Ed in SoDak
Member
Another post from my archives, enjoy!
-Ed
From a perpetual newbie to other newbies, or Getting Started with the Time Ranger
My wife, Sandy, and I bought a pair of Time Rangers in the summer of 2001, and we have found that they do tell us what is going on with most targets.
Metal detectors that offer an ID do so based on the conductivity and phase of the metal that's beneath the coil. While coins and other common objects are manufactured to tightly-controlled tolerances and thus have a fairly constant conductivity, many trash items can give a similar response. Add in variables such as soil and moisture conditions, detector settings, depth and angle of target, search techniques and a million other things, it's really pretty amazing how accurate modern detectors can be. Accurate as they are, it's still nowhere near perfect. The "art" of detecting is to learn your particular machine at your own locations and decide wether to dig or not based on this experience.
With all these variables, it's easy to see that all detectors can get "confused" at times, mostly by cigarette foil bits, long-buried rusty iron cans (that have a "halo" of rust in the soils around them) and spent .22 shells. 22's might read like nickels, at depth the rusty iron and foil can read more like a quarter, half-dollar or dollar, but the signals jump around a lot more than a signal from an actual coin would move. Aluminum cans may read like a variable dollar signal, but out here, at least, there's many more buried cans than lost silver dollars, so usually I pass these huge "fuzzy dollar" signals by. One test is the coil reacts for a longer time passing over the target because of the larger size of the can. Try lifting the coil up a few inches away from the surface to see if that changes the signal.
When we got our Time Rangers, I dug nearly every signal after a thorough scan to see what the detector thought it was. After digging, I let reality be the judge! Ian't say for sure about your particular model of Bounty Hunter, but the technology is probably similar; anyway our Time Rangers were correct on most of the IDs. If it said it was junk or iron, it almost always was. If the target wouldn't settle down to a specific id, it was also usually junk. I mean the detector signal was swinging wildly from an ID at the low end to one at the other extreme and all parts in between! A junky signal equals a junky target.
Solid, repeatable targets that gave the same ID when scanned in one direction (move coil left/right) and in another (move coil forward/back); or else by walking a quarter turn around the target and scanning again from side to side; if the signal stayed consistently positive, I dug. A small "test" gold nugget gave a very weak signal that varied somewhat, but was noticiable because of it's "soft" sound. Also, a small platinum ring I found this summer did alternate a bit in the id, but not as radically as most junk targets. It was a different signal than most targets, so I dug it, and was sure glad I did!
I switch modes pretty often, depending on the area and number of signals. Few signals, I go to all-metal and once I locate a target, I might change to discriminate to help determine the target id. All metal mode pinpoints better as well. In a trashy area, I use discriminate mode with discrimination turned down low or off and increase it only enough to silence the most common trash at the site.
If you are digging nothing but nails or one or another trash target at a location, toss a typical "dud" on the ground and pass the coil over it, changing the settings until the trash item just vanishes from the signal. Now double check with a nickle, dime and quarter or test nugget or piece if jewelry to make sure you are still picking out the "good stuff." You did remember to bring along your pouch of test objects?
If you ever have to stop and wonder if your macine is working properly, all it takes is to toss down something from your little stash of test items to answer the question. I feel this is as important as carrying spare batteries. Just waving the coil near the pocket where you keep them is often enough to verify that all is working as expected.
I've read way too many posts from people who have become confused by multiple signals or they are discouraged by no signals at all and they promptly blame the machine. All it takes is a quarter, test nugget or junk item tossed on the ground to verify that things are as they should be. If something has gone wrong with your machine, you can quickly determine that and take steps to correct the fault, then you can continue to hunt with more confidence!
I always make sure I carry some coins and other items with me while hunting to provide a reliable test target. If I feel a need to check the machine's operation. I just scatter one or several coins in an area that is cleared of pre-existing signals and pass the coil over the spot. I have also brought along and scattered poptops, nails, bolts, tabs and screwcaps about the test area next to my coins to see if the detector could separate the individual signals. It quickly gave me a lot of experience with the machine in my own backyard and at nearby locations, and one time having these test objects helped me discover a loose coil connector while in the field. The intermittent coil connector is the only problem I have had with my Bounty Hunter after many years of use. Instead of sending it in for repair, I soldered on a heavy-duty plug myself and problem solved.
If your machine suddenly seems to sound off on everything, as might happen when you submerge the coil in a creek or when detecting in wet sand on a beach; the batteries are good and the coil plug is secure, it is probably due to an extreme difference between where you set up and gound-balanced the machine and where you moved to actually use it. This can happen in a matter of a few feet, and water or wet vegetation and soggy soils will change it as well. Just ground-balance the detector again in that area, even right in the water, or turn it off and back on again to start from scratch with ground balancing. If your detector continues to misbehave after removing the coil from the water and drying it off, it's possible your coil's waterproofing has failed. Another possibility, sometimes the fancy computer inside locks up or crashes, just like on your computer at home! It does happen!
Reducing sensitivity can help stop false signals, as can scanning from a greater distance above the surface. This also reduces the depth you will achieve, but sometimes is the only way to hunt highly mineralized areas or wet shorelines. A smaller searchcoil can help as well, as it is "seeing" a smaller portion of the troublesome soils, minerals, trash, etc., but again you will lose some depth.
If the "auto-groundtrac" feature is available on your particular machine, and when you stop to dig a target, if you set the machine down with the coil facing at an angle to the ground, instead of flat against the ground, I discovered it tries to ground balance to the air while you are digging, which makes it take a long time to settle back down again when placed against the ground as you resume hunting. I either swivel the coil to lay against the ground, or simply turn the detector off while I dig. I own a second pinpointing detector to fine-locate my signal and don't often need to rescan once a target is discovered, so I usually turn off the Bounty Hunter to help preserve the batteries. I noticed that in the Time Ranger's Discriminate mode, I did not have this problem, only in All-Metal mode.
As to telling mica from gold, a simple push with a tweezers or sharp fingernail will bend gold, but mica will crush and break apart. No need to beat the poor thing to death with a hammer, but you can if want to! ;-) Mica will also float all over the bottom of your gold pan, while gold usually stubbornly stays put. Fine gold flakes might float about a bit under water, but will readily go to the bottom, unless buoyed aloft by surface tension. Then you can't seem to get them to sink again! Mica will re-sink much more easily from the surface than the fine flake gold. A tiny drop of common dish soap will reduce the surface tension, allowing the fine gold to settle better. When you are down to the black sands and you think you still might have some mica, when you do the "swirl" to separate the gold, the mica will race around to the back, instead of staying in place. Mica will also lose its shine when viewed in shade, but gold will remain bright-looking.
If you are finding a lot of suspicious material, try to concentrate and separate it, then check a quantity of it with your detector. While a couple individual flakes will likely not be detected, a small quantity of several dozen or so flakes concentrated in your plastic gold pan or a vial will be confirmed by most any good detector. The signal may be weak, but it will be there if you have sufficient quantity of metal-bearing ore in your pan. Micas and pyrites will not cause your detector to sound off, but gold and other heavy metals will.
If you are in all-metal mode, it is not very likely, but it is still possible you may be detecting a quantity of "black sands" or Hematite in the stream or deposit. This is easily checked by using a magnet to attract the Hematite. Put the magnet in a baggie first to help remove the particles from the magnet. Just turn the baggie inside out, and the black sands will now be "in the bag"! Gold is often found with black sands, so if you are finding a great deal of it, pay close attention, and perhaps save some of the sands for further experimentation at home. The gold may be too fine to see without magnification, but the black sands may be leading you to more concentrated deposits. The Time Ranger has a Ground Monitor, pay attention to this to help locate higher concentrations of black sands.
Pyrite is another mineral often confused with gold. It can be very brightly-colored and somewhat heavy, but is even more brittle than mica. In the Black Hills, we have many slates that get a shiny irridescent coating from irons in the soil. Again, like mica, these too are brittle, easily broken up and light in weight. Gold is so malleable, it can be spread out to a thin layer just a few molecules thick, but it will not crush or break into bits.
Hope this long post has a few hints you can use.
Happy Hunting!
-Ed
From a perpetual newbie to other newbies, or Getting Started with the Time Ranger
My wife, Sandy, and I bought a pair of Time Rangers in the summer of 2001, and we have found that they do tell us what is going on with most targets.
Metal detectors that offer an ID do so based on the conductivity and phase of the metal that's beneath the coil. While coins and other common objects are manufactured to tightly-controlled tolerances and thus have a fairly constant conductivity, many trash items can give a similar response. Add in variables such as soil and moisture conditions, detector settings, depth and angle of target, search techniques and a million other things, it's really pretty amazing how accurate modern detectors can be. Accurate as they are, it's still nowhere near perfect. The "art" of detecting is to learn your particular machine at your own locations and decide wether to dig or not based on this experience.
With all these variables, it's easy to see that all detectors can get "confused" at times, mostly by cigarette foil bits, long-buried rusty iron cans (that have a "halo" of rust in the soils around them) and spent .22 shells. 22's might read like nickels, at depth the rusty iron and foil can read more like a quarter, half-dollar or dollar, but the signals jump around a lot more than a signal from an actual coin would move. Aluminum cans may read like a variable dollar signal, but out here, at least, there's many more buried cans than lost silver dollars, so usually I pass these huge "fuzzy dollar" signals by. One test is the coil reacts for a longer time passing over the target because of the larger size of the can. Try lifting the coil up a few inches away from the surface to see if that changes the signal.
When we got our Time Rangers, I dug nearly every signal after a thorough scan to see what the detector thought it was. After digging, I let reality be the judge! Ian't say for sure about your particular model of Bounty Hunter, but the technology is probably similar; anyway our Time Rangers were correct on most of the IDs. If it said it was junk or iron, it almost always was. If the target wouldn't settle down to a specific id, it was also usually junk. I mean the detector signal was swinging wildly from an ID at the low end to one at the other extreme and all parts in between! A junky signal equals a junky target.
Solid, repeatable targets that gave the same ID when scanned in one direction (move coil left/right) and in another (move coil forward/back); or else by walking a quarter turn around the target and scanning again from side to side; if the signal stayed consistently positive, I dug. A small "test" gold nugget gave a very weak signal that varied somewhat, but was noticiable because of it's "soft" sound. Also, a small platinum ring I found this summer did alternate a bit in the id, but not as radically as most junk targets. It was a different signal than most targets, so I dug it, and was sure glad I did!
I switch modes pretty often, depending on the area and number of signals. Few signals, I go to all-metal and once I locate a target, I might change to discriminate to help determine the target id. All metal mode pinpoints better as well. In a trashy area, I use discriminate mode with discrimination turned down low or off and increase it only enough to silence the most common trash at the site.
If you are digging nothing but nails or one or another trash target at a location, toss a typical "dud" on the ground and pass the coil over it, changing the settings until the trash item just vanishes from the signal. Now double check with a nickle, dime and quarter or test nugget or piece if jewelry to make sure you are still picking out the "good stuff." You did remember to bring along your pouch of test objects?
If you ever have to stop and wonder if your macine is working properly, all it takes is to toss down something from your little stash of test items to answer the question. I feel this is as important as carrying spare batteries. Just waving the coil near the pocket where you keep them is often enough to verify that all is working as expected.
I've read way too many posts from people who have become confused by multiple signals or they are discouraged by no signals at all and they promptly blame the machine. All it takes is a quarter, test nugget or junk item tossed on the ground to verify that things are as they should be. If something has gone wrong with your machine, you can quickly determine that and take steps to correct the fault, then you can continue to hunt with more confidence!
I always make sure I carry some coins and other items with me while hunting to provide a reliable test target. If I feel a need to check the machine's operation. I just scatter one or several coins in an area that is cleared of pre-existing signals and pass the coil over the spot. I have also brought along and scattered poptops, nails, bolts, tabs and screwcaps about the test area next to my coins to see if the detector could separate the individual signals. It quickly gave me a lot of experience with the machine in my own backyard and at nearby locations, and one time having these test objects helped me discover a loose coil connector while in the field. The intermittent coil connector is the only problem I have had with my Bounty Hunter after many years of use. Instead of sending it in for repair, I soldered on a heavy-duty plug myself and problem solved.
If your machine suddenly seems to sound off on everything, as might happen when you submerge the coil in a creek or when detecting in wet sand on a beach; the batteries are good and the coil plug is secure, it is probably due to an extreme difference between where you set up and gound-balanced the machine and where you moved to actually use it. This can happen in a matter of a few feet, and water or wet vegetation and soggy soils will change it as well. Just ground-balance the detector again in that area, even right in the water, or turn it off and back on again to start from scratch with ground balancing. If your detector continues to misbehave after removing the coil from the water and drying it off, it's possible your coil's waterproofing has failed. Another possibility, sometimes the fancy computer inside locks up or crashes, just like on your computer at home! It does happen!
Reducing sensitivity can help stop false signals, as can scanning from a greater distance above the surface. This also reduces the depth you will achieve, but sometimes is the only way to hunt highly mineralized areas or wet shorelines. A smaller searchcoil can help as well, as it is "seeing" a smaller portion of the troublesome soils, minerals, trash, etc., but again you will lose some depth.
If the "auto-groundtrac" feature is available on your particular machine, and when you stop to dig a target, if you set the machine down with the coil facing at an angle to the ground, instead of flat against the ground, I discovered it tries to ground balance to the air while you are digging, which makes it take a long time to settle back down again when placed against the ground as you resume hunting. I either swivel the coil to lay against the ground, or simply turn the detector off while I dig. I own a second pinpointing detector to fine-locate my signal and don't often need to rescan once a target is discovered, so I usually turn off the Bounty Hunter to help preserve the batteries. I noticed that in the Time Ranger's Discriminate mode, I did not have this problem, only in All-Metal mode.
As to telling mica from gold, a simple push with a tweezers or sharp fingernail will bend gold, but mica will crush and break apart. No need to beat the poor thing to death with a hammer, but you can if want to! ;-) Mica will also float all over the bottom of your gold pan, while gold usually stubbornly stays put. Fine gold flakes might float about a bit under water, but will readily go to the bottom, unless buoyed aloft by surface tension. Then you can't seem to get them to sink again! Mica will re-sink much more easily from the surface than the fine flake gold. A tiny drop of common dish soap will reduce the surface tension, allowing the fine gold to settle better. When you are down to the black sands and you think you still might have some mica, when you do the "swirl" to separate the gold, the mica will race around to the back, instead of staying in place. Mica will also lose its shine when viewed in shade, but gold will remain bright-looking.
If you are finding a lot of suspicious material, try to concentrate and separate it, then check a quantity of it with your detector. While a couple individual flakes will likely not be detected, a small quantity of several dozen or so flakes concentrated in your plastic gold pan or a vial will be confirmed by most any good detector. The signal may be weak, but it will be there if you have sufficient quantity of metal-bearing ore in your pan. Micas and pyrites will not cause your detector to sound off, but gold and other heavy metals will.
If you are in all-metal mode, it is not very likely, but it is still possible you may be detecting a quantity of "black sands" or Hematite in the stream or deposit. This is easily checked by using a magnet to attract the Hematite. Put the magnet in a baggie first to help remove the particles from the magnet. Just turn the baggie inside out, and the black sands will now be "in the bag"! Gold is often found with black sands, so if you are finding a great deal of it, pay close attention, and perhaps save some of the sands for further experimentation at home. The gold may be too fine to see without magnification, but the black sands may be leading you to more concentrated deposits. The Time Ranger has a Ground Monitor, pay attention to this to help locate higher concentrations of black sands.
Pyrite is another mineral often confused with gold. It can be very brightly-colored and somewhat heavy, but is even more brittle than mica. In the Black Hills, we have many slates that get a shiny irridescent coating from irons in the soil. Again, like mica, these too are brittle, easily broken up and light in weight. Gold is so malleable, it can be spread out to a thin layer just a few molecules thick, but it will not crush or break into bits.
Hope this long post has a few hints you can use.
Happy Hunting!