Poor Performance in Trashy Areas

[jimpote03]

I have been hunting with my X-Terra 705 for about a year and I think I know it pretty well BUT I have always been plagued in trashy areas. Today I was really embarrassed. I was hunting with 2 others who each had Whites MXT-Pro. In 4 hours I only found 2 dimes and a penny while they had pockets full of coins and a few silvers!. I could not hear through the trash as well as they could. When I say trash, I mean a signal every few inches apart and it was really difficult finding a clear spot to ground balance.
Even with my sensitivity set very low-10 to 12, discrimination setting a #2 and properly ground balanced at about 35 with noise cancellation at 2, I still got so much chatter it made my corn popper sound quiet. I was using the 10.5 in DD coil at 18.75Khz. I used a really slow sweep speed. I didn't seem to matter what settings I used and I tried them all.
I'm about ready to sell this thing and get a White because I continually have this problem in parks. When I got home, I tried it again in my back yard and it performed well.

I really need to greatly improve in this area. Does anyone have any ideas? Will ground balance offset do any good?

Del Digger

 

[scoopjohnb]

Forget about the ground balance,... just let it track the ground.

A high frequency DD coil will have the tendency to high tone on a lot more targets.
Stick on that concentric medium frequency coil, it is more coin friendly.

About sens,... don't adjust down from 30,... adjust up from 0 in steps of 2.
Once you've got decent depth, perform a noise cancel.

At 12-14 sens it will find a coin at decent depth, in my park with a medium sink rate, that is 1800-1850 era.

 

[Old Longhair]

While agree that 18.75kHz is my last choice for hunting parks, I have to disagree about the stock concentric if the trash density is that high. It's true that 7.5kHz would be better, but I'd recommend either a small coil or a DD to deal with the trash.
The 3kHz coils are made for that kind of hunting. They do really well in iron and foil trash, where the HF coils will send you over the edge.

 

[Goodbaja]

What coils were they running?

 

[Digger]

I think you already identified your problem........"I was using the 10.5 in DD coil at 18.75Khz."

I don't care how "narrow" a detection field is on a DD coil, it is still 10.5 inches long, heel to toe. And target separation isn't just a left - right thing. It is also a heel to toe thing. For example...... think about the ground as being numbered like the hands on a clock. And that clock face is 7 inches in diameter. You have a coin on the 3 and a huge rusty nail on the 9. No problem separating those two targets with any DD coil as the detection field is allowed to reset between hits when you sweep left to right to left. But how about if we move those two targets to the 12 and 6 positions? Just as likely as not, you're going to sweep over the nail and the coin at the same time, masking the coin. If you overlap your swaths by 1/3, you still might mask the coin on the next swath. So what to do??? Use a smaller DD coil. Either 6-inch coil would be able to work between and separate those two targets no matter which direction you were walking or how they were aligned. My best advice would be to try a smaller DD coil and work the area more slowly, from several directions. JMHO HH Randy

 

[ronhob]

You said it Randy! I have a Mxt Pro as well as the 705 and I'll just say, they both perform very well, but the 705 is not the problem, the coil size is. jimpote03, you didn't mention what kinda coils the other guys were using. Most likely smaller though.
The 705 also has a bit faster response time from one target to the next, so I can guarantee you it will perform every bit as well as the pro given the right coil for the job.

 

[etex]

Have to agree, try the small coil. I use it 99 percent of the time.

 

[jimpote03]

Great responses, thank you very much! That's just the answers I was hoping for. I'll let you know how it works out.
I'll try all your suggestions at my next outing. I have also been thinking about getting a 6" coil, Looks like I'll be doing that sooner rather than later.

 

[Nuke em]

The beach i search is very trashy but i find coins all over the place if they are there , maybe try using the beach mode with the first 3 notches and last one knocked out . Clear all the targets that give good two way signals . Learn the numbers of the coins you want and dig all that come in like that. Have the sensitivity high , i do no matter what ! around mid 20's and search a small area at a time and clear all targets . Also use 2 tone so the low tone is iron and high is non ferrous ,I use the 2 DD 10inch 7.5khts coil . Most machines will have trouble in high trashy areas and even the ET will be fooled sometimes .
Dont forget that until you dig a target you dont know what is there , thats a part of the adventure .
I found the Terra hard to learn on land but when i started to use it on the beach i started finding coins that most other machines just dont hear or cant distinguish from other trash, i would run a Terra against all else on the beach i do now. The amount that others leave behind is amazing . Check my last 3 threads , they are genuine and in the last 2 half years i have had around