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Omega seems to ID poorly

P

pasttom

Active member
I know many people have raved about the Omega's ability to ID, but I am not finding it so. I am finding targets OK, but it seems most every zinc or copper penny comes in as a dime, rarely as a penny. I know copper pennies are very close to dime readings, but this is almost everything. I am using the 5 inch dd because the 11 is too hard to pinpoint and the 10 is not any better. I am not having this problem with my ID EDGE (8 concentric) or F2 (8 & 5 are fine, 11 dd is not great on this but better than the Omega).
I am just wondering if anyone else is having a problem or maybe my unit is defective. Or maybe its me that's defective? After awhile one starts to doubt oneself.
Tom
 
Pennies, especially zincs can hit all over due to many things on allot of mechines. Tons of things can effect that. Corrosion, ground, ground minerals, other targets etc etc etc. Do they lock on good but not on normal area or just not lock on at all?
 
What are the pennies reading? There is only 1-2 numbers difference between a penny and dime reading on my Omega. 84 is 99.9% of the time a dime. 83 is usually a dime, but if the coin is slanted or on edge can be a penny. Usually, though, a pre 82 Memorial or a Wheatie. 81-82 are usually pennies. I have all three coils and find myself using the 10" the most unless depth is a major factor. good luck. HH jim tn
 
Big Boys Hobbies said:
Pennies, especially zincs can hit all over due to many things on allot of mechines. Tons of things can effect that. Corrosion, ground, ground minerals, other targets etc etc etc. Do they lock on good but not on normal area or just not lock on at all?
Click to expand...

I know there are many reasons and I think of IDing as guidelines rather than rules, so to speak. It is just compared to my other machines IDs it seems almost worthless for predicting. Oh, the targets lock in fine. I dig trash to check marginal signals and usually am rewarded with trash. I guess I had an expectation that a $500 machine would ID better than a $200 one and I am just not seeing it. Yes I have ground balance and more data to view, but is it twice the performance? No where near. I do know I can get a lot more proficient with the Omega and that will help, hopefully a lot. Maybe if I bought a $1,000 machine?????
Tom
 
Looks like you might have a buyer lined up Tom! lol

I would consider sending it in. Mine locks on really well!!
 
1st off I'm much more consistent using the 1-2 tone mode. The rheostat sound helps me quickly size & pinpoint the target. When I have the target centered on the coil the last thing I do is check the VDI #'s...to me they are the least important info the detector is giving you.

I believe you will find the better targets will have solid VDI. Most coins & quality metals don't corrode much in the soil. The exception is zincs & they start dissolving in a year or less. The dissolving disperses minerals in the surrounding ground as it dissolves. This causes the target to sound less defined & the VDI #'s are wide ranging.

If I'm being zinc shy I'll do this... If the target is near the surface (within 3") and the VDI #'s run from 60's to the low 80's it is probably a dying zincoln. If the target ID is solid-it either has not had time to dissolve yet -OR-it could be a decent target-token.foreign coin or humongo gold ring...

But the key is the solid VDI of the good vs. the typical smearing of junk & dissolving targets.


If the target is deep all bets are off & I don't go by the VDI except for grins.Deep targets will almost always have a harder time giving a solid VDI#...

Cheers!.
 
you really should be tone hunting only if you are coin hunting, a pre -1980 penny will ID as dime on the Omega and the f-70, Garrett 2500,if you can't Operate a $500.00 detector you will be wasting your money on a $1000.00 detector. You need to give yourself a lot more time
before you pass judgement on the Omega, after all its a very good detector, if you take the time to learn you will find that the 11"DD coil is very easy to pinpoint thats all I ever use on my Omega and f-70, I have $1000,00 + detectors BUT I never bought them until I was very good with the $500.00 detectors. Each time I go detecting I take the Omega and F-70 a $1400.00 detector and yes I use all three.HH :detecting:
 
Most detectors today ID a pre 1982 penny as a dime. On some detectors you can tell the difference. The Omega is doing what many detectors do. Even some of the $1000.00 detectors......Jack
 
OK, I got out a bit this afternoon and ran into melted slag everywhere. It was silver color weighed midway between alum & lead -gave some interesting numbers. I did also find two pennies, a nice copper and a typical zinc. The copper hit a solid 84 and the zinc nailed 78. Perhaps tomorrow will bring a better selection. BTW I was being sarcastic about spending twice as much for a new MD since that worked so well (NOT) last time. I am tempted by the G2/GBPro in combinationation with my Omega as they are coil compatible. I think I have my hands full just getting myself grounded with what I have though. Thanks for helping.
Tom
 
First I'll say that accurate visual target ID is not an important feature for some people, for some it's extremely important. The key word here being feature. This is why you have detectors that cast $200 and some that cost $1500. You really can't believe that a $200 detector is going to do everything a $1500 detector will do you? A little common sense here, no one is going to pay $1500 when they can get the same thing for $200. Despite what some like to claim thats just stupid. You generally get what you pay for.

All of my high end detectors do a better job at target ID than my lower end detectors. Again, that feature is not of value to all users, but to me it is one of the most important.
 
With my Omega I've had zincs pennies id as screw caps along with the normal zinc reading (I think 77-78 is the vid I get on mine) copper pennies come in as a dime on my machine (never have paid that close of attention to the numbers to know if there is a difference or not) small pieces of odd shaped metal will give you a good dime reading also, but I had the same thing happen with my DeLeon only differece was the vid number was 95 and now way to tell if it was a penny, dime, quarter etc..Jimmie
 
Don't be so quick to discount PastTom's observations. Different machines have plus's and minus's.....regardless of cost or age of the detector. Example: My White's Silver Eagle (a Spectrum/XLT unit minus the advanced software programming) can do a far better job of ID'ing/accurate depth reading a target than my 6.5 version Teknetics T2. And the Eagle is 19 years old. However, the Eagle has terrible recovery lag when encountering a discriminated target. The T2 has awesome recovery time. I think that the detector engineers have a limited area to work in and they design a machine they think will work best for their concept. A big kudos to Dave Johnson & staff.
Also, this may ruffle a few feathers, but it seems that some detector owners cannot handle that their machine may have deficencies and they automatically discount another users experience without a thought, that it may be so. Every high quality detector has good and not good aspects.
 
Terra Digger I always play to what the suit in hand is, And what I mean Hunting is Hunting, but knowing where to walk is great. I have a pard/son that can walk right to where the old stuff is and I sometimes never see it! and Walking over it is half the battle.
 
pasttom said:
I know many people have raved about the Omega's ability to ID, but I am not finding it so. I am finding targets OK, but it seems most every zinc or copper penny comes in as a dime, rarely as a penny. I know copper pennies are very close to dime readings, but this is almost everything. I am using the 5 inch dd because the 11 is too hard to pinpoint and the 10 is not any better. I am not having this problem with my ID EDGE (8 concentric) or F2 (8 & 5 are fine, 11 dd is not great on this but better than the Omega).
I am just wondering if anyone else is having a problem or maybe my unit is defective. Or maybe its me that's defective? After awhile one starts to doubt oneself.
Tom
Click to expand...

Give the omega some time if it's new to you and you'll see an improvement I know I have and enjoy it more every time I go out with it.
If there's a lot of power lines in your area you will need to turn back the gain to where it's stable and not all jumpy but don't worry cutting back some it still gets good depth.
A copper penny will register as a dime on a lot of detectors because the vdi is so close and as it's been said the zinc seems to start coming apart in a short time in the ground it can jump it several id areas I hate zinc and end up throwing half or more of them away due to the chips out of them.
As for the f2 my son has one and for a cheaper detector it does a fine job in our areas as we have min ground minerals but he might have some loss of depth if he went to where it might need adjustments due to it's set gb where with the omega you can adjust to the ground you're hunting.
I have learned all metal detectors is different and each time you change you're gonna have to learn the language of each one and it takes some time I hated the mxt when I first got it and when I did learn it I figured anything else would be easy I was wrong when I got the omega a couple months ago it was the same thing all over again but now that I been out with it several times it's starting to be fun for me.
 
Being able to tell the difference between copper pennies and clad dimes is important to me now. Being 78 years old I try not to dig modern pennies. Can't get up and down like I used to. But I want the clad dimes. My legs just are not what they used to be when I started hunting 35 years ago.....Jack
 
I appreciate each of my MDs for their unique strengths and view them as tools with a specific application they perform more effectively. My goal is to learn to assess the need and make the proper choice then be able to do my part skillfully using the tool to get the job done. I view pennies with frustration because of their minimal worth and superiority of numbers. None the less, I think of them as kissing frogs. You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a princess (so they say and so to speak). Maybe I am just chafing at the awkward phase of almost knowing what I am doing. I know so much, yet sometimes it falls apart or doesn't work like I think it should. My irritation with the Omega is that it SEEMS INCONSISTENT. It works very well finding targets, but I am not making sense of the VID reading seeming to often have little in common with the actual dug item.
Thanks for the outlet this is much cheaper than therapy!
Tom
 
soil mineralization can "skew" id readings..along with coins
being "slanted,or "tilted" in the ground.....just sayin!

(h.h.!)
j.t.
 
Don't give up on the Omega, it really is a coin magnet. What I recommend it to tape some coins to a piece of cardboard and and then flip it over and listen to the tones, look at the numbers and watch the indicator. This will help you a lot with the tones. Also, do this test with the various tone settings to decide which one you like more.

I like the 4 tones because I get a distinct sound on nickles.

I hope that helps you.
 
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