What does one do in inclement weather

[knarfj]

Thanks Mud! Appreciate the comments. I too have found the charts informative. I was visiting a small park today and and dropped the sens. as far back as 30 while I was in a particularly trashy spot and darned if I didn't come up with a couple of extra clad dimes for my troubles. I usually never hunt with less then a minimum of 0 on the thresh. but you've have me convinced to give the same area a go using the neg. numbers a try.

A little farther up the hill I cranked things up a bit and found my first wheat cent in some time and it came in clear as a bell at 5 plus inches. It's in finds of the day if you care to have a look.

By the way before I burn out on Air Tests and or the troops demand I be banded, do you have any ideas of an air test that you feel may be of even more use. I started to duplicate the same test as the last but using progressively higher positive threshold settings in lieu of the neg. numbers, but didn't get around to it.

Take care,

 

[MarkCZ]

Notice the numbers in blue, this is the point where the detector reached a level of high noise or chatter.
The test were with a US clad quarter and was done inside the house.

If nothing else, maybe someone can use it for comparison to your findings.

The numbers beside and below the headers are in inches.

Mark

 

[mudpuppy]

Well, lets see...another F70 puzzlement to me are the DE/SL mode usage...I'm always in DE, but I wonder if SL gives any more depth or where and when it would be employed? Deep slow Relic hunting?

Another sort of cool test would be swing speed, a tough test to do granted, unless a fellow sets some repeatable time parameters while transcribing a 4' arc....seems in field, a faster sweep will ping a deeper target, like 1sec per 4' arc as opposed to a 3sec...in field, a guy can get a hit swinging fast, but when he tries to lock on, its not there unless he cranks sens a little more, or sweeps fast over it again....

If a fellow can come up with a few balanced set ups that work well in a given area, seems a guy can adjust swing speed, or coil height to increase depth without touching the settings, changing coils etc....seems coil speed/height management can overcome a lot of diff situations out there, not that fast is ALWAYS good, meaning a guy can learn when to go fast and when to settle down and work some trash areas where the abundance of signals need to be picked through, high floating the coil, hopping it vertically, trying to use the very center of it etc....

Another weird test that could keep you occupied is the Tones and TIDS of stacks/tight same denom spills, and multidenom stacks and tight spills...I doubt you could catch the multidenom spill signals unless you are running Delta Pitch...you could put some Q's on a 3x5 card and sweep that, then add a zinc and see what happens to the tone and tid....Dont know if I'd do a nailboard test though....everybody else out there does them, and nobody would believe your results anyway, pretty sure the 70 would do just fine....from my hunting, it seems lots of spills and stacks get missed by other hunters for some reason.

This is really GREAT what you are doing...thinking back, I know I am not maximizing the output/capabilities of of the F70, and have defaulted to low/mid road settings that are stable and comfortable for me to run, and then modified my hunting behavior and areas I hunt to get the most out of those? I really want as much audio info (size, depth) about a target as possible in the shortest time as possible, hence the DP tones with a light enough sens and a neg thresh so the proportional audio is accurate and understandable for targets 5" to surface.

Dont know if this helps you think up anymore tests to run, but hey, looks like this is gonna be a loooong Winter, so I am interested in what you come up with...
Mud

 

[mudpuppy]

Thats a cool chart, Mark! especially your research in the 45-60 gain settings looks about what I'm getting with the 11"DD and a -3 thresh..since I'm hunting modern parks, thats about what my experience has been. My screwdriver has a 6"blade, and I seldom stab anything deeper than 5" though a Q will show up to 8" or so, deeper in wet chips totlots or damp beach sand, and I go after those of course.
Mud

 

[MarkCZ]

Its my understanding that to some degree the Omega was somewhat a Teknetics spin-off of the F5 and Dave Johnson told me the two were on the same "Platform" (switch coils with each other, screw on connectors anyway)
One difference between the two is the Omega doesn't have a manual threshold control, but that doesn't mean its totally without it. Here is what the manual states.

The sensitivity has two ranges. From 0 to 70, the sensitivity increases
on a linear scale. Above 71, the sensitivity threshold level starts
changing. At values greater than 70, some internal circuit noise will be
noticed. The higher the number, the higher this background

 

[WV62]

Here is the rest of the story, with some gold testing.

Ron in WV

 

[knarfj]

Notice the numbers in blue, this is the point where the detector reached a level of high noise or chatter.
The test were with a US clad quarter and was done inside the house.

If nothing else, maybe someone can use it for comparison to your findings.

The numbers beside and below the headers are in inches.

Mark

Excellent info available in your tests Mark! I liked the format there in so well I plan on plagiarizing your spreed sheet for some additional testing of my own.

 

[knarfj]

Well, lets see...another F70 puzzlement to me are the DE/SL mode usage...I'm always in DE, but I wonder if SL gives any more depth or where and when it would be employed? Deep slow Relic hunting?Mud

Note sure what's going on inside the F70 box Mud but during my air testing I played around with the SL speed setting and just as the book said it would the SL speed setting made the F70 noisy at the higher sensitivity levels. But it did offer more depth, at least in the air tests, about an inch if I recall correctly.

Dont know if this helps you think up anymore tests to run, but hey, looks like this is gonna be a loooong Winter, so I am interested in what you come up with...Mud

You've really offered up a multitude of ideas, as requested for tests and I appreciate that, thanks. Many are interesting but beyond the level of skill/effort I had in mind.

Any who, after seeing what MarkCZ put together I came up with an idea that has to do with tones and TIDs. You did mention Tones and TIDs, right?

The information coming from MarkCZs air tests, in the format he chose, I found very informative and understandable. Actually I like the format MarkCZ used during his air testing of the 10 and 11 inch coils so well that I

 

[MarkCZ]

Well, I have to give my brother all the credit for the spreadsheet format, he started doing them sometime back. Now in building the information in his F5 air test spreadsheet I have been helping him via emails.
Our hope is that finding the noise level during air test in the house where we know there is a good bit of EMI that where we hunt in the field the EMI will be somewhat less.

If I get to hunt any this coming year I really want to start running my Omega a little more in the noise level and hope that gets me some of the good stuff in the 7" to 9" deep range.

Another thing about all the spreadsheets here on the F5 is that others can compare their findings to get an idea of how their F5 is doing.
Like my brother told me, air test may not tell the whole story of how a detector does in the field, but other than noise, air is just air, no matter where it is! Dirt, is a different story.

Mark

 

[knarfj]

As far as the report I was going to put together, it's not going to happen. At least not as I had planned. The new coin garden I planted for the test just isn't cooperating. :=(

So Mark your Brother need not worry about me ripping the rights to his spread sheet.

So here is how it panned out. In short, I located a piece of ground up the hill from the house that when scanned in all metal it sounded very consistent. Yea, right!! Then I carefully buried 6 previously dug clad dimes, carefully laying them flat in the bottom of there individual holes at a depth ranging from 3 to 8 measured inches and spaced at 18 inches.

My expectations were to see a uniform decrease in detectable depth between both F5 and F70 during the test and record the results. [size=x-small]WELL NOT SO FAST MY YOUNG GRASSHOPPER![/size]

I should note that in this location I have no EMI issues so I was able to run the Thresh. and Sens. wide open if desired.

Below is what transpired after I settled on the following settings that I chose after a bit of experimenting: Disc. 5, sens. 70, thresh. +6 and 3-tones on both.

3 and 4 inches = Good audio and VDI on both detectors.

5 inches = F70 Good audio and VDI. F5 Audio tone started breaking up and VDI became very jumpy.

6 inches = Neither detector could find this coin in disc.?? But the coin sounded solid when Pin-Pointed.??[size=large]*[/size]

7 inches = F5 no indication in disc. The F70 sounded IFY and lost high tone.

8 inches = F5 same as above. The F70 was very IFY with similar but weaker audio.

Raising the Thresh. or Sens. further, in unison or individually made no difference to my ears in detecting the coins using the above settings.

Afterwards I made one other change and gave it a go. I switched the F70 to 1- tone and found this one change to the above settings allowed the detector to give a repeatable audio response to all 6 targets. Anybody care to speculate as to why?

Note to self: Retrieve the coin carefully and check to see if there is any clue as to why it wasn't detectable in the Disc. mode.[size=large]*[/size]

Happy New Year all! & HH

 

[MarkCZ]

Well, me and Ron both has had problems with fresh buried coin gardens, down around the 4" range things were fine, beyond that and the coins wouldn't read right, if they hit at all!

My eight inch garden didn't start working until after a year!
I've got a seven inch nickel garden that's ben over a year now and the last time I checked it still didn't work.
Now, my over two year old,
5"
6"
Nickels, work, and read upscale VDI numbers well above the Nickel range (with most all my detectors to some degree.

I also, planted a six inch coin garden (Quarter, Copper Penny, and a Nickel) about the same time I planted the seven inch Nickel garden, I still can't use it yet either, I can find it in all metal with certain detectors, but the garden for the most part is worthless????

I believe it was a seven inch garden that my brother Ron had a problem with,
he planted it (had a F75 at the time) to the F75 there was no coin there! his Tejon hit it perfect at first, then some very short time later, the Tejon lost it.

I also had a six inch garden that I planted at the same time of the 8" but it never did work??? I tried to replant it, but that didn't work either???

I might add that my first garden which was just a three inch garden works PERFECT! and it did as soon as I planted it, and I have a 4" nickel that worked right from the start??????

Test gardens can get very strange for some reason, wait about a week and see if the coins disappear altogether??

Mark

 

[WV62]

About your single tone, I can't say I know for sure, but when I had my F75Ltd I wasn't having a lot of luck with using the tones on the deeper targets. I started running one tone started finding some silver coins. If I was ever going to run tones again it would be just newer 0 to 4" range coins. For the most part I will be running my F5 at d1, I love the tones but can't trust them at much more than 4" in the ground.

Now that is just my opinion on tones, I am sure others will not agree.

Ron in WV

 

[MarkCZ]

About your single tone, I can't say I know for sure, but when I had my F75Ltd I wasn't having a lot of luck with using the tones on the deeper targets. I started running one tone started finding some silver coins. If I was ever going to run tones again it would be just newer 0 to 4" range coins. For the most part I will be running my F5 at d1, I love the tones but can't trust them at much more than 4" in the ground.

Now that is just my opinion on tones, I am sure others will not agree.

Ron in WV

I don't think you've have the trouble with the tones like you did with the F75 (I don't with the Omega) what high tone targets normally do when they get a little deep is they do a high tone bounce but it won't read as Iron. But with the modulated auto and deeper high tone targets you just expect them to jump a little in the high tone regions. (modulated audio and a faint repeatable high tone is ones you'll want to dig)

Mark

 

[knarfj]

About your single tone, I can't say I know for sure, but when I had my F75Ltd I wasn't having a lot of luck with using the tones on the deeper targets. I started running one tone started finding some silver coins. If I was ever going to run tones again it would be just newer 0 to 4" range coins. For the most part I will be running my F5 at d1, I love the tones but can't trust them at much more than 4" in the ground.

Now that is just my opinion on tones, I am sure others will not agree.

Ron in WV

For the most part I agree with what your saying about using tones, especially in bad ground, but there are exceptions. I took a break today and hunted a small park using the F70 on a wet sandy fresh water beach and dug a few clad dimes as deep as 7 inches plus while using 3H tones, the dimes sounded as if they were only 2-3 inches deep but the meter and my Lesche said otherwise.

And to top it off I was running my Sens. as low as 40. I usually run around 60 but I was doing the shallow stab a grab thing in hopes of snagging a little gold. No gold turned up but I'm now the proud owner of a fist full of small lead sinkers and a few dimes. I also experimented with the disc. and at times had it as low as 1.

On a more serious note I turned up 3 fair sized triple barbed fishing hooks that were just under the surface of the sand waiting for some small child's foot to find next summer!

Later and HH & HNY

 

[WV62]

About your single tone, I can't say I know for sure, but when I had my F75Ltd I wasn't having a lot of luck with using the tones on the deeper targets. I started running one tone started finding some silver coins. If I was ever going to run tones again it would be just newer 0 to 4" range coins. For the most part I will be running my F5 at d1, I love the tones but can't trust them at much more than 4" in the ground.

Now that is just my opinion on tones, I am sure others will not agree.

Ron in WV

For the most part I agree with what your saying about using tones, especially in bad ground, but there are exceptions. I took a break today and hunted a small park using the F70 on a wet sandy fresh water beach and dug a few clad dimes as deep as 7 inches plus while using 3H tones, the dimes sounded as if they were only 2-3 inches deep but the meter and my Lesche said otherwise.

And to top it off I was running my Sens. as low as 40. I usually run around 60 but I was doing the shallow stab a grab thing in hopes of snagging a little gold. No gold turned up but I'm now the proud owner of a fist full of small lead sinkers and a few dimes. I also experimented with the disc. and at times had it as low as 1.

On a more serious note I turned up 3 fair sized triple barbed fishing hooks that were just under the surface of the sand waiting for some small child's foot to find next summer!

Later and HH & HNY

Even though I have never hunted a fresh water beach, I would think that it would be close 0 in minerals so your detector would be seeing about the same as air testing.

I tried a little air testing last night trying to see what my brother Mark was saying about these tones. For some reason the detector was picking up a lot more noise, not saying because of the tones just noise. But I reduced the settings and settled it down and went with 3 and 4 tones, the tones stayed with the quarter down to about 9" and then went to low tone for a couple more inches. Now if I was in a real world hunt and that quarter would have been in the ground for several years and of course silver, I could expect to take off a couple more inches off each of those numbers.

I do know one thing, I really need to get outside and get away from the noise I am picking up in the house. If so I could use the same work sheet and just load in some new numbers.

I took it as a complement that you wanted to copy my spread sheet format, and you or anybody else is welcome to it. But when I saw your spread sheets the thought crossed my mind this guy knows what he is doing, they looked good to me. I think it is neat to have a bunch of test numbers on little scrap sheets of paper and then start loading them into some kind of spread sheet. Sometimes it will give you a good idea of what is really going on and not always what you want or expect.

This has been a good thread, lot of good feedback.

Ron in WV

 

[mudpuppy]

The fresh water beaches I hunt (Lake Mich) have some mineralization at the waters edge, like some sort of black sand that gets washed up, seems a target hits deeper in the damp sand a little ways up the beach than they do in completely dry sand thats furthur up...I think the closest I have experienced to a real world (air test) hunting is in a couple of feet of snow on a ski hill...then a fellow has to run as hot as he can. but not so hot to be getting targets through the snow and down in the dirt.
Mud

 

[knarfj]

I've found this thread to be very informative and fun. The majority of charts have been real eye openers for me, albeit our main focus has been on air tests. My failed attempt at a charted "in the ground depth test" turned out to be a better demonstration of how much ground conditions can hinder a detectors depth capabilities than a charted depth test.

One decision the thread has helped me make is to be satisfied with the 10 inch concentric coils both my Fishers came with. But having said that, I really, really like what I've read elsewhere concerning the small 5 inch DD coil, it sounds like a must have coil to me.

HH

 

[MarkCZ]

I read some information sometime back put out by Whites, that claimed that fresh buried targets changes the "Ground Matrix" and that's the problem with the target response.

Mark

 

[knarfj]

Hey Mark,

Interesting! I for one would certainly have no problem believing that if Whites made that claim. Was there any mention as to how long it takes for a grounds matrix to reform?

 

[mudpuppy]

Yeah I've also read that about building a test garden...said it takes a while for everything to sort of stabilize once you bury a coin..says you gotta pour water on the hole after you bury something and try to pack everything down to the compaction range of the surrounding soil or some such...cant say for certain, but I think that a target in damp sand or wet wood chips throws a stronger signal than it could at the same distance in an air test...
some of those targets I get in the wet chips or damp sand are really deep!....deeper than the detector should have hit them on an air test..and so deep you dont want to talk about it for the risk of being called a liar! .And of course, we are seeing how a really fast swing speed lights up a deeper target that a slower swing speed will not...for some reason..I dont know, but it does...so in a perfect real world hunt condition with perfect settings for the area, a guy could still miss or hit a deep target based upon coil speed alone..
Mud