Coinstrike

[LilloEsquilo]

I got a couple of new Coinstrikes over the winter. Now that spring is on the way, decided to try them out with some "real world" type tests, specifically a dime near an iron nail, to see what the detector would do.

All the posts I've read here recommended to put the detector to an iron discrimination setting of 99 when first starting out. Well that's exactly what I did along with the 5 sensitivity and -25 threshold. Was I ever surprised when the detector could not see the dime at all. I thought this can't be right I know it can do it, I've read numerous posts from people finding things exactly like this, so I dialed down the iron discrimination to 0, and that did the trick - the detector "saw" the dime. Like every detector I've ever used, the nail affected the signal, however you got a good enough signal that you would dig this way. Mind you this was with the nail right next to the dime, and I'm talking a big iron railroad nail here.

So bottom line is, it can do it, but it can't do it if you read the forums and just use the settings you may be told to use verbatim. I wanted to bring this up so people will hopefully experiment with their machines in scenarios they expect to see out in the field and learn what their machine is telling them before they go hunting. It might save you some frustration and will probably result in many more finds. In the areas I detect they are commonly beds of iron so being able to work in iron trash (and often aluminum) is pretty essential. Your area may be different, but the key is, don't just take things for granted and try it out first. Hope this helps.

 

[Hombre]

Hi

Try this, find an old 3 inch rusty square nail, put it in your pocket and go coin hunting. Once you have found a nice sounding mid depth coin (4 to 5,6) inches. Then insert the rusty square nail at a 45% angle just on top of your coin signal, and see what happens to your signal. Then try that at 4 inches away and tell us what it does. All the tests done on top of the ground with nails and coin is nothing but a side show amusement game, but with an old rusty nail on top and good distance above the good target will surprize many folks.

 

[LilloEsquilo]

I'll buy that, but, my point was really that lots of people are recommending you start out at 99 iron disc. This sounds good, but causes target masking. In the areas around here, it's normal to be searching in beds of nails and iron trash for the goodies. So had I taken that advice without doing some testing on my own, I may well have thought the Coinstrike sucks (or that MY Coinstrike sucks) and maybe given up on a fine machine. I wanted to caution people against blindly following starting out with 99 iron disc because of potential target masking. My feeling is I'd rather have it at 0 and depending on the area increase it if need be, because if you look for the coins in the iron, from what I saw, this thing can pick it up. It just wouldn't do it at 99.

I hope that made sense, and helps someone who is new to the machine (as I am).

Also one interesting observation I had was doing this test at 99, that the target id numbers stayed negative all the time when the dime was masked out, and did not register the dime on the ID or the tone. I guess I thought that based on experience with the ID Excel and the T2 and F75, that the visual ID is separate from the tone ID, but that does not appear to be the case with the C$ from what I saw. From what I saw, you may as well just listen for the tone, and only when you get an interesting sounding hit, check it with the visual ID, unlike the detectors I mentioned....

I really think I'm going to like this machine, I'm like one of probably 5 people on the entire planet in that category if you read these forums....to me it's lightweight, I have all 3 coil sizes and the Sunray probe for it, it's got all the features you'd want, deep, can find goodies in trash, I mean that's what I want. And the price was less than a lot of "cheap" machines, brand new. I do realize the buttons are a bit quirky but I think the positives far outweigh the negatives with this machine.

 

[Dan-Pa.]

Might add Coinstrike just different to use and once learned is a real good unit...Now lets go one step further where the nail has been in the ground for ions and leached into ground and you will really know what masking does for us to miss nice targets.

 

[LilloEsquilo]

You know what - actually with time as the iron deteriorates, I'm talking many decades here, eventually stuff will become unmasked to the point we can retrieve it again. That's assuming of course we aren't digging EVERY signal. But it's something for our great great great great great grandkids to look forward to, assuming detecting hasn't been outlawed by then. At least we know they won't be digging any of the zinc pennies.....which will be long corroded into nothingness....