Virginia dirt

[markg]

How many use the multi-frequency machines in the red Virginia dirt?

I use a single frequency machine which is okay, but all my hunting buddies use the multi-frequence machines and they seem to do better.

Thoughts please

 

[Unearthed]

markg:
I hate to answer a question with a question, but; what machine are you using, and what is the operating frequency? The "red dirt" is due to iron oxidation in the soil, which is generally not good insofar as detecting is concerned{mineralized soil}. Alot of us are shifting to multiple frequency detectors, the drawback to this is, you don't know what frequency actually works best for the location that you are hunting.The rule of thumb seems to be that the higher the frequency, the better your detector will be able to cope with highly mineralized soil. Hope this helps.
HH
Unearthed

 

[markg]

Over the years I've moved from a cheap Fingerhut machine to the Ace 250, Tesoro Vaquero, Tejon, Fisher 75 and now the F75 LTD.
All three of my hunting buddies use a multi frequency machine, Whites DFX and V3i and the Etraq.
They seem to be out finding my LTD.

 

[bunker314]

Hi Mark,
Can't address the Virginia soil but I do use my Safari in both Ga. and Ala. red clay. I have had no degradation in performance as far as I can tell. I am from Fl and our soil here is very neutral with little to no mineralization. Works well in both areas.
I know that the F75Ltd is a great machine, wish I could help you with that.
Best of Luck!
Bunker

 

[TomH]

mark,

I have used the Safari at sites in Berryville and Culpeper county.

At Berryville the soil was a little more mineralized than I am used to in G'Burg and the machine handled it very nicely. I also worked under a series of high power lines and was able to completely cancel out any interference by using the "Noise Cancel" function. It was the only machine that was not affected by the interference and I ended up wiith two New Model Sharps bullets from under the wires.

At Culpeper, the soil ranged from mineralized to very-very-mineralized. Even in the worst area of the site I was able to get signals, but I had to crank up the sensitivity until the machine was very noisy and learned to ignore the bad tones. In the better areas the machine worked normally. One thing I noticed, brass targets always sounded the same, nice flutey tone with solid TID 12/13 or 18/20. Lead however seemed to change according to the conditions. The lower the mineralization the more normal the tone. Once you heard a lead target in a particular area all other lead in that area sounded the same, but it was a different tone from field to field.

I'l be trying our the Safari in Orange county in March and will let you know how it works.

Hope this helps,
TomH

 

[treasurebum]

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I can't personally answer that, but wish I could. While I presently live on the opposite end of the US and swing a multi frequency machine (Minelab Safari), I was stationed in Virginia back in 2002 and would love to hunt the area. The culture was awesome and so much history. Hope it worked out for you and you're finding all kinds of cool targets.​

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