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Tesoro Golden uMax Discrimination-Notch Setting Study
- Thread starter Bleaver
- Start date
Nice study! What do you have your notch width control knob set at on the lower end of the notch range? I put two marks on mine. One for modern pull tabs and the other one for beaver tails. If I'm in area that has an abundance of beaver tails I notch them out and leave everything below that. If I'm in area that has no can slaw or foil caps I run the discrimination as low as I can, so I can get the maximum depth on small gold jewelry. If I'm in an area plagued by modern pull tabs I set the lower notch to eliminate them and still get nickels and gold rings. Each area is different and needs different settings. Also I use the tones with no notch. With no notch, I can use the notch width control knob to move foil into and out of the iron tone.
The Golden
The Golden
Nice work Bleaver. I did a video demo this past Summer on this very thing. I think it was Tabman that mention he could do it on his old tone version so I gave it a go with my new tone model. That's one of the nice things about the Golden, it can be configured to "give us an edge" which can turn a so so hunt into an outstanding one! Thanks for the good work and sharing.
I appreciate the study.
If you remove the undetectable items from the list, it looks like setting 1 means you lose around 50% of the potential gold, setting 2 appears to mean that you lose around 40% of the potential gold. I am a hick - I like easy numbers to remember. I know that the bigger, heavier stuff can be in the zinc penny range, so I'd be inclined to dig the zinc pennies and stick to a narrow notch.
The information that we are lacking is how many trash targets does the Golden allow you to avoid digging. If you are not delayed with digging, you potentially make up for some of the lost gold by getting more time to search for targets in the find-able range. Unfortunately, the only way to test this would be to note if a target would be notched out and then dig it to confirm it's trashiness.
I will probably test this out some time when it is lot warmer.
Top
If you remove the undetectable items from the list, it looks like setting 1 means you lose around 50% of the potential gold, setting 2 appears to mean that you lose around 40% of the potential gold. I am a hick - I like easy numbers to remember. I know that the bigger, heavier stuff can be in the zinc penny range, so I'd be inclined to dig the zinc pennies and stick to a narrow notch.
The information that we are lacking is how many trash targets does the Golden allow you to avoid digging. If you are not delayed with digging, you potentially make up for some of the lost gold by getting more time to search for targets in the find-able range. Unfortunately, the only way to test this would be to note if a target would be notched out and then dig it to confirm it's trashiness.
I will probably test this out some time when it is lot warmer.Top
Mike Hillis
Well-known member
This is a good study. Really like the fact you included the pictures.
Do you have a new tone model?
With the new tone model you may find that you don't need to run any disc or notch, just set the nickel tone where you want it and hunt that those three tones: blended low/nickel tone, the nickel tone, and the blended nickel/zinc tone.
Nice job.
HH
Mike
Do you have a new tone model?
With the new tone model you may find that you don't need to run any disc or notch, just set the nickel tone where you want it and hunt that those three tones: blended low/nickel tone, the nickel tone, and the blended nickel/zinc tone.
Nice job.
HH
Mike
chakra22 said:Thanks for taking the time for this study, so this proves little or no discrimination is the best way maximize your finds - dig everything -
Nope. You can only dig so many targets a day. Play the odds and dig the ones that are most likely to produce. Critterhunter has some VERY interesting posts about this.
tabman
I have the new tone model. I wish I could hunt by tone as you suggest but I have difficulty differentiating the different combinations of tones. My best is system is to tweek my set to optimize possible results then dig it if it beeps. As I know you are aware of the uMax does a superior job of increasing your chances of finding gold jewelry.
I use a CZ20 mostly for water hunting. When I find something some friends always ask, "what did it sound like, was it a medium or high"?. My responce is almost always, "I don't know, it beeped, I dug"? In the end its matter of averages.
I use a CZ20 mostly for water hunting. When I find something some friends always ask, "what did it sound like, was it a medium or high"?. My responce is almost always, "I don't know, it beeped, I dug"? In the end its matter of averages.
SpiritRelic
New member
Did any hit high tone?Maybe some of the bigger gold rings.But the golden will hit high tone on smaller silver for sure.I like the golden for trash park hunting.I will have to experiment with the notch width control.So you can produce the tone you want for different metals is the way i hear it.This is a nice feature for jewelry hunting.So you can set the tone you want for a nickel with the notch width control.This has to be an advantage for jewelry hunting. :O
I don't usally show my finds off but since I posted the study last night and found gold today (yeah!!) I thought I'd make an exception.
Hunting at a soccer field today with the Golden with a Cleansweep coil found a 8.4gm, 14K band.
I was using Setting 2, but I think it came in mid tone (tone deaf me) because it still sounded off when I changed from Narrow to Wide Notch.
Also, thank you for your comments on the study. I did it mainly for my eddification but was pleased to share it with you. I know even after 28 years of doing this I still pick up little tidbits on a regular basis.
You are all teachers.
Metal detecting is an awsome hobby; Anyone who participates can excel with a little perseverance and patients and age is no limitation.
Hunting at a soccer field today with the Golden with a Cleansweep coil found a 8.4gm, 14K band.
I was using Setting 2, but I think it came in mid tone (tone deaf me) because it still sounded off when I changed from Narrow to Wide Notch.
Also, thank you for your comments on the study. I did it mainly for my eddification but was pleased to share it with you. I know even after 28 years of doing this I still pick up little tidbits on a regular basis.
You are all teachers.
Metal detecting is an awsome hobby; Anyone who participates can excel with a little perseverance and patients and age is no limitation.
The Magician
New member
Bleaver said:
SpiritRelic
New member
You did a study on gold then went out and found some!!!.I really think advances in tone id and notch discrimination are going to be the thing.It is so strange how my new tone golden changes so much as i engage the narrow notch then to wide.While in wide notch it seems the nickel comes in with a clearer tone.Thanks for the great info again. :-D
Critterhunter
New member
Very good read and testing, thanks for sharing. I've got one question though about the test pool of rings you used...Were these rings selected randomly from "non-finds" that friends of family own, and not found via a detector? Reason being that I've seen people use test pools of rings in the past to try to judge VDI/discrimination patterns, and often these rings in the test pool to do the number crunching were found with a detector. In that case, despite best intentions, people tend to dig or favor certain zones when ring hunting, and thus that ends up biasing the resulting numbers derived from the test pool.
A friend has found well over 100 gold rings water hunting over the years, scooping each and every signal he ever comes across above iron. No matter how sick sounding, "foil-sh", or etc...He never passes up a hit and always recovers it, and these rings were recovered at various sites, ranging from "low income "neighborhood" beaches, to beaches more frequented by middle class or even well off patrons in some areas. For all the above reasons, and in particular recovering all signals above iron, we felt this test pool of rings was about as unbiased as it could get in terms of a truly random test pool on which to graph some conductivity numbers.
I have seen a few such truly random test pools graphed as well in the past which pretty much jived with our numbers. What we found was that fully about half of all gold rings read well down into the foil range, below nickel. We also then graphed a random test pool of round and square tabs for comparison of certain conductivity zones. This was done on a machine with high conductivity resolution, where not only do 99.9% of all tabs tested span a 20 digit wide VDI range, but also on this particular machine nickels are distinctively lower in VDI # than tabs. There is about a 5 digit VDI separation from the highest nickel VDI # (the nickel zone spans about 10 digits) and the lowest tab #. This way we could also truly test the old rule of thumb saying that to find gold rings you must "dig the nickel zone", or that most gold rings read in the tab range.
With high conductivity resolution in the low to upper mid range of the VDI scale, we could then see if there was any evidence (at least with our test pool of rings) to judge the realities of such sayings among detecting circles that we've all heard for years. What we found, besides about half of all these rings reading in the foil range below nickel, was that there was no larger concentration of rings in the "nickel zone" or the "tab zone" than anywhere else on the scale. In fact, we found there was a surprising amount of gold rings that read well into the coin range, from say just a hair below a zinc penny, which in turn is just a hair above the highest tab reading, to all the way up into the higher coin range.
So, why the old rule of thumb saying that if you are after rings then dig the nickel zone? My theory is that on machines with low resolution in the low to mid range of conductivity, have a much wider window of what they consider the "nickel zone", stretching far below into foil, and far above into the tab range. And, besides this larger "net" to catch more rings that a machine says are in the nickel zone, people always heard to dig the nickel zone when searching for rings, and so that zone was targeted more and others passed, which in turn would further support the theory of digging that particular zone when after gold rings.
Yes, all that said, if I'm old coin hunting for the day, even I won't pass up a nickel signal in the hopes of a gold ring. That concept of digging the nickel zone has just been driven too hard into my head over the years.
The way I look at avoiding certain zones of conductivity and digging others when after rings on land is this- When you go to Vegas you don't bet all out on every hand. Instead, you hold back your money and put more of it on cards you are holding that have a greater percentage of paying off. I look at ring hunting on land in the same way- That if I'm at a site loaded with tons of tabs, instead of making it my life's work to dig all those tabs, I'll instead avoid those and dig all VDI #s even 1 digit off from them. It's the trash to treasure ratio thing- Most common trash target at a site? At many that's going to be either round tabs, square tabs, or both in combination.
So the realities are that for every gold ring that reads in that range of VDI, there are going to be hundred if not thousands of tabs that you have to dig first to find them. I feel in a situation like that that the better use of my time is to go after all the other gold rings that read outside that tab range. In this case, I will target the foil and nickel zones, and that little gap between the highest tab # and where zincs start (if zincs and other clads are all over the site as well). Conversely, if a site is loaded with foil but not much in way of tabs, or at least only seems plagued with a few specific kinds of tabs, then I'll avoid the foil range and dig the nickel and tab range instead.
It's all a matter of how much trash exists for that span of conductivity, versus any potential gold rings that might lurk there in any zones of conductivity. Yes, digging it all is the only way to recover rings, but with the right selective use of VDI avoidance, you can at least improve your trash to treasure ratio and recover a vast majority of the gold rings present at the site, and leave the few behind that would entail digging tons of one specific type of junk commonly found at that site, in order to recover that smaller percentage of rings still left behind by being selective.
Also, more important than what zones of conductivity to dig, is going to be just where you dig. Instead of avoiding tabs at a tab laden site, I might just pick one small 12 foot square area of land in a likely open spot to toss a ball or Frisbee, and then dig every signal above iron out of there. This kind of thing though needs to be done in stages so as not to leave the site a mine field. When I'm in the mood to do it, I'll dig all the solid hits first, such as ones not sounding sick in audio, and then come back after the ground has healed and dig others I felt like passing up the first few visits.
Besides finding rings, you're apt to unmask some nice old silver coins, because detection fields stop and only see the first (meaning shallowest) metal object that touches any part of the field. Just can't get around that, and the deeper the coin in perspective to the shallower trash, the further to the side that coin can be and you still have no hope of seeing that coin. Even the outer edges of the field touching that shallower metal means the machine is never going to see the deeper coin.
Another strategy for ring hunting on land is to travel back in time further than the common trash. If round tabs (being older than square ones) range down to say 6" in depth, then start digging any "tab" signals that sound deeper than the tabs there. I saw a friend dig half a gold ring at a site last summer using this strategy. It had been hit by a lawn mower and cut in half, and he said it read well down into the foil range. When I asked why he dug it, he said it was deeper than the foil found at the site. In other words, older than when foil began to be used in common practice at this particular park.
Other often overlooked areas (besides obviously sport fields)? How about the grass strip at the edge of parking lots in parks and at other sites. Often people are reaching into their pocket for their keys as they approach their car, and as they pull their hand out of their pocket they slide a ring off by accident. Or, they had the ring in their pocket while they were cooking out, playing ball, or taking a swim or such, and out comes the ring when they grab those keys. Same deal with silver coins. Often the grass right next to the parking lot at "dead" parks is loaded with trash so most people avoid it, but if you take the time to work those spots real slow, or maybe even dig all the "trash" out of there, you'll find rings or old silvers that others have missed for years.
When I'm ring hunting, besides avoiding specific VDI #s that are too numerous for the time I have at that site, I'll also use the audio and further aspects of the VDI to judge a target worthy to take my chance on. If I change angles over the target and it roams by 3 digits or more, then I suspect it's odd shaped trash, where as a round target like a ring or a coin will usually hold to 1 or 2 digits no matter what angle I sweep over it (all dependent on VDI resolution of a machine of course to see these distinctions). As for the audio, with machines capable of telling you long fine traits of a target (a thing Tesoros, among a few other machines, are noted for), then I'll listen for that "round" or "boing" or "quality" or "smoothness" of the signal and dig those, and will avoid the ones that sound sick, harsh, rough, scratchy, hollow, bangy, or fuzzy. In all the rings we tested, only a handful of them (perhaps 6 or 7) had a sick sound and were jumpy in VDI. These rings were either cracked and no longer a complete loop, or they had very fine "spider webbing" that scatters the eddy currents of the detection field.
Yes, not all rings, based on orientation in the ground, are going to give you a solid hit and might sound like trash, and yes...there is a lot of trash out there that can sound very of "quality" like a ring *should*, but just the same in broad general strokes most rings should sound good (being an intact loop), and there is a lot of trash (especially odd shaped trash) that sounds sick. Not saying there aren't many exceptions to these rules of thumb, just that audio can be useful on days you want to be real particular about what you are digging, trying to once again increase your odds of that "trash to treasure" ratio thing.
Here's a thread link to the large ring and tab pool graphing we did. It contains various charts graphing in different visual ways to illustrate just where these rings fall. I've had some tell me that most gold rings don't read in the foil range. All I can say is this test pool was as random as humanly possible, and that I've also seen other non-biased ring test pools that had similar findings- that roughly half or more of the rings read in the foil range, and that no greater number reads in the nickel or tab range. Keep in mind though that a wider window for certain zones on certain machines might change that perspective, as obviously a wider nickel or tab zone is going to entail more foil or other trash (and thus ring)...
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?21,1720979,page=1
Very much enjoyed this thread and the testing and remarks. Somebody is always trying to beat the odds in Vegas, and we all seem to hear of people with some very odd beliefs or superstitions that always seem to be winning. Regardless of whether their methods are based on solid principals or not, the very fact that they are just trying something different could be reason enough for their success. That's the way I look at ring hunting on land- Real or imagined, any change in approach as to what others have always done before you, might equal success by just share virtue of doing something different at a site, and so digging targets others might otherwise not when after rings. Heck, even picking a random VDI range of say a tight 20 digit span, for no rhyme or reason, and just saying "Today I dig it all that reads between these two numbers", will produce results. No longer are you doing what all others before you have at that site, like say most people seeming to concentrate on digging the nickel zone, and now you are bound to find a few things that others simply never thought to dig.
A friend has found well over 100 gold rings water hunting over the years, scooping each and every signal he ever comes across above iron. No matter how sick sounding, "foil-sh", or etc...He never passes up a hit and always recovers it, and these rings were recovered at various sites, ranging from "low income "neighborhood" beaches, to beaches more frequented by middle class or even well off patrons in some areas. For all the above reasons, and in particular recovering all signals above iron, we felt this test pool of rings was about as unbiased as it could get in terms of a truly random test pool on which to graph some conductivity numbers.
I have seen a few such truly random test pools graphed as well in the past which pretty much jived with our numbers. What we found was that fully about half of all gold rings read well down into the foil range, below nickel. We also then graphed a random test pool of round and square tabs for comparison of certain conductivity zones. This was done on a machine with high conductivity resolution, where not only do 99.9% of all tabs tested span a 20 digit wide VDI range, but also on this particular machine nickels are distinctively lower in VDI # than tabs. There is about a 5 digit VDI separation from the highest nickel VDI # (the nickel zone spans about 10 digits) and the lowest tab #. This way we could also truly test the old rule of thumb saying that to find gold rings you must "dig the nickel zone", or that most gold rings read in the tab range.
With high conductivity resolution in the low to upper mid range of the VDI scale, we could then see if there was any evidence (at least with our test pool of rings) to judge the realities of such sayings among detecting circles that we've all heard for years. What we found, besides about half of all these rings reading in the foil range below nickel, was that there was no larger concentration of rings in the "nickel zone" or the "tab zone" than anywhere else on the scale. In fact, we found there was a surprising amount of gold rings that read well into the coin range, from say just a hair below a zinc penny, which in turn is just a hair above the highest tab reading, to all the way up into the higher coin range.
So, why the old rule of thumb saying that if you are after rings then dig the nickel zone? My theory is that on machines with low resolution in the low to mid range of conductivity, have a much wider window of what they consider the "nickel zone", stretching far below into foil, and far above into the tab range. And, besides this larger "net" to catch more rings that a machine says are in the nickel zone, people always heard to dig the nickel zone when searching for rings, and so that zone was targeted more and others passed, which in turn would further support the theory of digging that particular zone when after gold rings.
Yes, all that said, if I'm old coin hunting for the day, even I won't pass up a nickel signal in the hopes of a gold ring. That concept of digging the nickel zone has just been driven too hard into my head over the years.
The way I look at avoiding certain zones of conductivity and digging others when after rings on land is this- When you go to Vegas you don't bet all out on every hand. Instead, you hold back your money and put more of it on cards you are holding that have a greater percentage of paying off. I look at ring hunting on land in the same way- That if I'm at a site loaded with tons of tabs, instead of making it my life's work to dig all those tabs, I'll instead avoid those and dig all VDI #s even 1 digit off from them. It's the trash to treasure ratio thing- Most common trash target at a site? At many that's going to be either round tabs, square tabs, or both in combination.
So the realities are that for every gold ring that reads in that range of VDI, there are going to be hundred if not thousands of tabs that you have to dig first to find them. I feel in a situation like that that the better use of my time is to go after all the other gold rings that read outside that tab range. In this case, I will target the foil and nickel zones, and that little gap between the highest tab # and where zincs start (if zincs and other clads are all over the site as well). Conversely, if a site is loaded with foil but not much in way of tabs, or at least only seems plagued with a few specific kinds of tabs, then I'll avoid the foil range and dig the nickel and tab range instead.
It's all a matter of how much trash exists for that span of conductivity, versus any potential gold rings that might lurk there in any zones of conductivity. Yes, digging it all is the only way to recover rings, but with the right selective use of VDI avoidance, you can at least improve your trash to treasure ratio and recover a vast majority of the gold rings present at the site, and leave the few behind that would entail digging tons of one specific type of junk commonly found at that site, in order to recover that smaller percentage of rings still left behind by being selective.
Also, more important than what zones of conductivity to dig, is going to be just where you dig. Instead of avoiding tabs at a tab laden site, I might just pick one small 12 foot square area of land in a likely open spot to toss a ball or Frisbee, and then dig every signal above iron out of there. This kind of thing though needs to be done in stages so as not to leave the site a mine field. When I'm in the mood to do it, I'll dig all the solid hits first, such as ones not sounding sick in audio, and then come back after the ground has healed and dig others I felt like passing up the first few visits.
Besides finding rings, you're apt to unmask some nice old silver coins, because detection fields stop and only see the first (meaning shallowest) metal object that touches any part of the field. Just can't get around that, and the deeper the coin in perspective to the shallower trash, the further to the side that coin can be and you still have no hope of seeing that coin. Even the outer edges of the field touching that shallower metal means the machine is never going to see the deeper coin.
Another strategy for ring hunting on land is to travel back in time further than the common trash. If round tabs (being older than square ones) range down to say 6" in depth, then start digging any "tab" signals that sound deeper than the tabs there. I saw a friend dig half a gold ring at a site last summer using this strategy. It had been hit by a lawn mower and cut in half, and he said it read well down into the foil range. When I asked why he dug it, he said it was deeper than the foil found at the site. In other words, older than when foil began to be used in common practice at this particular park.
Other often overlooked areas (besides obviously sport fields)? How about the grass strip at the edge of parking lots in parks and at other sites. Often people are reaching into their pocket for their keys as they approach their car, and as they pull their hand out of their pocket they slide a ring off by accident. Or, they had the ring in their pocket while they were cooking out, playing ball, or taking a swim or such, and out comes the ring when they grab those keys. Same deal with silver coins. Often the grass right next to the parking lot at "dead" parks is loaded with trash so most people avoid it, but if you take the time to work those spots real slow, or maybe even dig all the "trash" out of there, you'll find rings or old silvers that others have missed for years.
When I'm ring hunting, besides avoiding specific VDI #s that are too numerous for the time I have at that site, I'll also use the audio and further aspects of the VDI to judge a target worthy to take my chance on. If I change angles over the target and it roams by 3 digits or more, then I suspect it's odd shaped trash, where as a round target like a ring or a coin will usually hold to 1 or 2 digits no matter what angle I sweep over it (all dependent on VDI resolution of a machine of course to see these distinctions). As for the audio, with machines capable of telling you long fine traits of a target (a thing Tesoros, among a few other machines, are noted for), then I'll listen for that "round" or "boing" or "quality" or "smoothness" of the signal and dig those, and will avoid the ones that sound sick, harsh, rough, scratchy, hollow, bangy, or fuzzy. In all the rings we tested, only a handful of them (perhaps 6 or 7) had a sick sound and were jumpy in VDI. These rings were either cracked and no longer a complete loop, or they had very fine "spider webbing" that scatters the eddy currents of the detection field.
Yes, not all rings, based on orientation in the ground, are going to give you a solid hit and might sound like trash, and yes...there is a lot of trash out there that can sound very of "quality" like a ring *should*, but just the same in broad general strokes most rings should sound good (being an intact loop), and there is a lot of trash (especially odd shaped trash) that sounds sick. Not saying there aren't many exceptions to these rules of thumb, just that audio can be useful on days you want to be real particular about what you are digging, trying to once again increase your odds of that "trash to treasure" ratio thing.
Here's a thread link to the large ring and tab pool graphing we did. It contains various charts graphing in different visual ways to illustrate just where these rings fall. I've had some tell me that most gold rings don't read in the foil range. All I can say is this test pool was as random as humanly possible, and that I've also seen other non-biased ring test pools that had similar findings- that roughly half or more of the rings read in the foil range, and that no greater number reads in the nickel or tab range. Keep in mind though that a wider window for certain zones on certain machines might change that perspective, as obviously a wider nickel or tab zone is going to entail more foil or other trash (and thus ring)...
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?21,1720979,page=1
Very much enjoyed this thread and the testing and remarks. Somebody is always trying to beat the odds in Vegas, and we all seem to hear of people with some very odd beliefs or superstitions that always seem to be winning. Regardless of whether their methods are based on solid principals or not, the very fact that they are just trying something different could be reason enough for their success. That's the way I look at ring hunting on land- Real or imagined, any change in approach as to what others have always done before you, might equal success by just share virtue of doing something different at a site, and so digging targets others might otherwise not when after rings. Heck, even picking a random VDI range of say a tight 20 digit span, for no rhyme or reason, and just saying "Today I dig it all that reads between these two numbers", will produce results. No longer are you doing what all others before you have at that site, like say most people seeming to concentrate on digging the nickel zone, and now you are bound to find a few things that others simply never thought to dig.
Thanks Bleaver and Critter for all your time and effort. Since 'foil' range and 'nickel' range is so broad on some machines and differ from detector to detector. Where does this foil cap fit into the gold ring scale? Lower end of the foil range? Mid? Upper? I get a 48 VDI reading on my Teknetics G2 on the foil cap pictured below. All the really thin small gold rings that I gathered up from wife's jewelry box got readings of 52, 53 and 55. The gold rings that I found in the field detecting mostly got VDI numbers like 60, 61, 63 and 67. Most were man's sized wedding bands.
Critter what VDI number do you get on a foil cap?
When using a Tesoro without VDI numbers I need something to set the lower end. How much lower do I need to go below a 'foil' cap to stay in the high percentage area when I'm searching for gold rings.
tabman
Critter what VDI number do you get on a foil cap?
When using a Tesoro without VDI numbers I need something to set the lower end. How much lower do I need to go below a 'foil' cap to stay in the high percentage area when I'm searching for gold rings.
tabman
Well all the gold tested was found by me. Almost all was from water hunting with a CZ21/21 and a Pulse machine. Over time I'd estimate I've found in excess or 500 pieces. Best day was 12 pieces best trip was 48 in 6 days. Now the thing that may throw the statistics is that a very large proportion of the gold comes from my trips to Spain. That