This area has the screen almost totally covered in red dots and a constant iron grunt this is running in ferrous coin .
The reason it is covered in red dots on target trace is because there are a ton of old rotten bottle caps here I mean they have decomposed to just rust flakes and some are half there some still whole .
So I got a 17 inch coil and wanted to see what it would do here .
The 6 inch coil well find a dime touching a bottle cap using the leading edge of the coil it well high tone a good hit and #s but if you hit it with the center of the coil it well give a 12.30 vid compared to a 12.43 with the leading edge . So the signal is blended but if you place a dime under a bottle cap it well read 12.15 or 12.30 depending on the cap used .
This is not a problem here with the #s because there are very few pull-tabs in this area I have found a few dimes that where covered with a cap by digging these #s .
Now going back to the 17 inch coil it does the same as the 6 inch coil doing the same test . But you would have to move the coil a inch at a time to get the same results getting good audio and vid .As you no all target show up on target trace with the ctx but you have to watch the screen audio is off but #s on targets are right as long as there not blended signals with trash .
So for my test I located about 20 coin type targets here in this small area I had hit this with the 6 before but from only one direction . The 17 was only able to find 4 of the targets and these were the best signals of the bunch . Some gave good signals if you were dead on them but I would not of dug them if I was just sweeping without knowing they were there .
So I hunted this with the 17 inch coil for about a hour what I found was the area was almost clean compared to the 6 inch coil the target trace screen was not full of red dots like the 6 inch coil but the bottle caps still came in but the smaller rust and flakes did not show up on the screen .
Now I know the 6 inch coil is more sensitive than the 17 inch coil but the 17 well hit a dime deeper than the 6 inch coil how deep don't know .
But I did retrieve one dime here at 9 inches with the 6 inch coil running manual at 28
.
So my ? is the 17 inch coil not seeing the small rust pieces and silent masking is happening ,
It seems that the 6 inch coil is hitting all the rust compared to the 17 but the 6 won't find all the coins here because of the masking going on .
From my time using the 6 inch coil almost all the hunts I have done here in 4 years it seems to find a lot of coins with nails and bottle caps as long as there at the same level or close to the level of the coin or under the coin also if iron is to the side of the target . Good thing most nails are deep here .
I can usually get good vdi and audio if I work the target with iron from several directions
So if your using the 17 it's pretty easy to get in trouble without knowing it when you hit denser trash just keep this in mind . The 17 is less sensitive than the stock or 6 the 6 will locate all targets and show them on the screen where as the 17 will not hit the small rust and weak signals . So I am wondering if the 17 is missing coins because it can not see the smaller rust pieces as the 6 can more testing to come.
I got the 17 inch coil for field hunting and not for the fairgrounds .
But I did want to see what would happen with it in this area .
By the way I have ran the 5000db 6000 series 3 1266 fisher mxt and explore 2 here in the last 10 years.
With the ctx running here mostly with the 6 inch coil I have recovered 116 Indian head 47 v nickels 63 barber dimes 40 mercury and about 20 roosys and only 73 wheat's 3 quarters and 3 half's all silver . So you know this has been pounded by how many wheat's quarters and half's that I have recovered . sube
