Depth testing a uk coin. results.:ukflag:

[Mr-depthtester]

Hi my name is cliff gold and today i decided to do a simple coin depth test in a garden with a detech 8 inch excelerator coil. The Detector i was doing the depth test with was the minelab explorer SE. The coin was a UK pre decimal penny this is a large coin. The Soil is highly mineralised. This is a honest report and done as accurately as possible although allow a slight error margin on coin depth, say half and inch either way error. Coin was planted and measured with tape measure. The results surprised me , highly contaminated freshly dug /ploughed soil will it seems cut in ground depth down on a coin by as much as 2 thirds! Note :- I can detect this penny in air easily at 12 inches.
A 7 inch deep wide plug was cut and the old penny was placed as flat as possible in the bottom of the plug hole, the plug was refitted over the hole and trampled down flat. I scanned over the hole with the SE set to the factory coins setting to see what kind of response i would get , i could not get any response at this depth not even a whisper so i took the plug back out and re buried the penny at about 4.5 inches , i now got a signal that would hit from one sweep angle only , i rotated 90 degrees and still could only get a one way signal , the cross hair did hit towards upper right corner but jumped about between the edge of the blacked out discriminated out section on the left and then would jump towards the clear section close to the top right corner. This is a signal that would be considered slightly iffy and could be missed if not careful.Slightly Beyond 4.5 inches the signal got so bad the target would be missed real easy by many users. Tomorrow i will try the standard minelab SE coil on this 4.5 inch deep penny and see if the response is any better , i will post my results here for all to view , switching to all metal made no difference to the quality of the signal and no increase in depth was noticed by switching to all metal mode. Deep on also made no noticeable difference. More depth test results to follow within the next few days. This proves that freshly buried targets or targets such as coins in fresh ploughed soil will give no more depth than 4.5 inches if the soil is highly mineralised.

 

[Dan-Pa.]

The coins you hunt for have been buried for hundreds and thousands of years and the coin you test has been buried for maybe an hour...I have a test garden planted 15 years ago and my results are perhaps a little better as they have leached into the ground but ballpark at best..Everyone knows Minelabs test poor in air tests and for all purposes that is what your test equates to..Now when you get one of those coins your using as a test coin under actual hunting conditions you will have a true test of the SE abilities...hope you post when you find a deepie...No reflection on you my friend but just calling a spade a spade in U.S. terminology....

 

[Steve(MS)]

Mr-depthtester, I think Dan summed it up but I will add the following. Whenever you dig a hole to plant an object, you will be disturbing the soil matrix which can cause problems for any detector. The only thing you can compare is trying different detectors which still may give one unit an unfair advantage over another. It does sound like you have high mineralization in your soil, but it doesn't still give a true picture of what you can expect in a ploughed field or any other area as all the ground is disturbed there where maybe you have only disturbed the portion of ground where you dug the hole, then if all the sorrounding ground is also mixed exactly the same. Ploughed ground may not be the Explorer's strong suit but I do well in my area in such locations and get very good depth. Always think worst case senario when planting an object and then testing any detector. The best way to use the Exp in ploughed fields is set the disc at the very lowest or none and dig any broken non-ferrous tones and plenty of iffys. I would recommend the long audio setting also as you can hear the split second ones better, on my XS, it is called audio 1.

 

[Mr-depthtester]

In pinpoint mode the Se gives a pretty strong signal on this old penny buried in this highly mineralised soil. Searching in pinpoint could be a good way to get deepest coins on some types of worked out sites. The fact is that on highly mineralised sites many people may be searching and not realising that they are only going to get 3 -4 inches depth maximum on a smallish or even medium sized coin. Anyway later today i will try the standard 10 inch coil over this 4.5 inch deep penny and see what the signal sounds like. The coin may have tilted slightly in the ground so i will double check that my test coin is perfectly flat before refitting this mineralized plug.

 

[Mr-depthtester]

Hi my name is cliff gold and today i decided to do a coin depth test in a garden with a detech 8 inch excelerator coil. The Detector i was doing the depth test with was the minelab explorer SE. The coin was a UK pre decimal penny this is a large coin. The Soil is highly mineralised.
A 7 inch deep plug was cut and the old penny was placed as flat as possible in the bottom of the plug hole, the plug was refitted over the hole and trampled down flat. I scanned over the hole with the SE set to the factory coins setting to see what kind of response i would get , i could not get any response at this depth not even a whisper so i took the plug back out and re buried the penny at about 4.5 inches , i now got a signal that would hit from one sweep angle only , i rotated 90 degrees and still could only get a one way signal , the cross hair did hit towards upper right corner but jumped about between the edge of the blacked out discriminated out section on the left and then would jump towards the clear section close to the top right corner. This is a signal that would be considered slightly iffy and could be missed if not careful.Slightly Beyond 4.5 inches the signal got so bad the target would be missed real easy by many users. Tomorrow i will try the standard minelab SE coil on this 4.5 inch deep penny and see if the response is any better , i will post my results here for all to view , switching to all metal made no difference to the quality of the signal and no increase in depth was noticed by switching to all metal mode. Deep on also made no noticeable difference. More depth test results to follow within the next few days. This proves that freshly buried targets or targets such as coins in fresh ploughed soil will give no more depth than 4.5 inches if the soil is highly mineralised.
Depth test update
I did a depth test today on this old penny with the stock minelab 10 inch coil to compare with the 8 inch detech coil , The signal with the minelab 10 inch coil now repeated clearly and loudly from left to right and would repeat with the coil raised 1.5 inches from the ground so this gives an extra 1.5 inches approx extra in ground detection depth by using the 10 inch coil as opposed to the detech 8 inch. I rotated 90 degrees and re swept the hole however i could get no response no matter how close to the ground the coil was placed , i rotated a further 90 degrees and the signal repeated nicely , i guess maybe a small bit if iron was the reason it would not repeat from all angles or maybe the coin was tilted slightly i am not sure. Just as an experiment i decided to see how reducing and increasing sensitivity level would affect the signal response , i turned sensitivity down from the semi auto 22 setting to semi auto 10 and noticed no difference in signal response , the signal only started to get crappy when set to below 10 so this proves that depth is not affected hardly at all unless you drop sensitivity to below 10. Increasing sensitivity all the way up to 30 also made hardly any difference to the response of the coin it was more or less the same, if there was any difference it was hardly noticeable. No way could i get the coin to repeat from all angles using any combination of settings . Using all metal mode also did not increase the signal response/depth over the coin. So all in all for the deepest coins use the 10 inch coil which will give you 1.5 -2 inches extra depth on large coins. Search areas of land in a criss cross method because many targets will only repeat from certain sweep directions. Also fast on or deep on seem to make no noticeable difference to the response of deep coins , maybe their is a small difference but i honestly could tell no difference. Remember this soil is highly mineralised in low mineralised ground i am sure you could double this coin detection depth of 6 inches with the standard coil. Also i noted that the depth meter read about 9 inches deep on this 4.5 inch deep old penny so it appears that on large coins the depth meter is not no where near as accurate as i first thought. I am going to bury a small brass coin and test the response and depth also going to test some USA coins which i have. I also noticed that using constant sounds coupled with digital is the best way to hear and analyse those fringe of detection depth coins. You miss far less using constant sounds because you have to analyse each and every signal , the trick hear is to look for numbers with moderate ferrous readings coupled with higher conductivity readings , the same numbers will keep coming up even if they vary with multiple sweeps , like this penny the numbers varied but every so often ferrous 6 and conductivity 26 kept flashing up on the display, this is sure to give it away that you have a target worth digging. I think on some of my heavily worked sites i will now be using constant sounds with digital numbers you can definitely find the deepest coins using this method.

 

[Steve(MS)]

Once again, I must remind you that your test does not prove anything because you are disturbing the ground matrix especially after seeing the plug you cut out of the ground. Try the long audio at least and see if you can get a better signal.

 

[Dan-Pa.]

Is trying to ascertain how an Explorer is going to work in disturbed ground on farm fields..a couple of variablies, abilities of the operator to set the unit up for his neck of the woods, Is the coin still in a clunp with the halo intact, has fertilyzer affected the coin or area itself. Such areas a coin can be an inch or perhaps a former inch coin now a foot coin which adds to the scenario..I would think due to the plowed field effect you can not swing the coil even over the ground and they hate air so may affect depth to a degree.
I guess experimentation is the name of the game and I feel perhaps hunting these areas with a large and perhaps a real small coil to go between the furrows and see how one does might be the best test. In your neck of the woods so many different coins from different eras so it it beeps and repeats from another angle dig it..

 

[captainbottletop]

n/t

 

[captainbottletop]

3 coins planted about a foot apart at depths of 4.5 . 5.5 & 7 inches is a excellent starting point to get you trained on deep coin signals.
You will get lots of confidence on deeper coin signals and start to find more older coins missed by others. Disturbind the ground makes a little difference to depth but nothing big.

 

[captainbottletop]

3 coins planted about a foot apart at depths of 4.5 . 5.5 & 7 inches is a excellent starting point to get you trained on deep coin signals.
You will get lots of confidence on deeper coin signals and start to find more older coins missed by others. Disturbind the ground makes a little difference to depth but nothing big.

 

[captainbottletop]

3 coins planted about a foot apart at depths of 4.5 . 5.5 & 7 inches is a excellent starting point to get you trained on deep coin signals.
You will get lots of confidence on deeper coin signals and start to find more older coins missed by others. Disturbind the ground makes a little difference to depth but nothing big.

 

[Dan-Pa.]

I guess experimentation is the name of the game and yep knowing what a deepie sounds like is a plus..would advise the tester to go out with an experienced Explorer user and hope he finds a deepie you can listen to will certainly be in field conditions not an artificial ballpark sound. Just a thought if perhaps a clubmember or friend will help you out...For the info of the forum(most of you know this)but not all of you do Explorers just hate air and a slow swing just grazing the ground will you allow you to get Max depth if unit is set up for your area. At Minelab if an Explorer gives an air test at 7 inches under factory conditions its good to go and I know under actual field conditions have found a 12 inch dime so I know an Explorer will go a heck of a lot deeper in field conditions and certainly your average silver find might be 6-8 inches but certainly if a coin is not the norm do expect more depth...I am sure the Captain
and his posts have merit but just giving you my opinion and if we had more discussions such as this we all would learn..Keep the posts coming Captain as I read all of them and certainly respect your opinions but thought I would give my side of the story for your perusal...

 

[captainbottletop]

Ok thanks for ya advice. I feel 80% confident with the explorers the other 20% i will practice till i can get more out of the detector i think. My problem is that at the moment i have rubbish sites , later this year i will be going to better area's and hopefully i will post some good finds - till then i will not be using my explorer as its a waste of time on the sites i have locally are to say the least well erm i would say Extremely crap!.

 

[Dan-Pa.]

If there is not a 10 point buck on the mountain your hunting not going to shoot a 10 point buck..Research, always looking for a new area are imperative to finding some new spots...thats when the Explorer will rumble as its an exellent machine but can't find whats not there...