reading rather than an iron reading.. so not as many iron readings out right on the id or response..

So a few questions:
Is the 4" coil a DD? It doesn't look like it but people here often refer to it as one.
How can the Omega see through iron great (better than the T2 imo) but get tricked by it more (relative to the T2). It seems pretty clear to me that this is happening. Is it mostly the frequency?
Any other related comments on the 4" coil?

 

[Monte]

is no such thing as a 'perfect' do-it-all detector. This was made a point, of sorts, in a demonstration I gave at our monthly Detector Owners Rendezvous this past Saturday. Weather was perfect and we met at a quiet park. I planned on touching on a few topics for those who had gathered, but we more or less stuck on hunting in dense iron nail trash for a good share of the time. I gave them all a hand-out I labeled "Performance Testing for Nail Infested Sites" with the sub-title of "A quick study of target masking by iron nail trash." With that was a single sheet of paper that showed 4 iron nails and 2 positions of a coin.

I was on my way to teach a week-long class on recreational metal detecting at Yavapai College in Prescott Arizona the first of June, '94, and stopped ahead of time for a joint club outing on memorial Day weekend at a Southern Utah ghost town. I had with me a newer detector from a now defunct manufacturer (Treasure Baron from Discovery Electronics), as well as a White's 5900 Di Pro SL w/950 & 6

 

[Smooth23]

Thanks Monte for the review of the 5"DD, I've been looking for one. I'll probably get one soon that way I can stop carrying around my ace250 with the sniper for those areas, as the depth on that thing is really nonexistant.

 

[Monte]

you can have an endless winter (if stuck indoors) doing all sorts of "it works/it doesn't work" comparisons. A fellow stopped by with some questions about something he read on the forums about Tone ID on the T2 and Omega and Gamma, and using a 'proper' setting of Tones and low Discrimination to get a good-target hit.

He said it's best to use the 1 or d1 Audio Tone to hear a good target my a nail with a Disc. setting of '6' on the T2 because if you use a '2+' Tone on the T2 it will signal on the coin as the low Iron audio, but the 1 doesn't. It just gives a solid beep.

I pointed out to him that a Disc. setting of '6' isn't going to reject a lot of the iron junk, and not all of the nails. Therefore, if you're using a too-low Disc. setting then you will hear a good target along with the iron trash, so what?

If only using a single tone it all sounds the same, and that's logical.

If using a 2-tone audio then you MIGHT get a low iron tone from both because the T2, Omega and Gamma will produce a low bass tone on targets that register below a certain rejection point and, if the good target is to close, the iron response over-rides the higher-tone. You MIGHT get a high-tone audio if there is enough space between the two targets, if on the same plane, or if the desired find is closer to the coil than the iron.

To demonstrate, I grabbed a couple of elongated iron objects, a nail and a piece of wire, that were about 3"-4

 

[Monte]

spare lower rod to make coil changes in the field much faster.

Monte

 

[earthmansurfer]

Thanks as usual for the valuable info Monte. Ramble all you like. It's getting cold already in Germany so I don't mind reading in a warm house.

Interesting that the 5" DD coil is better in trash but not as good in iron. I wish they had a normal 5" for the Omega as I mostly have iron all over, not so much trash. I need to do an air test to see how the coil responds regarding it's DD design. It didn't cross my mind, though I know how a DD coil responds!

Regarding the Omega in iron vs. the T2. I was not tricked by iron that much with the T2, but that is because it rarely gave me anything other than a low tone for iron. With the Omega it gives me a bit of a mixed signal (depending on direction of the swing as you said.) I need to do more digging on those signals to learn the detector. That said, the Omega found me more in iron with the 11" coil than the T2. I never used the 5" coil on the T2, so can't comment. I may not do much in the way of tests, but the points of the Omega falsing more in iron yet pulling more coins from it are definitely true for me in this iron infested area.

Regarding iron producing a longer response, well Monte, you just brought back memories of my Nauty IIB that I recently sold. You could ID iron with that like nobodies business due to the much longer length of the signal. I imagine this might be even more apparent in pinpoint or all metal mode on the Omega? I have to test that. I can't believe I forgot about what my Nauty taught me! Thanks for the reminder, I'm going to start paying more attention!


Regarding your friends, I can believe they would not like the T2 (at first). I can remember first using that detector. Now taking into consideration that the Nauty IIB was my previous detector, I still found the T2 very very very difficult to use at first. That was soley due to two main things: It picked up everything below the coil (super fast) and it was extremely chattery. It took me months to get used to it's speed. I find the Omega very very quiet in the same areas that my T2 went crazy at (due to emi), so I would prefer the more powerful Omega over the Gamma and Delta I believe. The Omega (mine) is only chatty when I put it down. I run it consistently at 90-99 sensitivity. I can even run it at half sensitivity in my house. I can run it in my back yard and my T2 I almost always couldn't. Mine is less than two months old and I wonder if they made improvements to it here. I've been shocked at the depth I've gotten - coins at the 6"-8" rang very hard (11" DD). As you said with your friends, I love how the Omega locks on and doesn't jump around (as much) as the T2. It took me one weekend to realize it was a coin machine and that as great as the T2 is, I had been using a relic machine to hunt coins for a few seasons.

Depth wise with the 5", I dug a few 3" targets, maybe one 4" but as hard as they rang I knew I'd get them at 4"-6" I'm guessing.

I can see the 5" coil requires more patience and it seems that using it brings about a totally different kind of hunting for me. It's much more precise and dare I say methodical (as I can't cover large areas and have to me more careful with where I have been.)

Thanks again for the education

 

[Monte]

about 60 seconds to favor the Omega and Gamma and Delta to the T2. I'd guess that soon, even with his Explorer II, Classic 5-ID and IDX Pro, a Gamma will be in his arsenal.

The T2 is a fine detector and, while it works for some coin shooters based upon their patience level and the types of sites they hunt, my friends concentrate on city coin hunting and value a more 'lock-on' TID. When we work ghost towns and the like things are different, but in town .... TID on mid-to-deeper targets.

Monte

 

[Hombre]

Hi Monte

Hope you're feeling well

I'm curious as to what detectors you use in the old western ghost towns.

HH

Randy



:

 

[Monte]

A few (or parts of a few) old railroad town sites have been raked and cleared a bit so that some trash isn't as much of a challenge. I can guarantee that a good deal has been recovered and moved over the past many, many years. Still, the 5" DD, since it's a smaller coil which I prefer, will see a lot of use.

Right now I would use either an 8" or elliptical sub-10" concentric coil for most open area hunting, then grab a unit with the 5" DD when I get into dense brush and/or more trash. What would those coils be mounted to, you might wonder? Well, i have the 5" on my Omega right now so it might be the duo for junk. General hunting might be the Gamma, and in some locations with more consistent ground, even the Delta can get the job done. Still, I favor more manual control, especially Ground Balance.

Then, too, on the outer ranges of some of them, where targets might be well spaced and I'm looking for any sign of past human activity or an old dump site, the 11" DD coil would get the nod on either the Omega or Gamma. Oh, I could use my T2 w/11" DD as well, but with the others I can hunt with the 11" and tote the 5" DD w/lower rod for a quick change if I get into a lot of targets.

I can't forget, either, that I am going to be putting a new G2 to the test of ferreting out some good old stuff when I hit an old town or two in the next 1-2 months (depending upon weather). It will only be using the 11" and 5" D-D coils.

Monte

PS: Nice to see you hanging around here. What are you using the most of late?

 

[Hombre]

A few (or parts of a few) old railroad town sites have been raked and cleared a bit so that some trash isn't as much of a challenge. I can guarantee that a good deal has been recovered and moved over the past many, many years. Still, the 5" DD, since it's a smaller coil which I prefer, will see a lot of use.

Right now I would use either an 8" or elliptical sub-10" concentric coil for most open area hunting, then grab a unit with the 5" DD when I get into dense brush and/or more trash. What would those coils be mounted to, you might wonder? Well, i have the 5" on my Omega right now so it might be the duo for junk. General hunting might be the Gamma, and in some locations with more consistent ground, even the Delta can get the job done. Still, I favor more manual control, especially Ground Balance.

Then, too, on the outer ranges of some of them, where targets might be well spaced and I'm looking for any sign of past human activity or an old dump site, the 11" DD coil would get the nod on either the Omega or Gamma. Oh, I could use my T2 w/11" DD as well, but with the others I can hunt with the 11" and tote the 5" DD w/lower rod for a quick change if I get into a lot of targets.

I can't forget, either, that I am going to be putting a new G2 to the test of ferreting out some good old stuff when I hit an old town or two in the next 1-2 months (depending upon weather). It will only be using the 11" and 5" D-D coils.

Monte

PS: Nice to see you hanging around here. What are you using the most of late?

Howdy Monte

I'm using your old favorites.......Bandido series and the modified IDX Pro.

I see you've moved on to the new Teknetics

 

[ohio fred]

n/t