Common sense for better depth

[Hightone]

I stopped by a wayside park yesterday when I happened to see an older man swinging a coil. After a little chit chat, I pulled out my Compadre and swung for about 45 minutes with him. He had a Fisher 1212 and was just a gettin it. Without seeming rude, I watched as he searched only to come up empty except for cans, a car part, a hot wheels toy and some junk. I found 2 nickles, and a quarter plus some typical trash. He exclaimed I had a good little detector and we parted ways.

His technique for hunting was his biggest downfall, in my opinion. He swung kind of fast and had his coil hovering about 2" off the ground. I see a lot of people who hunt this way. When I hunt, I have the coil almost touching the ground and sometimes it does. I also move my coil slow. About 1 foot per second. I'm sure he was was moving full side to side in about 1 to 2 seconds. This is fast, to me. It would appear that quality and quantity comes into play here.

Scanning fast is going to get a beep, but usually you are going to PP on to a large object (a can?). The deep coins are barely going to register even moving slow like I do. A fast scan, forget it. Plus you are going to loose a precious 2" by not having the coil touch the ground periodically. Some people must figure since they paid a lot of money for the detector that they need to be extra careful not to scratch it in case they want to sell it. If your afraid of hurting the coil, invest in a scuff. I like how some people hunt this way and then say "I don't get enough depth, I'm going to buy a Minelab, they're deeper".

This is extremely important when using threshold and a good set of headphones. Slow and low. I hate to sound so simplistic, but some times we are our own worst enemy and I felt this needed to be pointed out. It's not always the coil and/or the detector that gets the depth. Your common sense plays a part also.

HH

Dan

 

[rmptr]

Good presentation!

There's no doubt my style needs improvement...

Always nice to have a reminder to practice good technique.

HH
rmptr

 

[Pap]

remember to overlap you sweep patterns. Coil sensitivity is greatest at the center of the coil and that includes DD coils.
Pap

 

[tabdog]

This is so important.

It is hard to learn.

You have to realize that there

is stuff down there that's being

missed. Not because of the machine.

But, who gets the blame?

My Compadre works magic because

because I lesten to it.

Other wise, it's just the peice of junk

people say it is.

Happy Hunting,

 

[JB(MS)]

Most of the early motion discriminators were four filter and had to be swung at pretty much breakneck speed to get maximum depth, and a lot of us old timers who were detecting back then have recurring fallbacks to those days. I catch myself doing it at times, and a friend who started detecting with a four filter Whites 5900 hasn't adjusted to the slow sweep detectors yet. When we're hunting together I'm constantly reminding him to slow down. Could be the guy with the 1212 possibly used some of the fast sweep early discriminators and was having a "harking back" moment.

 

[Beale]

Well I will admit to having a quick swing speed. It is not fast but quick. Maybe I need to slow down also. Thanks for the reminder, Beale.

 

[Pap]

n/t

 

[tabdog]

The more trash, the slower you need to go.

It started on me when I decided I liked to hunt in trash.

Monte has some good input for this subject.

Happy Hunting,

 

[tabdog]

I had one of those 4 filter machines. It was a Technatics.

It was funny because when I thought I got a hit,

I would start wacking at it like I was trying to cut the grass with it.

The thing self destructed after a couple of years.

Happy Hunting,

 

[markg]

Thanks for reminding me of what I need to be doing.

 

[Gunnar of bradford MN]

thanks for the reminder you are right a little slower swing and a deeper coin will sing that melow soft tune will be employing your advice whear i found the silver quarter

 

[EZrider]

After using the F75 for some time its going to take me some getting used to a slower swing speed. The 75 requires you to swing sharp and fast to get depth, like a snap shot if you will. Soil conditions and setup all play a roll too. In some of my better park hunts there were good targets at 14 inches with a short fast shoulder to shoulder swing. A slow loitering swing over the same target produced a tone but no VID. Alot depends on the machine and in 10 years who knows? I'm very excited to be getting a Tesoro on Monday. I have done alot of in depth testing on other machines.

 

[slingshot]

I was fortunate enough to learn the swing then step technique instead of the step then swing. I took 2-3 overlapping swings THEN took a little baby step and kept repeating until it became habit. I kinda look like a duck waddling,but after a few years it's won a speed hunt for me at some competition hunts, as well as a couple of metal detectors.