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Test Garden

A

Anonymous

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I am working on a test garden. I am looking for some suggestions on how to set one up. Dept, coins, marking.... Your ideas are appreciated.
I did get about six modern coins buried today. I buried series of new coins (quarter, dime, nickle, and penny) flat at a distance of 6" and 12". I compacted the dirt pretty well afterwards. Now my Exp II can't detect any of them regardless of my settings or sensitivity. I tried with both the stock and 12.5" Excelerator coils. I would think it would at lease pick up the 6" coins. I live in an area with adobe soil that is still pretty wet from the latest Calif Storms. Am I doing something wrong with my garden?
 
Try dumping some salted water in the dirt about 5 min befor you detect. it will boost the conductivity of the soil, normally the coins being in the ground for a long time will cause oxidation causing a better halo for detectors to pick up. thats why a freshly buried coin can not be detected very well.
 
You'd think minelab might want to do something about all the people like us Kalvin. Like maby set up some good simulated gardens, maby even some kind of mobile garden. You people have got to be sick of me and everyone else asking the same old depth questions. I know I'm realy sick of asking them. Sorry Kalvin, I didnt intend to hijack your post, Its just kind of a sore spot. The deal is Kalvin, Ive been told not to bury coins deeper than 4 inches by the brass at minelab unless you are prepared to wait 50 years for the soil matrix to get itself right or the magic halo to appear, or the good fairy to come sprinkle fairy dust on it ...
and no, I do not have any reason to complain because I've found more desireable treasures in my first eleven months than some do in eleven years and I am truely gratefull and I thank you Andy and General Ray for the nice compliments a little while ago not to mension all your help, time and patience. People, this is like having a corvette with the gas pedal only able to go half way down.
Comeon Minelab, you can do better by us than this!
 
I dont understand why you want to hunt your spots out and find everything that is in the ground the first time you hunt it. If you did, your next problem would be hunting for new spots.
 
I really liked Todd's post as it hit the nail on the head. Explorer will not test well in the air or on recently buried coins. Get some old areas with coins buried many years and then you will see the depth and abilities of your unit...
 
i don't quite understand this.
almost everyone says you need a halo effect to pick up deep targets. i don't.
this is all starting to make me think, the explorer doesn't work well in certain parts of the country. either that or people have explorers that don't work right. because, i have no problem in my test area. never did from the beginning. and it's only a year old test area. i even have a 12" deep quarter that i stuck in it about 6 months ago that i can pick up.
 
People who swing a metal detetor and detectorists.A lot must be a attributed to the mineralization and expertise of the operator for his area..I really don't feel we are talking about a true halo but for some reason beyond my expertise an Explorer just mixes with the compact soil to provide depth.
 
Talk to guys like Beachcomber about the extreme depth he gets on the beach, certainly no halos in the beach sand. Soil conditions are a big factor in depth and quality of signal, soil density, mineralization, moisture, conductivity, whether the soil has been disturbed or not can be a factor. Talk to some guys who hunt plowed fields around here and you will find they Explorer is less stable in certain soil conditions if the soil has been disturbed.
There are 4 parks in Albany, NY within 2 miles of each other and the soil conditions are considerably different from black sand to average dirt to thick brick like muck. Coppers vary from nicely brown to shiny green to extremely rotted.
And then there's iron, there are some areas of our local parks that are pretty much not huntable when the soil is sopping wet due to the huge rusty iron signals but once the soil starts to dry out the iron shuts up quite a bit and the iron signals get smaller and are easier to hunt between.
It says something that the Explorer can be tuned to deal with just about any soil condition and perform from reasonably well to excellent.
 
charles, that's obvious, but...
first, i'm talking dirt, not sand.
and, i'm talking va. OR pa., DIRT.
and the soil i have my test area in is some of the nastiest ground you'd ever want to hunt in. loaded with iron, orange clay, other detectors are lucky if they can get 6" deep in this stuff, i've tried them here, so i know.
this is why i love my ploder so much. <img src="/metal/html/lol.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=":lol">
 
meter or the digital will be wrong on fresh buried coins, they don't need no halo. In my soil it take about six months before the same buried coins start to register correct on the meter and they sound better.
 
i noticed that also Arturo, but mine are close, like only a number or two off.
 
coins for a coin garden, you have mixed up the negative and positive matrix of the soil in a much larger surface and I can see why the explorer would have trouble detecting deep. Keep the dug hole small or use a thick steel rod and hammer down to the depth you want and drop the coin in.
 
i never finised mine but i was gonna space my targets out 2 feet on center apart in a 50 foot square.with pocker chips as markers.but this bike pump cost $6.00 at walmart and i thought the halo effect would happen faster useing it.hh don <img src=http://www.thetreasuredepot.com/photos/hp.JPG>
 
Kevin, I recently made a test garden...planted mercury dimes from three to twelve inches deep, in one inch intervals. I slowly and methodically back filled the holes one inch at a time, tamping the soil as solid as possible as I went. When finished, I tested a Minelab Advantage, a Tesoro Tejon and a Fisher CZ-70 Pro. None would detect past the three-inch dime, but I had seen this before. So something happens to a coin after it has been buried a while. How long it takes and what happens is a mystery to me, but eventually I figure I'll have a test garden...and a test garden is the only way you can compare detectors...your soil, kown targets at known depths, etc. Most everything you read about someone elses results will probably be of little use to someone else because of the many variables involved. And I don't know if "halos" occur...I can see iron leeching into surrounding soil, but it's hard to imagine "silver halos". Anyway, something must happen. Someday we'll both have a viable test garden...I hope...ha. Take care, Ray.
 
Thanks for all the additional input. I like the ideas ssuch as a coring tool, and a hammer and steel rod to set the coins. All the other commensts are also appreciated.
 
There maybe some but it was the cleanest I could find on my place.
 
i use it for planting targets .push it to the depth wanted pull it out drop the target in push plug back in and your good to go.hh don
 
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