Was checking out the yard of a recently torn down house yesterday. Unfortunately, the 'deconstruction' guys basically turned the yard inside out, so finds that were 8-10 inches are now down 3-4 feet!
But I learned something...
There were a few large dirt piles from the foundation that I wanted to search and to make things a bit easier, I shortened the shaft of the SE to manipulate it better. I was getting a steady threshold, and a few junk signals now and then. However I eyeballed a new cent on the top of the ground and just swung my coil over it to see where it was coming in. The signal was not nearly as loud as I thought it should be, and the digital reading showed 4-24 instead of the usual 7-26 or 7-27.
It was then I noticed that the coil wire had looped down and was actually touching the coil. (I was using the stock 8" coil). Instead of the wire retracting up into the shaft, it had pushed itself out farther when I shortened the stem.
What surprised me was there were really no erratic sounds to alert me to this. The detector just tuned itself in to the coil wire and stabilized. When I tucked the wire back into the stem, and went back over the surface cent, readings were back to normal, depth returned and the signal was loud again.
Maybe some of you have observed this as well. The insulating material of the coil wire is a bit sticky and doesn't always slide nicely back up into the shaft, so be aware of this. Using a shotgun cleaning tip, I lightly waxed the interior of the shaft to make it a bit more slippery...I imagine some silicone spray would do the same thing to help the wire slide more freely inside the stem.
Knipper
But I learned something...
There were a few large dirt piles from the foundation that I wanted to search and to make things a bit easier, I shortened the shaft of the SE to manipulate it better. I was getting a steady threshold, and a few junk signals now and then. However I eyeballed a new cent on the top of the ground and just swung my coil over it to see where it was coming in. The signal was not nearly as loud as I thought it should be, and the digital reading showed 4-24 instead of the usual 7-26 or 7-27.
It was then I noticed that the coil wire had looped down and was actually touching the coil. (I was using the stock 8" coil). Instead of the wire retracting up into the shaft, it had pushed itself out farther when I shortened the stem.
What surprised me was there were really no erratic sounds to alert me to this. The detector just tuned itself in to the coil wire and stabilized. When I tucked the wire back into the stem, and went back over the surface cent, readings were back to normal, depth returned and the signal was loud again.
Maybe some of you have observed this as well. The insulating material of the coil wire is a bit sticky and doesn't always slide nicely back up into the shaft, so be aware of this. Using a shotgun cleaning tip, I lightly waxed the interior of the shaft to make it a bit more slippery...I imagine some silicone spray would do the same thing to help the wire slide more freely inside the stem.
Knipper
