a signal anomaly on a silver dime

[Anonymous]

Today I got a nice 5" signal in discrim mode- high tone and crosshairs near upper right moving about a tight area. I thought to myself "silver dime!" as that's what it appeared to be from experience. I switched to "iron mask" mode (-16) as I often do to doublecheck. In "iron mask", it switched to crosshairs locked in the very upper LEFT and stayed there for repeated sweeps. The tone was still locked in the high silver sound.
This was very confusing as usually when you have a coin&nail situation, there are multiple tones, but here was only the silver tone.
So I dug, and what do you know but a 1952 silver Roosie at 5". I thought there must be iron in there too with the UPPER LEFT crosshairs, so I
replaced the dirt and the plug and swept the spot. Result: no signal, absolutely clean.
Can anyone explain why I got crosshairs locked UPPER LEFT in Iron Mask for a silver dime? That never happened before.
BArk

 

[Anonymous]

kinda answered your question just below this post. I have found alot of silver dimes that hit high right then high left with a silver tone, but my crosshairs always come back to high right. I would be willing to bet that if you would have turned your iron mask down to -10 your crosshairs would of come back to high right. I always hunt in iron mask -10, I feel thats all that is needed when coin shooting, in a clean area without all of the targets iron mask -16 would be good but where there are plenty of targets I feel -10 is good enough. At -16 you are picking up everything that is in the ground and thats why your crosshairs locked high left but the silver tone still came though. Next time that happens try backing the iron mask off to -10 and see if the crosshairs come back, just my thoughts, hh
Ray ~

 

[Anonymous]

Interesting! I guess many Explorers act crazy at least once. Once I got a shallow clad dime & the crosshairs would not appear anywhere on the screen! Cast your vote for which of these is the oddest! HH, George (MN)

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, George. I have had various repeatable audio signals with no crosshairs anywhere! I just keep sweeping some nearby ground and go back to the spot and eventually the crosshairs "show up".

 

[Anonymous]

I agree that the crosshairs would have come back to high right, had I paused, swept over some junk, and then continued sweeping over the dime. I'm not sure IM -10 would be necessary. I like to run IM -16 (wide open no disc) as my 2nd mode. This is because in -16 you will never null. You simply hear everything in the ground. It can be handy when you want to try and determine if you have a coin next to junk. I'm fairly new to the XS, but this is my method so far. Maybe there is a better reason for another Iron Mask setting; I'd be happy to consider it. So far I like to search in discrim with only crowncaps rejected. Noise is not too bad that way. Then I check iffies sometimes in IM -16 to hear everything. Quite a racket sometimes. Is there any reason not to do it this way?
Seems that when you get a totally different signal it resets the discriminator. Then you can go sweep again the original target "freshly". Still I don't get why a strong signal as "pure" as a silver dime would ever go to an upper left position. There was no other metal around, and silver doesn't corrode to confuse the discriminator.
Went to the Post Office today, and as I am leaving I decided to go across the street to the old high school and ask detecting permission. Car pulls into the lot in the stall marked "Superintendant". So I ask the fellow if he is the superintendant of schools, and he says he is. Then I proceeded to get permission to detect all the schools in the district - very slick!

 

[Anonymous]

I only use Iron mask -16 in wide open clean ground where there are not alot of signals, I don't use it in normal ground where there are plenty of targets because at -16 everything comes to the coil and that will drown out any weak silver signals. I checked this out just last weekend, found a 1906 barber dime in a busy location (alot of targets), I was in -10 and could just get a hint of that silver tone, walked around the target same thing, I switched to -16 and the hint of silver was gone, just alot of beeps and bops drowning out the weak silver signal, the ground was hot with targets everywhere around the dime. At -16 the explorer will pick up every bit of iron in the ground small and large, at -10 alot of the smaller iron does not come to the coil. I'm not sure how everybody else may feel about the settings but I've had excellent luck at -10, it's the only mode I hunt in, good luck and happy hunting Bark.
Ray

 

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

yes, because of Ray's advice, i nabbed a 1899 barber dime over the weekend....that i would not have previously dug... high tone, crosshairs upper left. i think ray said this happens when iron may be nearby the silver.

 

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

Hi Ray,
I also always use Iron Mask -10 (in UK) find it performs a lot better finding small silver hammered coins.
What sounds do you use> Ferrous, conductive or constant?
I always use Conduct in busy and clear areas.
I have read that I should use Ferrous sounds in busy areas. If this is correct can anyone explain why you use Ferrous in trashy areas and Conduct in not so trashy areas? Do they affect performance or just give different tones?
Thanks
Paul UK

 

[Anonymous]

it's personal perference Paul, I hunt in conduct because I don't like the low tone of ferrous, every now and then if I'm hunting in a area where there is alot of iron or junk I will try ferrous to see if I missed anything that I couldn't hear in conduct do to all of the junk targets. Alot of times hunting in trash where the targets are many it is hard to hear any good targets if you are hunting in conduct, they almost all sound the same because of how many there are making it tough to pick off a coin or good target, switching to ferrous will make all junk targets sound off with a low tone so if you do get a high pitch tone theres a good chance it's a coin or good target among all the junk. Changing tones won't affect the performance of the machine just the tone of the target, hh
Ray ~

 

[Anonymous]

Paul,
The difference in the conductivity and ferrous is that in conductivity it is like all the detector that the higher the conductivity is the higher the tone is, so any item that reads on top of the screen will be high pitched weather on the right or left on the screen, so if you are running iron mask at a -12 through a -16 your nails too will be high pitched just like a coin is. Now if you are running in ferrous everything on the right side of the screen will be high pitched and going left will be low pitched so all those nails now will be low pitched as they are on the left side of the screen. The rusty bottle caps that read on the botton right also will be high pitched like coins now, but easier to pick them out. So if you want to run iron mask at a -12 or lower than it is best to use ferrous tone if a lot of nails are present and if you run a pattern than condutivity is the best in my opinion.
Rick