question hunting in heavy trash sites

[lazyaussie]

hi all. me and a mate went to a park today looking for old silver. the area we hit in the park has an old bottle dump in it and has been used as a car park so has tons of junk in it.
I was using my exp II and running it in all metal,gain at 7,sens at 24 in auto and the mate a xterra 30 by the time i found my first coin a 1956 penny the xt30 had 6 Penny's i was thinking what the hell.
All the coins were about 5-6 inch deep well within detecting range of the EPII so i got my ace 250 out of the car and went over the area i"d detected and bam a 1943 penny then a 1938 half penny both at 3-4 inch. the Aussie penny is the size of your half dollar and is copper so should be easy to find makes me wonder what else i"m missing ????
so how do you guys find old silver and copper coins in heavy trash.
thanks for looking lazyaussie

 

[Phil]

you have the sensitivity and gain too high but that's is just my opinion. When I hunt in heavy trash with my Explorer I use iron mask -16 with ferrous tones, gain 6, sensitivity to no more than 16 and quick recovery. I also use the 8in Minelab coil. You might try experimenting to see where you need to set the sensitivity to get a good tone on a coin at 6in. It will probably be much lower than 24. I just hunted a very trashy site and used the 8in coil with the sensitivity set on 12. Everything I found today wasn't heard when I hunted the same ground with the sensitivity at 20 or over. I assume that the good targets were being masked by the trash Please remember I'm hunting in the midwest US and my settings might not work the same for you.

 

[lazyaussie]

thanks Phil i"ll give that a go tomorrow. hopefully i can get some more old coins and less trash i got about 4kg today.
I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[Phil]

I never cared for the auto setting. Just remember that there is more than one way to successfully hunt with the Explorer.

 

[SNOWY]

Lazyaussie, the X-Terra, and Ace detectors have concentric coils,
maybe they were able to detect better through the large amount of trash you spoke of.

The wide scanning Explorer coil may have seen too much of this junk, and this could
have caused a good deal of masking...

The standard Ace coils especially are quite a bit smaller than the Explorer coils.

Snowy

 

[dewcon4414]

I hunted some railroad tracks and an old park that had been trashed and not used for years in AZ. I found i missed coins if i didnt open up the explorer disc more. I just ignored nails and pop caps and begain finding some of the older coins. I was using the standard coil which is tuff. Like Snowy said the coil does see a lot, but i dont beleave its foot print takes in as much trash as the other coils with their cone effect. I hunt with low sensitivity as well, but still hunt with a gain of 7. I prefer to adjust my TONE as apposed to gain in trashy areas. It takes a lot of SLOWWWW movement which the explorer handles better than many detectors.

 

[lazyaussie]

thanks for the help looks like i"ll have to play with the settings and see what runs best.
I try ed running manual sens but it was playing up so i put it back in auto i think there was so much trash it was trying to pick up two or three targets at once.
I"ll have to pick a better site to detect next time.
It"s just a bit frustrating to know there's old coins in the park and not be able to get them.

 

[dewcon4414]

Its like learning the detector.... dont give up and you will start seeing your finds increase. Thats the main reason i hunt with just the standard coil. If i can hunt in those spots in those spots then it improve my overall hunting. Stay with it and it will pay off if there are good finds there.

 

[lazyaussie]

went out today to a site with less junk opened the sens up to 27 manual and found three silvers and two musket balls so i"m pretty happy.
hopefully i"ll post a photo tomorrow. thanks all
lazyaussie

 

[SNOWY]

Lookin' good Lazyaussie...