Silver Dollar Dilemma.... Need Expert Advice

[bigfootokie]

About 30 years ago a bulldozer was used to clear a fence row on an old country road. Dirt, brush, barbed wire, and dozens of burned steel belted tires were pushed into small piles. A lot of the tire steel was also strung out and mashed into the soil in the process. Several years later a friend saw a 1920's era silver dollar on top of the ground while bird hunting and was able to find many more by returning with a rake and shovel. Eventually a metal detector was used to find quite a few more.

I was invited to hunt the area years later and was able to find 1 of the silver dollars amongst the tire steel with the best detector technology offered at that time. The majority of a quart jar full was recovered before I hunted. A quart size Zinc jar lid was found with 2 silver dollars crushed into it so I believe it was full when buried.

I recently bought an E-Trac and have had good luck finding some masked silver coins in areas that were considered hunted out. A Sunray X-5 is what I plan to use at the site, but given the type of metal trash, mainly the long thick strands of rusty, burned, and mangled radial tire wire, I am not sure how I want to set up my machine. I will not have a lot of time to hunt there, maybe only a one time access so I need to be fully prepared.

I would appreciate any and all advice on how to approach this hunt site. I have been detecting for many, many years but am new to the E-Trac and am still using mostly basic settings...

Jim

 

[ksabubba]

Jim

Maybe go over to the Etrac classroom section and download Bills trashy park pattern.

I currently use it in most of my park areas and seems to do fine. I really like it.

HH
Mike

 

[ksabubba]

Or two tone ferrous,of which I do not have any experience with yet,but many swear by.

HI
Mike

 

[bigfootokie]

I had thought maybe TTF could be part of the setup, but I haven't actually hunted in TTF yet, just Multi Tone. I need to figure out some kind of specific pattern to help deal with the steel belting which is very thick in the area.

 

[treasure sstate]

Since it is dollars you are looking for I would set up a pattern that accepts only dollars say conductive 39 to 46 on ferrous lines 1 through 8 discriminate out everything else and hunt with one tone.

 

[bigfootokie]

Thanks "treasure s"...another good idea. My concern is that I will mask if I use any kind of iron rejecting pattern. Have been thinking I might use a wide open pattern and try to pick through the iron for lower ferrous/higher conductive numbers. I am open for more suggestions if anyone has an idea that might make this easier.

 

[gitterdug]

I would use the TTF, even if you haven't used it before. The low tones give you signals from ferrous. You will pick up the higher tone once you use it, and then you can always look at numbers. Wide open screen, TTF, or, you could even use the screen blacked out, to say 28 with the TTF. Silver dollars are not going to be anywhere near 28 and above on the ferrous side I would wager. I don't think you need to use any pattern as you describe. TTF stands out. Even if it is masked, you will get a "blip" and you can then check that signal out from one direction (swing right and left), pivot 90 degrees and do it again. Then, if you want, you can always go to a Discriminate screen, or change to multi-tone and listen in Conductive mode. If hunting in conductive mode alone, I would consider the Quick mask, set as stated, at 28 or so. IF the belts still bother you, adjust the discrimination level to whatever tunes them out. IF you get the multi tone warble, it is overload. There is my .02 worth, from using Explorer II for 9 years, and Etrac for over 1 now.

HH

Dennis

 

[bigfootokie]

Thanks for the great advice Dennis. I really do need to start using TTF and this will be a good time to learn how it compares to MT.