Bell-Two asked about iffy signals on another forum. I ended up writing quite a bit and I think there may be some good info in here so I thought I'd share it here as well.
What is an iffy signal anyway? Basically, I think it's one that does not ID properly on the meter. Or is it the the signal that is just on the cusp of "dig me" vs. "walk away"? Either way, I think it's digging signals that you just don't know... the essence of treasure hunting... a mystery! As a general discussion of iffy signals, it has taken me two years and a lot of time in the field to finally "get" the best of iffy signals with the E-Trac. The learning curve would be much the same with any machine. There is a point where you hit your groove, but there's a little more to it than that.
I consider knowing iffy signals as telling what's trash and what's just barely better than a trash signal. The two Indian Heads and two wheats I dug on Jan. 1 are perfect examples. Suzanne and I both hit this area of the park hard. Multiple hunts, gridding, etc. But because all the "easy" targets were gone, I had to focus on what I was getting signals on. And this is what I've gotten good at recently, is picking out those slight differences that indicate a potential good target over trash. I don't recall looking at the meter for any of these coins, as I knew the signal was horrible and the ID would not mean anything. This has happened at all my sites as I have "cleaned out" the easy stuff, and now I'm sorting out what's left. But in what's left are the deeper, older and more masked coins.
There is definitely a mastery of the machine that comes into play, and it's taught by using it a lot. I'm a strong adherent of the coin program and the stock coil, but also by using them almost exclusively, I learn them best. We've spent over 1000 hours together, easily. Another sign that you "get" what the machine is saying is that you rarely look at the meter for an ID. Your ears tell you to dig.
I agree the stock program is the best way to learn. I also think sticking with one set of tools will help you learn faster (one program, one coil, same headphones). Mastering one set of tools is better than being so-so on a bunch of tools.
If you are constantly hitting new sites, and cherry picking the good signals, there's probably still quite a few things left in the ground. If you keep hitting the same old places over and over again, you're gonna get good at squeezing out a few more keepers.
The depth meter is your friend though. Deep targets are harder to detect. There's just more mass (soil and trash) between your coil and the target. What happens to deep signals is they break up and on almost all detectors the default is an iron like signal. Your machine is detecting it, but can't properly ID it, so it still beeps at you, but beeps iron-y. So if a signal is really trashy, but has a little bit of good in it and it's deep, it's worth investigating. Don't expect deep coins to give great signals, even with a bigger coil.
Another trick of the E-Trac and Pro coil is that reliability of a signal that repeats at 90 degrees is almost always something round. It may be a piece of round iron fooling you, but the detector loves things that are round. I've dug plenty of signals that did not repeat at 90 degrees, but more often than not, a signal that repeats the same (or close) at 90 degrees is worth digging. Sometimes if I like a signal but can't get a 90 degree repeat, I'll shift the position of my original scan by 30 or 45 degrees and then see if I can get a 90 degree repeat from a new angle. There may just be a piece of trash that's blocking me from getting that 90 degree repeat from my original scan.
Sometimes I get ghost signals. What sounds like a good hit, and I wave the coil over it a few times and it sounds good. (As opposed to falses which just sound good once then quit.) I start to do my process of short fast swings over the target and then pinpoint (to get directly over the center of the item) and the more swings and somewhere in the process the signal goes away. The good sound is gone. In these cases it is 99% always trash that the detector just needed more time to process or "think about" and decide was trash.
And there is something else too. I use the pinpoint feature ALL the time! I get a good sounding hit, I use pinpoint to hone in on the center of the signal and get right over the target. THEN, I swing over it again to get the best ID possible before I decide to dig. Many nickel sounding hits can be screened this way. Often a pulltab sounds like a good nickel, but when you get right on top of it the ID becomes the telltale repeatable 11-14 of a beavertail or a CO 23-24 of a ring tab. If it's a nickel, you'll see the telltale CO 13 come up solid or bounce around a bit.
So, now I've blathered on here for way too long already. Iffy signals. What was the point I was making?
What is an iffy signal anyway? Basically, I think it's one that does not ID properly on the meter. Or is it the the signal that is just on the cusp of "dig me" vs. "walk away"? Either way, I think it's digging signals that you just don't know... the essence of treasure hunting... a mystery! As a general discussion of iffy signals, it has taken me two years and a lot of time in the field to finally "get" the best of iffy signals with the E-Trac. The learning curve would be much the same with any machine. There is a point where you hit your groove, but there's a little more to it than that.
I consider knowing iffy signals as telling what's trash and what's just barely better than a trash signal. The two Indian Heads and two wheats I dug on Jan. 1 are perfect examples. Suzanne and I both hit this area of the park hard. Multiple hunts, gridding, etc. But because all the "easy" targets were gone, I had to focus on what I was getting signals on. And this is what I've gotten good at recently, is picking out those slight differences that indicate a potential good target over trash. I don't recall looking at the meter for any of these coins, as I knew the signal was horrible and the ID would not mean anything. This has happened at all my sites as I have "cleaned out" the easy stuff, and now I'm sorting out what's left. But in what's left are the deeper, older and more masked coins.
There is definitely a mastery of the machine that comes into play, and it's taught by using it a lot. I'm a strong adherent of the coin program and the stock coil, but also by using them almost exclusively, I learn them best. We've spent over 1000 hours together, easily. Another sign that you "get" what the machine is saying is that you rarely look at the meter for an ID. Your ears tell you to dig.
I agree the stock program is the best way to learn. I also think sticking with one set of tools will help you learn faster (one program, one coil, same headphones). Mastering one set of tools is better than being so-so on a bunch of tools.
If you are constantly hitting new sites, and cherry picking the good signals, there's probably still quite a few things left in the ground. If you keep hitting the same old places over and over again, you're gonna get good at squeezing out a few more keepers.
The depth meter is your friend though. Deep targets are harder to detect. There's just more mass (soil and trash) between your coil and the target. What happens to deep signals is they break up and on almost all detectors the default is an iron like signal. Your machine is detecting it, but can't properly ID it, so it still beeps at you, but beeps iron-y. So if a signal is really trashy, but has a little bit of good in it and it's deep, it's worth investigating. Don't expect deep coins to give great signals, even with a bigger coil.
Another trick of the E-Trac and Pro coil is that reliability of a signal that repeats at 90 degrees is almost always something round. It may be a piece of round iron fooling you, but the detector loves things that are round. I've dug plenty of signals that did not repeat at 90 degrees, but more often than not, a signal that repeats the same (or close) at 90 degrees is worth digging. Sometimes if I like a signal but can't get a 90 degree repeat, I'll shift the position of my original scan by 30 or 45 degrees and then see if I can get a 90 degree repeat from a new angle. There may just be a piece of trash that's blocking me from getting that 90 degree repeat from my original scan.
Sometimes I get ghost signals. What sounds like a good hit, and I wave the coil over it a few times and it sounds good. (As opposed to falses which just sound good once then quit.) I start to do my process of short fast swings over the target and then pinpoint (to get directly over the center of the item) and the more swings and somewhere in the process the signal goes away. The good sound is gone. In these cases it is 99% always trash that the detector just needed more time to process or "think about" and decide was trash.
And there is something else too. I use the pinpoint feature ALL the time! I get a good sounding hit, I use pinpoint to hone in on the center of the signal and get right over the target. THEN, I swing over it again to get the best ID possible before I decide to dig. Many nickel sounding hits can be screened this way. Often a pulltab sounds like a good nickel, but when you get right on top of it the ID becomes the telltale repeatable 11-14 of a beavertail or a CO 23-24 of a ring tab. If it's a nickel, you'll see the telltale CO 13 come up solid or bounce around a bit.
So, now I've blathered on here for way too long already. Iffy signals. What was the point I was making?
