Consistency and Intensity on the Spectragraph

[earthmansurfer]

(Note definitions from manual at bottom)

As I've posted before I've been running consistency in the heavy iron as it just allows me to run with a cleaner spectragraph and also to repeatedly swipe the target and get a better idea of it's "consistency" as it will build and the spectragraph still is quite clean. It is also a great aid in identifying small pieces of foil (they don't hit on the 2.5 spectragraph much but the other two do.) And it really helps to keep the spectragraph clean. I don't have mineralization and think that helps as well.

I started my hunt today by going to a new spot and it was much much cleaner (iron wise) than I'm used to. I put on the 10"DD coil for a change. And I thought to run intensity for a bit. I have to say that when you run intensity (base threshold at 65 for me) it really fills the spectragraph up much more than with running consistency (at least at my MAX setting of 15 with a fade of 2). You get a good idea in Intensity of the target as the spectragraph gives you so much more info than a VDI. For me it rivals, is right next to tone as far as information given (but I don't have the best ears.) I think running Intensity with the base threshold at 65 makes identifying iron falses easier, as the spectragraphs is usually more "littered" on those iffy targets.

What I ended up doing was using the expert menu to switch from consistency to intensity based on the iron in the ground. When things were cleaner I was running intensity and when the iron was there I switched to consistency. It's quicker if you have the 6 block menu removed. One touch of the menu and you are in expert and one arrow up or two down and I could switch from consistency to intensity very quickly (and it keeps your settings from last time.)

Now I'm just playing around and I don't really know what is best in and out of iron in my next to zero ground mineralized ground. But thought I'd throw this out there.

I'm curious if any of you have played with the settings under intensity or even tried out consistency? If so, it would be nice to hear what your settings and results are.
Further, I hope what I said makes some sense to you all as I am going from memory and have only had the V3i for 6 weeks or so, but have "played" and tested a ton with it. There isn't a whole lot posted on these settings in real world use and I have A LOT more testing to do. I have yet to play with the resolution setting for the spectragraph.

Thx,
EMS

ps - Only dug one old (1920 ish) aluminum coin in a field, but it was around 7" with iron coming in on the sweep. Hit like silver on the VDI. Finds were few and far between today so I got to play a lot with the settings. Nice thing about this machine...

 

[earthmansurfer]

Here is my first video I made today in the yard on an 8 3/4" buried Nickel. It's in 720 so go full screen. Note there is HEAVY iron and trash in my yard, as you'll hear by the iron tone at 5.

I had Rx@10 & Disc@90 and 5 band filter. (edit - I think my recovery delay was at 42 here.) The unit was in loctrack from a prior hunt - basically the same ground I think, no mineralization and VDI of -91 or worse.
I'm pretty sure the VDI of the Nickel jumps up high due to iron flakes in the ground.

After watching the video I have to say that I may start using Intensity again as the deeper signals are easier to spot on the spectragraph, at least within heavy iron.
Using intensity at 65 will probably help to ID bottle caps as they will be often all over the spectragraph, depending on their condition of course. Running with intensity at 90 seemed to be better on the deep Nickel. Not sure I like consistency on deeper targets. Will have to field test...

This was actually educational for me!

Comments please...

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZxFEblUAFo[/video]

 

[Rob (IL)]

When changing the base threshold by lowering the number you are allowing weaker signals to register on the graph. With a higher number it will look cleaner because you are not allowing the weaker signals to show. It depends how much information you want. What you called noise could be weaker good signals. I run about 65 - 70.

I know George likes consistency but I have never liked it. Man, the way the VDI were jumping, I'm not sure you ever registered the nickel. Correlate and best data were never even close to a nickel. I couldn't hunt or know what was happening without getting a G/B. ROB

 

[earthmansurfer]

I was running the base threshold at 65 (when I was running intensity) but after seeing that deep Nickel fuzz up the spectragraph I wonder if I should put it back to 90. Outside of the ok sound, the spectragaph at 65 on that Nickel didn't give me great info a lot of the time. Like I said above, I think I may have to start with Intensity again after using consistency for the last 3 weeks or so.

I know it's weird with the jumping numbers. I wondered in the past if I was actually getting the Nickel but I measured that spot exactly to the cm, so know where to swing. I buried a hammered coin in my yard at 4". Out of the ground it's VDI is 15 and in the ground I often get a VDI in the 50's, depends on my settings. Correlate actually comes in better than best data.

They are going to tear up my back yard next year so I'll make sure all those coins were where I thought they were when I dig them out!

Thanks again for the comments.

 

[Rob (IL)]

I like Easter Bunny's analogy,

The V looks at targets hundreds of times a second. If VDI's were animals, and the detector saw 99 lap dogs and one tiger...

Consistency: You would see a very tall bar for "dog" and a tiny blip for "cat". The most consistent reading would be "dog".

Intensity: You would see a very tall bar for "cat" and a tiny blip for "dog" because the tiger is much bigger than the biggest lap dog. The biggest, most intense, reading is "cat".

 

[Schultzie]

I like Easter Bunny's analogy,

The V looks at targets hundreds of times a second. If VDI's were animals, and the detector saw 99 lap dogs and one tiger...

Consistency: You would see a very tall bar for "dog" and a tiny blip for "cat". The most consistent reading would be "dog".

Intensity: You would see a very tall bar for "cat" and a tiny blip for "dog" because the tiger is much bigger than the biggest lap dog. The biggest, most intense, reading is "cat".

My experience has been that Consistency must get a consistent reading before reporting a signal as a good target. Similar to a Correlate setting. Using the Consistency setting was an accident for me as it was how my machine was set up when I first got it. Our club was hunting a 150 year old fairground parking lot. I dug 125 coins vs the next closest person at 39 coins. It was a high trash situation but it had no problem IDing coins properly and "consistently". It was my first outing with my V so maybe I didn't know what was happening and I just got lucky. Unless I am misunderstanding the point being made in the analogy, I didn't see it working that way. Now maybe in an iron laden environment like earthmansurfer's it would work differently than I experienced... iron just gives you too many readings across a large spectrum.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[yazoo]

Just a thought how much more trash did you dig over the guy with 39 coins? Might it be you being new to the machine that you would dig more signals. Just a thought .Yazoo

 

[Rob (IL)]

Bunny is a Whites engineer, and it is how it works. ROB

 

[earthmansurfer]

Schultzie - I think consistency is actually designed for high trash in a sense. If you take off Single Sweep they seem to work great together. As you can "build" the targets consistency by repeated swings of the coil, while other not so "consistent" targets will not build. So, in theory you should have a quieter spectragraph (I think this is why Fox runs it over at White's - also because you can ID foil really easy this way (at least smaller pieces).

Remember my older posts - I was always running consistency in iron with no problems and loved it. Nice quiet Spectragraph and I could see coin hits pretty clearly BUT...
My concern now is from what you saw in that video. I am not sure that consistency for coins at depth AND in heavy iron environments would be the best combination (Though heavy iron is tough all around but intensity "saw" the coin better in my test garden. I have to experiment with it but did like running intensity my last hunt. (Wouldn't have mattered much as nothing I dug was deeper than 7").

BTW - INCREDIBLE hunt for you. Unless you were using some advantage that consistency gave you - what ever that may have been for those conditions, I don't see it making the difference in your hunt. (Were your targets shallow mostly and what were the conditions of the ground?) Are you more a tone hunter, I mean consistency does nothing to the sound I believe, though I have heard you can run things quieter (but I think in the sense of the spectragraph?)

Rob - I love analogies, use them all the time in class but could you say that differently, with less analogy, please? Like using some real world examples (say for my mild soil with lots of iron!) I was playing with consistency vs intensity in the yard and think if I had a better understanding of the advantages vs disadvantages of both that I would have a better idea of when to run what. I remember reading that Bob at Whites doesn't like consistency but he did mention something about the right soil (I think mild, like mine and Fox's) - I might have this wrong.

 

[ak_1234]

With our soil, consistency is very hard to use. Works great in air tests. And therefore in very mild soil. But, yes, the more mineralized, the harder it is to use. The ground really can have an effect on the VDI readings for coins and smear them. Then they won't be consistent anymore.

So, if you are in an area where ground won't affect your target's phases, then consistency should work well because you will get more of the same VDI reading for good targets. But, if ground is affecting your phase readings on your targets, then intensity will be much easier to use to spot your target. Ground will be small compared to the signal you get from your target.

Consistency = how many of the same phase it sees (grows based on the amount of same phase readings there are)
Intensity = grows based on how strong the target signal is (voltage, not phase)

Hope that helps?

 

[Rob (IL)]

Thanks Anne, few of us have Florida soil. I've never had much success with consistency in my iron rich soil. ROB

 

[earthmansurfer]

Thanks Anne and yes that helps. It makes sense that mineralized ground would interfere with the ability to build consistent VDI's of good targets - there is just too much additional information/interference from the minerals on the target. I almost see intensity as a filtration of sorts and consistency as more raw but building with each swing.

So, I think what I observed in my garden with the deep Nickel follows what you are saying. Though the ground around here is mild (usually 1% or so in ground probe), the VDI is often -91 to -94. I think when the ground gets into that -94 range (at depth) it perhaps poses the same effect as mineralized ground in general would and I should not run consistency then. My yard goes down to -94 on the ground probe btw and the mineralization is higher than the places I hunt for some reason.

My plan is to play with both and check signals, especially those deeper ones.

Thanks, guys and gals, love learning,
EMS

 

[Schultzie]

Just a thought how much more trash did you dig over the guy with 39 coins? Might it be you being new to the machine that you would dig more signals. Just a thought .Yazoo

At first I did dig all signals to get comfortable with the machine. Then I was able to dig "good" signals with confidence and move over what was false trash signals... IRT screw caps & crown caps giving a quarter VDI and good tone vs. an actual quarter. I understand what you are suggesting but it allowed me to move over junk more quickly and not waste time digging trash. I still don't understand Easter Bunny's analogy, if there are 99 dogs and one cat it will report the 99 dogs... I am sure there was a lot more trash items vs. coins in this field. The soil is very moderate soil that is prone to flooding every year so the coins were fairly deep due to a fast sink rate. I am convinced that the reason I found more coins was that I had the better machine for that environment... although a ML is no slouch either! I have not been able to get back to that site to try working with the settings now that I understand the unit much better. All in time though!

 

[ak_1234]

Bottle caps and iron targets like bottle caps will have varying phases as you sweep across them. A coin (in good soil) should give fairly consistent VDI readings. So if you are running consistency and hunting among bottle caps, your coin will stand out because it will get multiple hits on that VDI as you sweep across the coin. But the bottle caps won't. (The 99 dogs are all coming in at the same VDI. So, for consistency, you will have 99 hits for the dog VDI and 1 hit for the tiger VDI and the dogs will win. But in intensity, the 99 lap dogs are small compared to the very big tiger and the tiger's strength will overwhelm the strength of the dogs).

 

[nw1886]

Anne...are you reading script from an oriental movie? Hee Hee!

 

[Schultzie]

Bottle caps and iron targets like bottle caps will have varying phases as you sweep across them. A coin (in good soil) should give fairly consistent VDI readings. So if you are running consistency and hunting among bottle caps, your coin will stand out because it will get multiple hits on that VDI as you sweep across the coin. But the bottle caps won't. (The 99 dogs are all coming in at the same VDI. So, for consistency, you will have 99 hits for the dog VDI and 1 hit for the tiger VDI and the dogs will win. But in intensity, the 99 lap dogs are small compared to the very big tiger and the tiger's strength will overwhelm the strength of the dogs).

Okay, thanks Anne. I was correct in my first post, I just got lucky on my first outing with my V. Our soil is pretty good here so that was in my favor too. I can see where coins at depth (giving bouncy signals) would not be wise to run in "consistency" but in a crown/bottle cap riddled place it could be an advantage. AND... maybe that was the reason I did better than the others.