Ferrous Audio

[DanRoss]

I did a search on 'audio ferrous' and didn't come up with much.

Reading Andy Sabich's book I thought immediately I would want to run my new SE Pro in ferrous audio, since my previous 10 years with the White's XLT has me thinking in terms of low sounds less likely to be good target... but Bryce-IL's Deep Coin program in the book shows Conductive Audio. I don't want to ignore sage advice from the experienced users. What can you tell me? Is this just a preference thing, or is there a potential impact on productivity?

 

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

And we all do ok.

Basically if you want to run with no iron discrimination- left hand of screen you have to run in ferrous because every little chunk of iron will sound high like a coin.

It also makes nickels and fat IH sound more interesting. Ferrous is not a good choice if you are running in places with alot of mid conductivity trash like pull tabs.

Chris

 

[Big Fang Coin Biter]

Hi Dan,
Here is the deal of ferrous tones, the way I think about it. If you are hunting in conductive tones (my prefered), and you get on a site that is loaded with iron hits that give an initial high tone false signal before nulling out. Switch to ferrous tones with no discrimination. It will cut out 95% of the false signals. Having no discrimination you will hear every nail, but they will be a very low tone. Then dig anything that sounds high or high mixed with low tones. The down side to hunting this way is that you cannot tell a half dollar sound from a crown cap sound. There is almost no sound difference between an Indian head cent and a nickel. So, you have to try to get the display to tell you what you have. This is not an easy task in high iron/junk areas. I use the ferrous tones for hunting old home sites in fields where modern trash is a minimum, and I dig everything that is not a low tone.

Conversely, conductive tones, with about an eighth of an inch of iron mask to the left, will literally tell you what you have under the coil without looking at the display. That is, once you learn the Explorer language. That is the way I like to hunt. I glance at the display once in a while to check the cursor but 95% of my info comes through the headphones. The down side, I have to investigate each high tone false signal off iron. They do not repeat as a good target world.

Hope this helps and HH - BF

 

[Frase44NY]

I also like to hunt in ferrous. But I'll use conduct on certain occasions according to where I am hunting. I like ferrous in areas where there is alot of iron, so I will get a lower tone for the most abundant targets in the area. Now if Im in an area loaded with crown caps and other trash of similar conduct & ferrous values, I might switch to conduct , so that those targets( most abundant) will give me a lower tone. but you can also use disc. and iron mask to ignore the undesirable targets as well, and then hunt in either ferrous or conduct. I started out in conduct when I first got my exp, than went to ferrous, now i use both depending on conditions..you have to play around with it..and dont try too many changes at once or else you will become overwhelmed..but take the time to try both. Hope this helps and good luck!!

 

[digitrich]

n/t

 

[dewcon4414]

I will switch...like BF said depending on the trash. Also, when in Ferr the tones are based on the Ferr numbers and they dont seem as stable as the Cond are on deep coins, especially if you are using FAST on, which messes with both tone and TID. Its kind of like using smartfind or digital.... your choice and advantages to each.

Dew

 

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

n/t

 

[DanRoss]

Well, there is no teacher like getting out and trying... but after putting in 3 hours today (bad weather kept me from putting in more time), I am not sure what I learned.

I used Bryce's program from Sabisch's Book... amended as noted on the login page. My results were not the same as Bryce describes, so I can only assume that my soil is not the same as in his area.

1st, the sounds almost blew me away with the Koss supplied headphones. My 'better phones' are White's versions, and they don't work properly with a Minelab. I was determined to make it work, so I pressed on.

The biggest problem I had was that I got a bunch of false signals from heavily rusted nails... I was digging to China for rusty nails in some pretty hard ground. I tried to go to the ferrous tones, but somehow the coins just didn't jump out anymore. I finally went back to the conduct setting, and the coins sounded higher, but still too many false targets.

The false targets were two primary categories, 1) rusty nails (especially bent) with expanded shanks of rust powder or bolts with round or pentagonal heads with rust. 2) small pieces of aluminum from houses that were knocked down. Between the two, they just about drove me nuts.

Rather than go back to the factory defaults, I knocked the gain down by one and he volume down by one, and tried some more. Somehow with iron mask, conductive tones, and almost max gain and volume I started to find really high sounds that sounded consistent crossing in both directions. I changed from the 11 inch pro coil to a 6" EXcelerator SEF. I tried to use the fast off most of the time, but when I got into heavier junk I would pop it over to fast on. With fast off I could get readings between 25-27 on the conductive with 00 on the iron side, and would dig like a prarie dog until I got the sound out of the hole. It was very often a rusty nail or bolt. Then as my battery power drooped, I was getting better signals with fewer falses. I found some Wheat pennies and some Lincoln cents, and then a silver (1956 P) Roosevelt dime. Interestingly enough, here in the west there is little soil generated over time, so most finds were pretty shallow. I was reminded of some 1867 battles between buffalo soldiers and indians that we helped with (archeologists didn't have the manpower to look for the rifle casings) After 130 years things were still on top of the ground or just immediately below the surface. This silver dime was only about 1 1/2 inches down and laying flat although the ground was really hard. I could see somethig silver green just below where I scraped the hard earth with my magna pick (wish I could still buy that tool). I hoped it was silver so I was careful getting it out and didn't nick it in any way.

So somehow I have to reduce settings to get fewer false readings, and maybe drop the gain down some more so that when I put fresh batteries back in,

I suspect I have to do something like turn down the sensitivity? The volume gain probably only bumps the volume up, where as I would guess the sensitivity would pump less power into the soil.

I am not sure I am in the semi-auto mode for gain as Bryce prescribes but I think I am. I was set at 26 with the bar rotating around the 26 in a clockwise direction.

Any suggestions on what to do to minimize digging false targets?

 

[Hotcz70]

Hi Dan.
The key to the conductive/iron mask settings working... is to be able to discern falsing.. from good hits.Some people felt the EX2 did a better job with this than the SE.

You might experiment a little with the iron mask to see what you prefer. If you close it a little more...you should be able to eliminate some of the falsing and chirping.
Of course the trade off will be a little more nulling.

Me personally...I have been able to adjust okay and can do allright telling the difference from deep iron mimicing deep silver. Sure I dig a little piece of iron every now and then...but not very often. Usually it happens if I'm chasing a really iffy hit.

For me...Once I start circling the hole...the signal will either break up...null...etc if it's iron.
If it's a coin...the signal will repeat at least 50% of the way around the hole.
As a rule of thumb...I would make sure it repeats from at least 3 of 4 angles and sweeps.

This falsing and chirping you described drives many hunters nuts...just as the iron grunt does to some when hunting all metal/ferrous.
There is no set way of hunting...only the method you are able to adjust to and feel comfortable with.

You might be a hunter who prefers ferrous tones...with a more open screen...which should eliminate a lot of the chirping you get hunting in conductive tones.
That's why a lot of hunters prefer ferrous/ all metal. Many of them are successful with it...and again...there is no right or wrong way. ...only the way that works best for you..

 

[DanRoss]

Okay Bryce, repeats from 3 of 4 angles/sweeps...

The 'test' with the old XLT was to see if it repeated perpendicular to the first sweep, so I guess I have to be more demanding.

I also find that except for the really rusted stuff, I generally get some iron value. I often get iron values with conductive on these false targets, but in one very small wiggle area I get high conductive with zero for a ferrous reading so I am expecting a good target in close proximity with trash.

I guess I will have to get a lucky Harley tie dye shirt!

 

[Big Fang Coin Biter]

n/t

 

[dewcon4414]

What i found is i can make those high tones from iron sing with short wiggles... but thats not what im after. I watch the bounce especially if i have to work the target. If you can get it to consistantly bounce to the right i dig... but if i get a great tone and it pegs to the left i let it go. The target ID on coins at the depth you are hunting isnt very good so you need to listen to that scratchy tone. Normally for me its a rusty bolt or nail. I hunt in Ferr occassionally, which increases my nickel finds, but you cant beat the sound you get in Cond for the deep silver. Also the TID is a little more consistant in Cond. You can waist a lot of time working the signal, but the payoff might be worth it. I know BF has voiced his opinion on the SE and nails before and hes right it does kind of like those rusty bent nails and bolts. As far as headphones... i have a pair of whites too they arent as loud and i can adjust each side to my hearing. They work fine with my SE.... well unless you hit mono by mistake. HH...

Dew