Those Pesty Chunks of Metal Junk

[all iron]

Theres just no way getting around those Pesty chunks of metal is there ?

I have a school yard not far from me and it seems this was a dump for every chunk of worthless metal in the state of Indiana
I have found a few coins ( clad ) amongst the junk but still have to dig a lot of iron pieces the size of a silver dollars to determine its just another chunk of junk.
I can discriminate everything possible out and still find the junk.

5 inch 8 inch 10 inch 11 inch coils ( just a lot of junk )

and the school yard dates back to the early 1900's


Dear Monte :| what is a guy to do in a junk yard?

If you were to listen for the tones and watch the VDI , you would swear this is a field of Morgan Dollars

 

[Monte]

Well, all iron, I appreciate you asking me specifically, but I am sure any avid detectorist would offer up similar responses to what I will below.

Theres just no way getting around those Pesty chunks of metal is there ?

If you hunt a well manicured private yard used for family gatherings and they were not very messy, you could get signals on mainly coin targets. There might be other interesting metal targets, too, such as toy cars or play sheriff badges, or maybe an old cap gun. There could be a trade token at an older home site, or maybe a pocket watch or watch fob, and certainly neat old buttons will appear. To me, these are just typical-loss targets that I associate with that type of site and I don't consider them to be 'pesky,' just fun stuff to find.

I have a school yard not far from me and it seems this was a dump for every chunk of worthless metal in the state of Indiana
I have found a few coins ( clad ) amongst the junk but still have to dig a lot of iron pieces the size of a silver dollars to determine its just another chunk of junk.
I can discriminate everything possible out and still find the junk.

And then there are the sites that are more challenging. Now, not all o,d parks or old schools are loaded with a broad assortment of 'pesky' junk. It appears that your site here really is. Naturally, we have Discrimination at our disposal to help deal with annoying junk, but it comes with the trade-off that we will miss a lot of good targets, and still not get rid of everything annoying.

Now, as for iron pieces the size of silver dollars, or any size for that matter, they pose a set of problems all their own. While most iron-based targets are just that ... Iron ... we ought to be able to reject it rather easily. We can, or should I say could, if we were still using an old TR-Disc. detector. They featured what I refer to as "true progressive discrimination." Unfortunately, we have all the benefits of ground handling and visual display and Target ID and such with our modern detectors, but it comes at a price. That is, Iron doesn't discriminate quite as well, and you add the fact that the iron targets we deal with are man-made and man-shaped and you get additional challenges of conductivity.

Yes, an item might be iron (magnetic), but the shape can cause it to respond more positively or as a higher-conductive target. On occasion, some operator techniques can help deal with these types of peaky situations, but that's all part of the game. I might refer you two two articles I wrote that can help detectorists learn and master some techniques with their detectors. These are free to print out and are listed under Tips & Techniques on our society website. Just go to ahrps.org and click on Tips & Techniques, then select the one you want to read and/or print out. Just remember, it's all part of the learning curve so be patient.

5 inch 8 inch 10 inch 11 inch coils ( just a lot of junk )

I have all those coils and in an 'average' condition park or school I might just use the stock 8" on the Delta. Most of the time I use the elliptical 10" concentric on my Omega. For now, I keep the round 5" DD on the G2, but I used it for all of September, exclusively, on my Omega and did quite well. I was mainly working older sites with abundant trash, and that's why I have it on the G2, just for those sites. The 11' DD I keep on a spare lower rod to mount on either of these detectors .... but NOT when I am working a trashy site like you described.

By your description of the old school yard I would make two very simple decisions:

#1.. Stick to using only the 5" DD coil, using short length sweeps and not too fast.

#2.. Go hunt elsewhere.

Personally, I'd usually pick others sites to hunt rather than contend with a lot of junk at a school site.

and the school yard dates back to the early 1900's

And, knowing that, I would maybe pay it a visit now and then, when I didn't have any other place to go and I had ample patience to just pick a small section, like 10X15, and mark it off, then work that grid with the 5" DD coil until I felt it was clean. Then re-hunt with the 10" concentric, and move on next time to another 10X15 grip. Each grid will take an hour or so to hunt completely. Maybe two or three?

If you were to listen for the tones and watch the VDI , you would swear this is a field of Morgan Dollars

If I was just casually hunting that site I'd use my Omega in the d2 Audio Tone ID and the smaller coil with short 30"-36" sweep lengths and only glance at the VDI on occasions to get an idea where a good sound falls. if there is a lot of larger iron that hints of being a Morgan Dollar, I would usually be able to classify it as iron using the 'Quick-Out' and 'EPR' techniques I mention in one of the write-ups. I've been using these techniques for over thirty years with decent success.

Monte

 

[all iron]

That was awesome Monte
Thanks!

 

[Big Boys Hobbies]

Hes full of good info! I read and re read allot of his posts!