Farm Frustration

[Fish N Chips]

I had an interesting thing happen this week. My buddy and I took a trip to hunt an old 1890s farm out in the desert. This place is a junky site with old and modern trash everywhere. I was hopeful I could pick a coin or relic from the iron. I took my Eldorado 'Umax' which does well in the iron but does love square nails. I ground balanced, set the sensitivity at 4 due to the amount of large iron and the discrimination just above foil. I was using the 8x9 coil as I still have not broken down and gotten a sniper coil yet (I know I really need too).

I got set up and started hunting. I immediately got a sweet signal that screamed silver! I dug it and found a weird triangle blade, about 2 inches across. Well over the next few hours I dug and dug and dug these things. They all rang to silver, pin pointed small and sounded just like a coin. I researched them and found they are old blades to a sickle mower. The only thing I can figure is it was hitting on the blade point making the tone sound so good. It would hit sweet even when I turned 90 degrees. Darn. There must have been hundreds of those blades and I finally gave up on the site....for now. I was getting too frustrated and the soil made digging very difficult as it was like concrete.

I need to get my small sniper coil soon for these trashy sites. I am sure it was not my detector and just the item causing me the trouble. I could not find a spot without them! No doubt most detectors and detectorists would have been fooled but boy was it frustrating. I think next time I will try a small coil and really put the sensitivity low. Maybe 2 or 3 and try again. I just could not figure out the secret to sort these out. I lifted the coil, changed swing direction, cranked up the sensitivity. Everything yelled a good solid coin sized target when they should have screamed large iron. Next time...oh yes next time I will find something good. LOL, thanks for listening to the rant of a mad man.

 

[Sven]

You need a good target ID machine that would have some fine resolution settings in the range of that triangle target.
So you can match up the target ID number and either notch them out or ignore that target. But those targets maybe masking some good coin targets.
If you don't dig them out, you won't know what's underneath them or next to them. If they sound like a silver target and there's a silver coin next to it or below it..............
You have to dig junk to find the good stuff.


Small coil would help separate close targets better than the larger coil. Many targets to close together will blend together and the detector will see them as one target. Which could also skew target ID and ID numbers on a ID machine.

Most people need two machines. As one machine may not be the ideal for a particular location.

 

[tabman]

I've been fooled time and again by non-coin targets such as aluminum cans and large pieces of flat steel. Boy they sound at first like great coin targets and I'm quick to dig. After popping the plug and sticking my ProPointer down in the hole I soon discover whatever it is, it's not a coin by the way the ProPointer acts. I put the plug back in then hole without digging any deeper and scan again. The second time that I scan without all the excitement and calmer nerves, it's easy to tell that it's not a coin target. I get a good laugh and tell myself to slow down. Trust me, if you have any experience at all there's noway that a 2 inch long blade is going to sound like a silver dime. Bury both in a test bed and you'll see for yourself. Sven is right about getting a smaller coil and needing to dig the iron out to find the silver coins that might be masked. Get to digging.

tabman

 

[kansa54]

The old sickle blades always fool me. I've dug more than I care to remember at old homesteads. I'm guessing, they will fool most detectors.

 

[Hombre]

Yup, they sound good, even with a high end model with VDI target ID, those sickle bar teeth read as dimes. It's part of the game, if ya don't dig trash, ya won't dig the cash. Deep rusty washers sound good too, I live in farm country and have dug up all kinds of small rusty objects. If you have a detector with manual-tuned all-metal mode (no-motion) then go over it, the signal will tend to be wider than the coil. The Outlaw is the only current made detector that has the no-motion all-metal mode.

 

[Monte]

Yup, they sound good, even with a high end model with VDI target ID, those sickle bar teeth read as dimes. It's part of the game, if ya don't dig trash, ya won't dig the cash. Deep rusty washers sound good too, I live in farm country and have dug up all kinds of small rusty objects.

Couldn't agree more about needing to bear the brunt of mimicking targets to get the good stuff.

To "Coin Hunt" in a typical urban environment it can be a little easier to pick-and-choose some targets, but try "Coin Hunting" in non-typical coin hunting sites, such as a ghost town, homestead. farm or ranch land, stage or railroads stop, and other such places and you'll encounter a LOT more in the way of coil-like signals. Guaranteed. The only things you can do are size-and-shape and hope it's not a big signal from a jar or can of coins you leave behind, or a string of coins or tokens or something that suggests an elongated object you ignore ... and simply be determined to recover all good as well as 'iffy' signals.

If you have a detector with manual-tuned all-metal mode (no-motion) then go over it, the signal will tend to be wider than the coil.

That can help with a lot of iron-based targets; larger sized targets; elongated targets [size=small](presuming you're mainly in search of smaller-size, non-ferrous, roundish-shaped keepers)[/size].

The Outlaw is the only current made detector that has the no-motion all-metal mode.

Insert 'Tesoro' before Outlaw, and remember that most, or at least many, detectors do have a static, non-motion [size=small](non-auto-tune)[/size] Pinpoint mode, and that lets you size and shape a target as well.

Monte

[size=small]PS: Hombre, coil, cover and hardware went out Priority Mail this morning.[/size]

 

[Fish N Chips]

Thanks guys. I do have all metal no motion on the Eldorado but there was so much trash I could barely use it. The place is full of clips, wire, staples, nails and foil. I think the smaller coil will let me get into the spaces between the junk and outline my targets better. I am definitely not an expert yet, but have gotten pretty good at telling what is a coin from trash. Even square nails sound sweet only from one direction generally. These little blades threw me. The more I detect the more I realize when I have doubt on a sound, it is generally trash. I think I just need to work little by little clearing off these blades to get the good stuff. As I clean them up I hope to be able to use the all metal more and find the copper and silver coins.

I was surprised how these fooled me. I can normally tell the cans and large iron by lifting the coil. These blades would get quiet just lifting 2-3 inches so I must have been on the points with the rest nulling out as iron. My buddy saved a few so I am going to grab one and bury it in the test garden. That way I can play with it and figure out the tricks to ID them better. Thinking back I probably relied on thumbing the knob too much and not enough on the sound.. I can definitely see the advantage of the all metal for outlining the item, if I can get it to work in this site. It is a mess and I think time and digging will be the best cures.

Thanks.

 

[Monte]

... .. and ..

Thinking back I probably relied on thumbing the knob too much and not enough on the sound.

Here's why, and it is from learning the pitfalls from doing it myself too often in the earlier years I was using Tesoro.

We know that using too much Discrimination can reject desired targets, and this is especially true if hunting in iron trash sites. This problem can be compounded by working in higher mineralized sites. It takes a brief moment for an adjustment to be realized in the sweep speed and performance /processing of the circuitry. I noted early on, especially when in iron littered sites, that it is kind of easy to thumb the Disc. control while sweeping and go just a bit too much before we hear a rejection.

Then, with the little extra rejection we pause and re-sweep the target, don't hear a response, and think we have just barely rejected anticipated trash which, in reality, we might have over nudged it and have just rejected a desired target. This is even more notable when a good target is located close to trash that is already partially masking it. The extra Disc. impairs that partial response.

It's best to just set the Discrimination level at the lowest setting you can tolerate and search. Get a beep, good or iffy, and you pinpoint and recover. If you use a model with visual display you might get a little help from the VDI numeric read-out, with some models, using smaller coils, and working a good slow-sweep, but increasing rejection looses good targets.

I can definitely see the advantage of the all metal for outlining the item, if I can get it to work in this site. It is a mess and I think time and digging will be the best cures.

There you have it right: "Time and Digging" results in the "best cures," because best cures = success.

Monte

 

[tabman]

It's best to just set the Discrimination level at the lowest setting you can tolerate and search. Get a beep, good or iffy, and you pinpoint and recover.

Monte

Exactly. Tesoro 'beep and dig' detectors excel at doing that. Thumbing the discrimination knob or looking at a display screen will only slow you down.

tabman

 

[Fish N Chips]

Great tips guys, I appreciate it. I will try these tips the next time out. I cracked a rib the other day so it may be a while before I head back out. It hurts for such a small break but cabin fever is no fun either.

You guys are right on the just dig it. I lately probably spend more time judging what to dig, than the actual recovery of the item. It would be more time effective to dig it and either get a treasure or remove the trash which will hinder me later. It makes so much sense pointed out to me, I guess I get caught up in all the reports of discrimination and VDI being a fix all and forget what I am missing out on. When I first started I dug a lot, and found a lot. Now I am playing with the discrimination more, my finds have definitely decreased. There may be a correlation. I may have to print out your posts to remind me from time to time to get back to basics and get to digging. Especially at these old sites, some of my better finds have actually been iron relics. From time to time I try to cherry pick, but it rarely works out well. Thanks