Slight differences between gold / pulltabs / foil

[dsw08]

I've been digging lots of trash lately with little reward. Is there a way to reduce trash digging even if it means losing some of the gold? Will most shallower gold rings give off clean, crisp signals and much foil give off "unstable" signals? I'm using the SE & live in a very old town with much history.

Will the bulk of old silver coins cause the smart find cursor to be pinned in the upper right corner of the screen? I'm mostly just digging those 00 29 etc signals for silver. What might a Pine tree shilling give off for a signal?

Thanks,

James

 

[SNOWY]

Hi James, I was using an SE emulator I downloaded from another forum,
and I set it up with 12 gold ring targets of various sizes plus a couple of signals for gold sovereign coins...

When you use this simulator you can have it record in red the signals generated on the smart find screen.
I did this, and after I recorded the signals I set the screen to coins, also rejecting tabs and screw caps.

You can see by the picture that if I was detecting with tabs and screw caps rejected, I wouldn't be hearing from much gold !!!

Out of 14 signals, only one got through...

 

[Hungry]

SNOWY, What a great job you have done , really lets you see where it's at, and what you could miss. HH Bob

 

[BigDan]

Hi Snowy.....how can I access this emulator ???? Thanks

Dan

 

[NH Bob]

Thats a great pic to keep and thats what I'm going to do for future use.
A great asset to all hunters.
Thanx for sharing.

 

[Hotcz70]

n/t

 

[SNOWY]

Ben, check out Garybruns post "Explorer SE Emulator."

When at that forum, snoop about, and you should find a zip file I created which has 12 assorted gold ring responses...
With the SE emulator, you can add any zip file of targets into the program,
just copy the zip file (complete) into the "datazips folder" of the program .

Here's a link where you can download the ring zip, and the Aussie coin zip.

http://www.minelabowners.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=106725&highlight=#106725

You can experience responses on your Explorer emulator ~ items from any where on the planet !

There are a couple of U.S zips you can down load !
If I can locate the U.S zips; I'll post a link for you.

If anybody wants to send me a pm. I'll email the 12 ring zip file to them,
I also created a complete Aussie coin zip too, if you want to see what Aussie coins sound like ...

HH

Snowy

 

[alton]

Last spring I purchased my first water detector - the Excalibur. Prior to that, I had found a total of two gold items in the previous 6 years of hunting. One of the two was a bracelet I found on top of the ground at a drive-in theatre. The other was a pendant that sounded like a penny.

When I bought the Excalibur, I was somewhat skeptical based on my experience and thinking that gold always sounds like trash. I was in for a pleasant surprise. I read a few books on using my detector and detecting in the water and on the beach. From the books it was clear that the sound of gold could be very different than the sound of pull-tabs, iron, foil, etc. Armed with my new Excal and scoop I traveled to visit my sister in Florida. I spent a whole week at the beach and I only found one gold item, a very nice 14K miraculas medal that sold for $430. However, no rings.

So I returned to land locked East Tennessee and waited a month or so for swimming season. On my first trip out here, my goal was to find A RING. As I was hunting, I finally heard a sound that had been described in the books. I knew I had found my first ring. When my scoop came up, sure enough it was a ring. It was a class ring made out of brushed steel, but it was a ring. It was totally worthless except to the guy who lost it, but at least I knew what one sounded like. In the next two months I found 35 rings. In time, I found my first "gold" ring. Again, before I brought it up, I just knew it would be a gold ring because of what I had read. Next I wanted a "diamond" ring and I found it too, but that was only because I was looking for gold rings.

I said all of that to say this. Once you find one, the next ones will become easier. It is just like finding coins and knowing that a quarter sounds like a quarter unless it is masked or very deep. The only way you know is to dig and learn from what is there and training your ears to respond to the same thing in the future.

But what does all of that have to do with the Explorer? Two weeks ago, a friend from church looked me up and was desperate for me to come find his ring he lost in the leaves he had deposited in a ditch near the curb. In our area, the city comes a vacuums them up and he was afraid that his ring would go with them. The handiest detector for me was the Explorer since the Excal is tucked away for the winter. I took it over confident that if it was there I would find it with the SE. If you have ever been detecting a ditch next to the road, you know how much trash is there, but I found the ring in less than 10 minutes and didn't dig any trash. This was not a very small area either and he didn't know where in the ditch he lost it.

There are many ways to eliminate iron, tabs, and other trash from the way your detector (any detector) sounds and pinpoints. Practice with a ring against a tab and listen to the beginning and end of the sound when you hit a tab and it will ramp up at the front and down at the end. With gold it will be smooth from beginning to end. Iron will have a broad area for the pinpoint. Gold will have a small tight footprint. Foil will fade quickly when you raise the coil.Gold will remain strong with more distance from the coil.

Experiment listening to gold and it will get easier. Finding a gold item in the wild will increase your ability to find the next one.

I hope this helps!

HH Alton

 

[SNOWY]

Really good post Alton..

I've got a Wot coming my way ~ any time now, and here down-under it's our Summer...

After Christmas is over, I hope to be posting heaps ~ maybe a gold ring or two !!!

HH

Snowy

 

[RTIZONI]

Excellent post , a small post with a book of information. Thanks for share it.

 

[Larry (IL)]

Rtizoni couldn't have said it better. I referenced your post to the guys and gals on the DFX Forum as a lesson in detecting. Thanks Alton.

 

[deeponedge]

n/t

 

[dsw08]

Alton,

Thanks. That's the kind of info I was looking for. Does the Explorer SE measure up to the Excalibur outside of underwater detecting (I'm thinking not)?

I use a 16 1/2" Excellerator 2 coil on the open beach. I hope it's as good as the 15" WOT (the only big coil I ever hear about)

James

 

[dsw08]

Thanks snowy. I don't discriminate out pulltabs or similar. I'm finding that discrimination is cutting down on depth. I think alot has to do with too big a coil in a trashy area.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Sorry to jump on this post late. There is no full-proof way to differentiate aluminum from gold. Not only does aluminum (tabs, shrapnel, foil globs, etc..) share the same conductivity as gold jewelry, so too can the "sounds" mimic gold rings. The minute you think you have a sound (roundness, repeatability, etc...) of gold rings, I gaurantee you I can wad up a piece of aluminum, in such a way, to perfectly mimic that same sound. All you can do is buck the odds a little, by nixing out commonly recurring types of aluminum (round tabs, square tabs, etc...). But even then, you will loose some gold.

If anyone tells you he's figured out the gold vs aluminum sound, take him quickly out to the nearest inner-city blighted urban park, and turn him loose. See how long he sticks to his claim The reason we sometimes think we've discovered a sound or cross-hairs (TID) difference, is selective memory. Each time we stoop down to dig an iffy/low signal, we think "this one sounds different". But when it turns out to be trash, we think "yeah, I knew it sounded trashy now that I think of it" But when that 50th signal turns out to be a gold item, we think "AHA, I knew that sounded different". Just like when a person thinks their dreams are coming true, it's only selective memory, to forget the dozens or hundreds of dreams that never come true or mean anything. But if something coincidentally does correspond with a dream, THEN we remember it, and think we're somehow psychic. The same psychology/selective memory is at work with gold vs aluminum.

Yes, each ring sounds different than each piece of aluminum. So too does each gold ring sound and TID different from each other too.

Some hunt environments may not have lots of foil globs, tabs, & can slaw to mimic gold. In those areas, where perhaps only certain types gum wrappers are present, then yes, it would appear that the occasional low (non-nickel TID) signal has a good chance at being a gold ring. I have seen this on the storm eroded beaches, where..... there simply is no aluminum (since all lighter stuff is washed out with the erosion). In those cases, we're holding our breath with each solid low tone, esp. when they're not hitting on nickel. But that's different than saying there's a certain tone to gold. In those cases, you're merely in a hunt environment where you can have better guesses, d/t the type targets you would expect. The real test to know if there's a gold vs aluminum sound, is to go to a blighted inner city park, where foil wads and can slaw abound.

 

[dsw08]

I'll do some testing. Just want to see if there are some stereotypical behaviors of say a fat gold ring that can distinguish it from a pulltab or foil. Might a gold chain have a different characteristic.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

dsw08, you say you'll do some testing to see if you can discern a difference in sounds? Be aware that you probably WILL discern a sound difference from each targets you test. But if you wad up 20 pieces of foil in different shapes and compactnesses, they too will sound different from each other. And if you test enough rings and other gold jewelry, they too will each sound different each other. So don't be fooled on a one-by-one basis, to discover that a foil glob and a gold ring sound different. Those differences will be just for the 2 targets you have in your hand. They do not mean that somehow all aluminum will sound different from all gold.

If the day ever comes that it can be shown that there is a difference (even if only 1 in 5 chance!) is the day we'll all get rich digging gold rings till our arms fall off

 

[rmptr]

A very good post, Tom.
And I must agree, from my experience.

And I've noted that you are also from CA...

Perhaps in the other states they don't have "campground nuggets" like we do ?

Perhaps this is the only state where beer cans are tossed in the fire on beaches and in campgrounds.

We've got a lot of everything here...
So that means a shortage of firewood.
Pallets are the favorite thing to burn with the party people.

So you get a wonderful blend of burnt up rusty nails and staples in all different sized blended in!

 

[Pete in MI]

I did a little checking using the Explorer II Emulator and came up with some pic...a similar question came up on the Christian Metal Detecting forum where I posted my results. Maybe this will help you decide how much discrimination you want to use.


http://www.findmall.com/read.php?13,630226,630226#msg-630226

Merry Christmas everyone

 

[Pete in MI]

I think my Explorer II Emulator got upgraded (or I missed the Trace function on the old one) so I upgraded to a newer (?) version. Then using the link you provided I was able to find those zip files...they work with the Exp II Emulator the same as the SE Emulator.

The Explorer II Emulator is available at the World Wide Association of Treasure Seekers website.


Certainly is an eye opener when one sees (at least on the display) what is being missed. Thanks again Sir.

Merry Christmas.