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Sensitivity and depth

B

BlackX

New member
What kind of depth loss can one expect dropping the sensitivity?

For instance:
With the ground frozen, a did a bit of general testing last night here in the house. With the nails in the floor and the electrical interference from electronics, it matches my yard outside pretty well. After noise canceling, as well as running through the different channels, I then started to drop the Sens. to see where it started to stabilize. It wasn't until I had it dropped to 9-10 that it began to stabilize. I know it depends partly on ground mineralization but, with the stock 10" Slimline and Sun Ray X-5, what kind of depth (or depth loss) should I expect with the Sensitivity at 10?

Another one of my spots is in a little triangle of land that has power lines on each side and with my Sov I've had to drop it's Sens. as low as 2 (4 o'clock) in some parts of the lot, so I suspect I'll have the same issue there with the SE.

[edit added]
P.S. Just tested something else--that didn't seem to work--but, in the process can see what folks have said about trusting the sound rather than the readout. I tossed a couple of half dollars on the floor and, with all of the nails in the flooring, it's awful hard to get the crosshairs in the readout into the top right corner with the wiggle but the sound comes through clear and bright (particularly w/ pitch hold on).
 
The cross hairs on the Halves should have came in somewhere on the Upper right side. Try a quarter and even though unstable should come closer to top right corner.
I would not try to compare inside with outside. Too many variables.
Just my thoughts, not facts.
 
I can get the crosshairs to the UR corner but only when I get it at certain angles--presumably where I don't have a nail directly under the long axis of the center of the DD. I was thinking I was noticing that I could get it to move better when the coin was halfway between the center and the rim along the DD center line (as opposed to in the center of all) and was wondering if that might help me in the long run. Could just be where the nails in the floor are though.

One thing similar aspect of my floor to outside is the nail frequency. The yard is a literally carpet of nails. I just now put two and two together as to why there might be so many nails. (More than would normally be lost in the process of construction (which I did for years).) I remembered that there are signs of a fire in the beams of the basement ceiling. Putting that together with the nail frequency makes me wonder if there was a pretty bad fire and a lot of it had to be torn down and reconstructed. I should see if I can find out the history of the house in that regard.

Any idea on how much depth is lost vs. how much sensitivity is cut?

You getting out at all, Bob? Your ground has to be a bit more frozen than ours. Unless we get multiple days of warmth, I figure it's useless unless I can get to a wooded area or other ground, like woods detritus, that is more porous. Thought the sand at the local swim beach would be better than regular soil but it was actually worse.
 
I noticed the same thing in trash. The display would kind of freeze up and although you know what is under the coil and where the X should be, it would be hard to make it go there. I put a piece of iron on the ground with a dime to the side about an inch and tested it with my new settings, it would null the iron but the dime came in clear and repeatable from all directions. Literally the minute I started to key on the sounds in iron mask mode with just a little of the screen blacked out, it started coming together. I am a looooong way from fully understanding it but with help here and from a buddy that has an XS, I am getting better fast. I already am gaining some valuable confidence in the SE, and am doing really good at some hard spots. It is a great machine in my opinion and I havent even scratched the surface.
 
I don't know how much depth loss there would be but maybe an air test would give some indication. This wouldn't account for ground conditions but might provide an idea for coil / sensitivity relationship.
I run sensitivity in manual, but another recent post might suggest semi-auto under certain situations.
Rather than performing air test in house, I prefer the backyard by throwing targets on the ground, then sweeping over my test garden which consist of trash and coins at various depths.
For trashy areas, my first would be to use the smaller X-5 coil.
I'm an audio hunter and don't rely on the screen display for digging decisions. If I use discrimination, the setting is low.
Quality headphones and the ears are my preference in most hunts.
 
Got a few pieces of newer silver, nothing to write home about. Pretty solid now though.
As for the rest of the post. I really couldn't even guess and give an answer that I could stand behind.
In your house there's no ground mineralization just for one. What you are doing for the most part is an air test incorporating different metals.
 
[quote BlackX]I remembered that there are signs of a fire in the beams of the basement ceiling. Putting that together with the nail frequency makes me wonder if there was a pretty bad fire and a lot of it had to be torn down and reconstructed. I should see if I can find out the history of the house in that regard.[/quote]

So far I got a reply from someone on my town email list who looked up the following:

"there was a fire at that address on dec. 27, 1933....i have no info as to how bad the fire was or what burned but i can tell you that the cause was spontaneous combustion."

Also gave me the owner and tenant's name at that time so I may dig a bit further to see if I can find more out. Perhaps something in the town newspaper archives.
 
I wish! The politicians in this state are driving me nuts with all the nanny-state laws they continue to pass. I'm NW of Boston. Once my kids graduate HS, I'm likely gone somewhere. NH is one of my most likely prospects if I stay on the east coast. (Though VT and ME have some appeal as well.)
 
This is where it all began (New England) I love my crusty old coppers and an occasional nice old silver.
 
My only crusty old copper so far is so corroded I can only guess at it. From what I can tell, as well as the weight and diameter, it's likely a Hibernia cent (unless it's a counterfeit). Next oldest closest to that is an 1847 or '57 half-cent. Sadly I was too ignorant at that point to realize that with some of the old coppers the detail is in the corrosion that's still stuck to the surface (remnants of what was copper turning into something else (copper oxide?) and when i ran my thumbnail over it to check out the date i obliterated it). Learned on that one. Only real old silver so far is a 17x7 kinda-smashed half-reale. Next oldest silver would be my first SLQ I dug a couple of weeks ago during a thaw. Looking forward to going back to that spot with the SE once it thaws enough.
 
n/t
 
I got 1 Hibernia 1/2 cent, that's it for them. I found my US 1/2 cents come out of the ground in pretty bad shape too.
Been lucky on the old silvers. Only got 1 or 2 that I can't read the date on. I gave away 12 corroded coppers on another forum for Christmas gifts. (contest coins)
Get up here this summer and we'll dig some oldies.
 
[quote NH Bob]Get up here this summer and we'll dig some oldies.[/quote]

Sounds like fun to me! I'll have my Jeep running soon. Why wait? :detecting: I'm up for it as soon as the ground thaws and we can find mutually convenient time.
 
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