Digging Deep With a Simple Program Change....

[CZconnoisseur]

Went back to an old spot after being blessed with a moderate amount of rain looking for those deep squeakers again yesterday with Mike, and we spent several hours concentrating on a couple areas. It still amazes me the stuff the remains buried even after checking, checking again, and then checking AGAIN in the same area after multiple hunts and multiple detectors.

Yesterday started off slow - I think the both of us hunted maybe an hour before I got over a deep 1936 Wheat. Nothing was really remarkable for the first portion of the hunt - we dig the usual deep nails, foil balls, beavertails, etc....and after a while we took a break and discussed some strategy. We tried our strategy of moving to a slightly less-hunted (by us at least) portion of our area, and had nothing really to show for it after another hour.

Slightly frustrated, but by no means finished, we moved to a different area where both of us had pulled several Indians about a month ago at 8-9" deep. Most of these coins were co-located with nails, but with a little effort (and no doubt luck) sometimes a coin could hide within these nails. My second signal in the "nail bed" was a 1919 S Wheat, continuing the S-Mint streak LOL, from 8" deep. Mike shortly thereafter pulls a beautiful Barber dime from 7.5" with the trusty Fisher Coinstrike!

I must say, the Coinstrike is an amazing machine for deep coins. It will give *accurate* depth and ID readings for coins - up to 9" deep....something I've witnessed and wondered why the Coinstrike wasn't as big a hit in the Fisher realm when it debuted 10-15 years ago. It was more of a "personnel problem" in Fisher's inner workings as I've been told....this detector is probably one of the best "sleeper detectors" out there and EVERY time it's been used Mike has found silver coins 8-10" deep. The most interesting thing in my opinion is that it gives accurate VDI (in its own language) on these deep coins.

Mike and I compared signals, as we always do; and when the Coinstrike gives a slighty irony blip with high conductive numbers...we've learned that it will almost always be a deep iron target. But, if there's no trace of any iron VDI (negative numbers), then there's a good chance that target will be worth digging. Possibly Mike will be able to expand on this concept, as he knows the machine pretty well!

Since he and I have been snatching many deep coins lately, and the pickins are getting a little slim, it was time that I tried something a little different with the Deus. I needed more depth - had to get beyond the 9" deep level somehow....it was so simple - all I did was change Reactivity to 0 instead of 1 and kept Silencer at 2. The program looks like this:

4kHz
Sens 75
Full Tones
Disc 1
Reactivity 0
Silencer 2
Audio Response 3
Overload 1
Notch 00-15, 98-99
GB Manual 88
Ground Notch 87

Had been considering this for a while, but what kept me from making the change earlier on was this weird notion that Reactivity = 0 made the machine too sensitive to falsing and I would have to change the sweep speed to some magic figure. Not sure when I picked up that balderdash, but I finally got over it and just decided to try it out.

Reactivity to Zero.....It ran very quietly with the slightly positive GB was my first thought, and then I got a signal. No VDI as per usual but the footprint of the signal was coin-sized. Out of curiosity I changed to Reactivity = 1 and the same signal was much more chopped and sounded really no different than a smaller piece of foil. Well, this signal turned out to be a 1903 Indian cent at 9". Was very pleased with the way it sounded, and felt it could have been 1 or 2 inches deeper and I would have still been able to detect it.

About five swings later I got a soft signal, softer than the previously-dug Indian. Switched to Reactivity = 1 and same thing, now the signal was short, choppy, and no different than a small piece of aluminum. But the lower reactivity "saw" the target a little clearer, and I was able to roughly tell it was a coin-sized hit. At 10" deep I saw a glint of gold, but it would turn out to be a plated locket probably from the 1900-1920 period. Still, these two targets almost at the same depth and almost the same size were much clearer for the lower Reactivity settings - which gives me more info before digging.

Near the end of the hunt I got a long, soft signal from a more worked-out area, and from 9" deep I was bowled over to see a tiny sterling bracelet! I was sure there was something else in the hole...it seemed something that small would be "undetectable" at that depth...but this small coil continues to exceed expectations! Getting another 1-2" depth -AND- having the stability on top of that is what any detectorist would want.

Going back tomorrow after some experiments tonight and will be ready for what lives below the 9" level

 

[trojdor]

It's been a good year, so far.

The weather has been better than typical (at least for coin hunting) this year, and this hunt was some of the best temps yet.

Another challenging hunt. CZconnoisseur and I would probably be hunting a different spot this time, but we just keep pulling old/deep coins.

It obviously gets tougher as we've long since gotten the 'easier pickins', but I just keep pulling these nice Barbers and Seated at the last hour...so no quitting for me.
(Hope that doesn't jinx me for our next hunt!)

I like the approach CZconnoisseur uses for adjusting his Deus...he tries to ignore all the conventional internet 'wisdom', and just tries/tweaks different setting until he sees it work better...in our ground.

I'm no means an expert with the CStrike yet, but every trip so far has netted deep, old silver from the 1800's...so I'm going to keep playing with it for a while.
It handles our mineralized ground better than average, and seems to handle trash/coin co-locations better than average, as well.

This trip ended up with the typical clad, junk, and jewelry.
I'm pretty sure I went over the sterling bracelet (2 or 3 times) that CZ dug...I didn't like the shape of it, so I passed....OOPS. (Fixated on old coins, I guess.)

I snagged this 1897 no-mint-mark beauty at a relatively shallow 7.5"-8" depth. Almost got sloppy, as the coin was lying at about a 30 degree angle in the hole, and thus pinpointing was way off to the edge of the hole.
(Also got a crusty 1907 Indian Head, but it's way too rough to take a good photo...)

Good Luck, and HH

mike

 

[calabash digger]

nice barber, Try lowering the silencer to 0 my machine runs quiet at that setting and it will hit a ten inch quarter no prob in the test garden, and thats with my reativity set on 2. Seems like the silencer being that high would knock some of those deep signals out just my 2 cents.

 

[CZconnoisseur]

I thought the same thing about raising the Silencer - even watched a video where a Silencer of 2 vs -1 helped a deep signal come in better, but the planted coin must have been at a precise depth for that to happen. From what I've experienced in our soil - a Silencer of 2 vs 0 makes no difference 99% of the time on questionable targets. I'm using a setting of "2" to help further negate deep iron - but really, anything that sounds deep and non-ferrous I am going to dig!

While I was air testing last night I noticed that this more open program identifies the "footprint" of a deep signal much better than with higher Reactivity settings. I was able to get 1-2" more depth with these new settings vs the Goodjuju program....I know, I know air testing doesn't mean much, but fortunately our soil will affect about 30% average depth loss vs air testing. So a 2" increase in depth in air testing I can expect to detect this nickel between 1 and 1.5" deeper - just to err on the side of caution a 1" increase can be expected for nickels.

Expecting less than an inch for copper pennies and silver dimes - but being able to see the "footprint" of the target vs a little "blip" or "burp" will greatly increase the odds of digging coins vs trash. We will see tonight....sitting at work right now watching the clock innochio

 

[calabash digger]

How much did you have to adjust your swing speed when you lowered the reactivity? I kinda have a fast swing speed so I set the reactivity to 2 ,but if lowering the reactivity helps that much on depth might have to try that on a site thats been pounded to death and see if I can snag a deep target that was missed. Im gonna bump up the silencer on some of those deep iron suspect targets and see what happens.

 

[markg]

Did you just set the gb to 88 or is your ground that mineralized

 

[CZconnoisseur]

Turned up GB to 88 to help with deep iron. Not sure if it really helps much, as last night I dug a LOT of iron - no more or less than any other hunt at this place. Swing speed surprisingly doesn't need to change any at all between the Reactivity settings. If you go too slow on the swing speed, it seems to hit on iron a little harder - no difference for mid-to-high conducting targets though.

 

[calabash digger]

I made 2 videos today in the test garden on 1 foot deep silver coins both parts are on youtube but I posted the first part in the Deus forum .I found more change happened with the 11 when I lowered the reactivity to 1 or 0 it hit it way better, the nine it didnt affect to much from what I could tell.

 

[CZconnoisseur]

Deepest coins I've dug in Colorado are two stacked V-nickels at 10" deep last year. This was with the 11" coil and Reactivity = 2 with Silencer = 0

Using the 9" coil I didn't see much difference at all with Reactivity 1 or 2, but going to Zero helped "extend the squeaky range" of the deepest targets. I don't know how else to describe it LOL.

Test gardens are good, but the longer the coins stay buried, the more accurate the results IMO. Mike and I have certain areas that we've purposely pulled all metal targets from as our test garden. I've put a couple 9" deep coins there, and from time to time we "calibrate" our machines to these deep signals and try out different settings, etc. Our soil here is moderately mineralized...I know there are coins at 11-12" deep where we hunt, but for now nothing we have will touch them. This is a temporary situation though

 

[calabash digger]

my gb number runs 86-89 here most of the time. Do you think it will hit a coin thats been buried a hundred years at a foot deep better than say one thats been buried a month. Ive heard of the halo effect but never have found a old coin that deep.9 inchs max on my deepest coin. So I really have nothing to test that theory by.

 

[CZconnoisseur]

Buried coins for the most part should be easier to detect, since there is a region around these coins that has metallic compounds, or "metal salts" that are slightly electrically conductive. You see it when you dig almost any coin that has been buried for any length of time. Moisture content varies the conductivity of these salts, altering their response when an electrical field is passed through the coin/coin matrix.

If your GB is 86-89 that would at least to me indicate lightly mineralized soil, the lower the GB reading the worse the mineralization. Here the GB number runs from 82-85 most of the time but sometimes drops into the mid 70s. I suspect there could be deep iron that could also skew the GB number, deep enough to where it's "in the background" and not enough for the detector to pinpoint. This was true at a site I hunted back in TN, the GB numbers widely varied from 60s-80s but I pulled plenty of nice old coins from there.