Deep Merc Question

[Anonymous]

I'm new to the Minelab and have a question about deep coin responses. In my coin garden I have 1 merc dime buried at 6" and another at 8". I can pick up both just fine but the 8" deep dime more often then not returns signals in the upper left (high ferrous/high conduct) of the graph rather than the upper right (low ferrous/high conduct). Is this typical of small, deep silver coins like the merc dime? Since one of the main reasons I bought the Minelab was for deeper coins, I don't want to miss any deep goodies. I get the same sort of response with both the stock coil and the 15" WOT coil (although the WOT gives a stronger signal).
Thanks!

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Futzman,
Don't worry. You won't miss the deep coins if you learn your sounds.
The screen is nice for ID'ing targets if they are shallow. But past a certain depth, the crosshairs cannot be relied on. They jump around too much or hit in the wrong place. The sound can be relied upon for target identification. Yesterday I dug a wheat cent that sounded like a good coin hit. But when I looked at the screen, the crosshairs kept landing in the aluminum region. In Conduct Sounds, the deep coins can sound like warbling high tones (gain 7, variability 8, iron mask -10) Place some old silver coins on clean ground and sweep over them at a high altitude in order to partially learn what deep coins sound like.
Mike

 

[Anonymous]

As Mike was saying you go by the tones and how repeatable they are is the key to finding the old coins. The crosshairs read the last target it sees that you may not hear, so you may hear the tone of the coin, but there may be a slight piece of iron that the coil sees next to it and is what is shown on the screen.
Have dug many coins that sound good, the the digital numbers may be right on the XS II, but the ferrous show as iron, this also is the same with the smart screen. I make it a rule to dig if the audio sounds good and use the crosshairs or the digital to get a possible ID. Got the franklin half Saturday that had a good tone of silver signal one way and a differnt one comming back over the target, but being it sounded so good I dug it and had trash beside it.
Rick

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the input, but maybe I should elaborate a bit more. My understanding is that when using "Conduct" tones, the higher the tone, the higher the conductivity. In general, conductivity is "good" when looking for coins. Now on the other hand, with the "Ferrous (Induction)" tones, the same thing applies -- higher tone is better, lower tone is "bad" when looking for coins. So, it seems that in either sound mode, high is "good" and "low" is bad. My problem is that (at least in my coin garden) the 8" deep merc dime generally gives a low tone in ferrous mode. The only way I can tell it is possibly "good" is by looking at the display. The reason I'm running in ferrous mode part of the time is because one site I'm hunting contains BUNCHES of rusty, buried iron crap (general term for nails, wire, bolts, etc). It seems to me that if I run in ferrous mode to try to skip over some of this crap, then I run the risk of missing some deep mercs. So, my main question is this -- is it typical for deeply buried silver coins to show high ferrous characteristics? Or is it something I'm doing wrong with the Minelab settings? I'm running Iron Mask at -16 and adding reject patterns for pulltabs, screw caps, crowncaps, foil and nails. My sensitivity settings vary from about 18-22.

 

[Anonymous]

Ferrous mmode is fine, however you may want to up it a notch or two till you get familiar with it.. running wide open will cause confussion I would think.. try dropping it to -15 at least to knock out most iron. As for the pattern, there really is no way to run in iron mask and a reject pattern at the same time unless you actually edit a screen mimicing iron mask.. once you actually turn on iron mask your patterns no longer come into play.. I would think you should be getting a high tone off that dime in ferrous, unless you happened to bury it near some deep iron you are unaware of

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Jim. I'm planning on digging it up and rechecking the area. There may actually be something buried deep because I initially checked the area with a DFX before burying it <img src="/metal/html/lol.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=":lol">
I guess I don't understand about not being able to run discrimation in Iron Mask mode. First, I cleared all discrimination. Then I set Iron Mask to -16 (accept everything, right?). Then, I added discrimination for pulltabs and nails. The screen showed only those darkened out. Isn't this basicly Iron Mask with discrimination? Or am I missing something?

 

[Anonymous]

Never mind. I see what you're saying now. However, isn't running with no discrimination the same as Iron Mask with a -16?

 

[Anonymous]

yes, its the same if running -16.. However if you have iron mask set at -15 then try to go to learn mode it opens up that area again to -16,, thats why if you make a pattern mimicing iron mask in edit mode and save it, you can use that screen to edit or use learn mode and still have iron knocked out.. I really dont think you should be using -16 unless the iron is sparse.. In my sites if I open it up that much all I hear are machine gun low tones

 

[Anonymous]

THanks, Jim. I just trying to get maximum depth since that was one of the reasons I bought the Minelab (I already own 2 DFXs). I'll try your suggestions!

 

[Anonymous]

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