6" Coil Produces First Silver For Non-Productive Park

[C&RHunter]

After 3 months of drought we have received 6 inches of rain since last Thursday. I decided to try an old park in a nearby town. I have never found any silver there, but refuse to believe there is none there. In the past, I have found a large cent, some Indians and Wheaties, but never any silver in this park. I would like to say I found multiple silvers today, but this wasn't the case. I started today with the 11" coil. After an hour or so, with one memorial penny to my credit, I decided to put the 6" coil on. After changing the coil out, I decided to hunt around and near the only old stone cooking grill that is still there. Anyone that has ever hunted around those things know that the surrounding areas are always heavily littered with all types of aluminum trash and crown caps. I hunted for 30-45 minutes and finally got a high pitched chirp. Once I started very slowly working the area, I narrowed down the high pitch tone to an area with lower "trash" tones all around, and could get it to repeat using very short right and left "sweeps". I pinpointed by watching the coil location when I would get the high pitch chirp. Trying to use the pinpoint function would lock onto the trash. I cut one plug about 5 inches deep, but the target was still in the hole. Loosening up another 1-2" of dirt in the bottom of the hole, and I could see the edge of a silver coin. It turned out to be a 1917-S merc. Finally, after hunting this park several times a year for more than 10 years, it finally gave up a silver. I, also, found a 1915-D Wheat about 2 feet from this merc about ten minutes later. The Wheatie was 6-7"deep. Now I need to locate where the other grills were, maybe more luck will follow. I do have some other areas in mind for this little coil, as well.
I was impressed with how this small coil worked in all the trash. Another thing I noticed while using this coil, the depths indicated on a target, are very accurate, as long as you have done an accurate job of pinpointing. I was using a pattern I created this morning with Combined tones, HIGH TRASH, Fast and Deep were both on, Gain 28, Manual Sensitivity 27.

 

[BrakingGnus]

Nice work -- I'm going to have to get one of the 6" coils!

 

[unearth]

Congrats on the first silver from your non-productive park. One question...what is the advantage of having both "fast" and "deep" on?
Thanks.

 

[C&RHunter]

Unearth......there probably was no advantage to having both FAST and DEEP on. This park has some areas highly littered with aluminum trash and some not so bad. The area of the silver find was highly littered. By all rights I should probably have turned DEEP off for that area, but this was an experimental day with this program, and I had decided before starting out, I was not going to start changing up settings. I could have come home empty handed, but was lucky enough not to. I will probably go back to the park with DEEP off and FAST on the next time, for the littered areas, then switch to FAST off and DEEP on for the less littered areas. There are different thoughts about these settings, when to use and when not to use them. I'm just trying to find out what works the best for me in this park,.....Now that I have one silver from there I want another.........just never satisfied.

 

[Antioch]

I generally do not see a difference with deep on or off with fast on, with deep on or off I still get the same depth with my 6"coil. but the pinpoint does work great with this coil.

When I work in a less littered area I turn deep off and fast on.. I have found a few hammered, milled and roman coins recently with these settings.

 

[etracjoe]

Good job on squeezing a silver out of the trash.

In a spot like the one you are describing I would run with both off and just go low and slow and listen carefully. Turn the bin with the silver all the way up and the silver will literally pop. What you could try though is a different ground setting like ground coin or ferrous. If there is not too much iron I use ground coin. But that is my ground and although yours probably differers, high trash never seemed to work "good" for me in similar situations.

 

[earthmansurfer]

Unearth - I hope this post shows up, as "earthmansurfer" writing to "unearth" sounds like some kind of cancelling out ;-)

Just to add, I can't disagree with what C&RHunter said about both deep and fast on, but I do wonder if in certain situations you might see a difference.

One possibility - First, to see/understand what Deep and Fast on does you have to find a fringe depth target (Let's try it with deep and fast both off first - more typical setting) & running a high volume gain. Note the response. Now turn fast on, notice how it probably clips the signal some. The VID is probably less stable, depending on your ground. After seeing the screen and hearing the response, drop off the volume gain so it is much much softer. Note the screen and audio response now. The screen should not change but the audio can be made as to be really soft and barely perceptible - in other words - something you might miss. Next turn deep on. If the theory is correct (depending on your ground I bet though) your signal should be amplified AND the VID somewhat stabilized. This requires a slower sweep speed I believe, as the screens response is a bit delayed. I never noticed a more stable VID in my somewhat iron mineralized ground and I never tested the volume gain, so can't say there.

Here is something to consider - What if you come across a target that is deep and close to trash? Now, the target would have to be in that target zone that the machines top recovery speed and FBS2 technology could pull it in. As an example, imagine a coin 9" down and 3" from a piece of iron that your machine can't pick up with deep off and fast off. I imagine there is this small window where fast on and deep on can help you with a coin - maybe it now picks up the coin 9" down and 3" from trash. I do think that the setting can hurt more than it helps unless you are an experienced detectorist. The clipped signal is much easier to miss. I find that just slowing my sweep speed down some (not too much, CTX is fast!) I don't need to up the recovery speed.

Of course trying to find targets with both deep and fast on and then comparing the response with both deep and fast off would be an optimal test - I mean you theoretically could lose the target, but I can't ever see you losing a target in the other direction. I bet in certain ground and certain conditions the fast on & deep on settings are definitely preferable, albeit not dramatically.

Hope that made some sense,
Albert