Can a detector erase a signal?

[Ronstar]

Sube, I do follow what your saying about nails. The old square nails show as quarters around here and I probably get lazy by days end when I know I’m in an area where squares are, I probably just pass the semi quarter signals. But, dimes signals are different I think. Deeper dime signals should be silver and not iron and my experience is I usually come out with a dime or some type of jewelry. I’m guessing only way to fully get it in my head is to dig a one time signal and see what it is. Guess I’d rather dig nothing than leave something.

 

[Ronstar]

So went back to the silver dime I buried in the garden today. Had the 6” coil on the Legend playing up on campus (didnt find anything really) so came home to play with the dime. It was 6”ish deep and in a plastic bag, couldn’t find it, no signal. Tried it from several angles too. When it went in it was pretty saturated ground, today it was mostly dry but still moist deeper. Out comes the bag but no dime as there was a small rip in the side. Ok, get the carrot and start prodding and found it in seconds. Detector nothing.
Place dime in bottom of hole and sweep, nothing. I stood back and checked the settings. Park, F, Sens 8, Thresh 11, wait Sens 8? No idea how that got changed but upped it 25 and dime started to talk to me. But wait yet again….. I’m getting solid 60 (max) numbers…. On a dime…. Whaaat?
Did I just spend 2:30 hours looking for shallow stuff? Grrrrrr
Once you set custom user its supposed to stay. I had to have changed it inadvertently, oh well.
Back to signals….. I dug several one time only signals and every one ended up being mid to high 50s numbers and all were large nails. I did get one 28 number which should be a nickel and it was (at 3”).
Now need to go back and resweep where I was with the 6” and see what I missed.

 

[Coast]

Well if you want a feel for a new area when you first arrive dig a plug as deep you might think targets are located (age of area) maybe six inches, set a single target ( dime ,quarter, wheatie, gold ring) and check what you get. Of coarse there is no halo effect but the ground type and emi are there and it sets a baseline in your head and it’s like waving an old shirt in front of your hound before turning him loose. The machine is nothing without the human brains judgement call on set up. After the first good target then you know, edge targets can be ghost.

 

[pulltaboo]

Minerals in the ground often act as a "fog", distorting or completely concealing signals that in theory should be within easy reach of your coil. Combine it with moisture and halos (or lack thereof), and you can see all sorts of weirdness. And in developed areas you never know where the soil came from…