Ferrous Coin Question

[Stogger]

I tried using Ferrous Coin setting while hunting in an area in the woods that has lots of trash (nails mostly). Near an 1850's homesite. I was trying to see the difference between "High trash" and Ferrous-Coin setting. I threw down a nickel and quarter (amongst the buried trash) to check the difference. The only thing I noticed was in Ferrous-Coin, the coin numbers came up (almost always) as I swept across, but the indication on the screen did not have a circle around it, and the coin's "sound" did not always chime in. The indication and sound was from the trash. In High Trash setting, it seems SOMETIMES I got the coin's screen indication complete with circle plus sound, other times there was no indication the coins were there; the coins were trumped by the trash signal.

Is this the norm? Any additional explanation much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Jason in Enid]

They are different ways for the machine to interpret and relay the target info. The FE-CO numbers will change for the same target as well as the sounds. I use FE-Coin the majority of the time, and one thing I have noticed is that it wants to equalize everything to a solid 12FE. If you have a coin mixed with iron, you are much more likely to get a "diggable" response. The down side is that you will dig more iron trash because of that normalizing of the target.

 

[metaldetectingoregon]

I dig more iron with the ctx, maybe because of this. ? I've tried watching those cursors in both modes as well. I typically run FE in Combined and HT in 50CO. I've had blips of noise/tone that made me stop to investigate and while doing so, watching the numbers. I've had silvers come up on the ID screen, but hear no tone masked by iron. There's another guy out there on Youtube that shows this. This has happen to me twice!! But it's way to hard to detect and watch the screen. And I've dug more iron trying to find these real iffy targets. The double cursor isn't fool proof.

 

[MINELABBOB]

TRY SETTING UP
2 modes one in ferrous and check with ground coin / high trash you will see iron most of the time. it will drop down to its right corner
also 1 mode TTF and other combine. i wood use grown coin if my no# look like 18-15 in auto + or lower but set up 2 modes you will see what i am talking about
ferrous will show a good target but GC. WILL TELL IT ALL or high trash dont be afraid to open up all metel also to check. you will get fooled here and ther
but wen you see that icon drop down it is sure bet its iron . any other questions e-mail i will try to help

MINELABBOB

 

[Stogger]

Thanks for all your replies! What you all are saying is exactly what I'm experiencing, that is digging more iron in FE. The next time I go to the site, I'll try the 2 mode idea. I'll also compare with GC mode. I haven't really used GC yet.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Ground coin is designed for use areas with HIGH mineralization. Using it when it's not needed may hurt your results.

 

[MINELABBOB]

I WILL SAY IT AGAIN!!!!!!!!!
it is all about your ground conditions # 1 were you are may be better in high trash were i am can be G.C. and so on
it takes a little time to work things out ! no 2 areas are the same FC. IS ON MY COIN MODE and TTF BUT THAT IS ME THE CTX
GIVES YOU MANY OPTIONS TO FOOL WITH you need to learn its lingo and then you will dig 80% good targets 20% trash
never GET STUCK in a one way frame of mine you will see after a while there are many ways to combat IRON./ good targets


MINELABBOB

 

[mrwilburino]

There seems less filtering going on in GC, which makes it a bit noisier than the other modes. That would make sense though, since more filtering in areas with higher mineralization (which GC was designed to be used in) could mean filtering OUT a deep target. I've tried experimenting with it in areas with lower mineralization to see if it would pick out the deep ones better or targets co-located with iron, but so far have not seen any benefit over the other modes for that purpose.

 

[MINELABBOB]

THERE IS MORE
i have also tried differant tones long- normal-smooth on deep targets 2 tone - 4 tone - 1 tone which i like with high trash only because
with all disk out why do i need multy tones SO YOU NEED TO SEE WHAT WORKS IN YOUR AREA. i ran GC. in a place in combine with
nickels high tone noisey as hell and pulled a high tone out of all that noise 7in.deep V-NICKEL.some times you need to think out of the box. and you
were right to say that deep targets may be trouble . ( in your area) i flip -flop in many areas to see if there is a good setting 4 (THAT AREA) i try
not to get one sided with the CTX i find it will come back to haunt you!!!!!!!!!

MINELABBOB

 

[Stogger]

Thanks again MINELABBOB and mrwilburino! I've yet to experiment on ground that had different mineralization. Or more accurately, I don't think I've come across ground that had a lot of mineralization yet. Except: On the beach, but everything is clear as a bell when I use "seawater" setting selected. In the areas around here away from the trash, mostly red clay of Virginia, things are also pretty clear. I'm quessing when I encounter high mineralization, I will know it by a lot of chatter...I'm guessing. Can't wait to get my 6" coil hunting in this area (1850s homesite).

MINELABBOB, you are certainly right that there are many combinations, settings, tone choices to choose from and not to get pigeonholed into using the same thing everywhere. I still have a lot to learn about this machine. The more I use it though, the happier I am I chose the CTX over other makes/models.

 

[MINELABBOB]

YES MY FRIEND

there are many combos at your finger tips my ground varies i do try to stay were the ground is friendly but then you will never get
the hole of the CTX I TO PLAY AROUND IN AREAS were ground no# may be 15-10 in auto + the more you play around the more you learn.
so the long and the short of the CTX is learn its lingo = $ most days is a learning curve 4 me also even with 1500hrs. i still test and re-test
along the way the finds keep comming even in played out spots. a little luck helps to!!!!!!!!!!!
keep swinging and have a good hunt.

MINELABBOB

 

[mrwilburino]

Here is some good information on FC which was posted by Johnnyanglo in the sticky thread at the top of this forum, titled "hunting in trash:"

"Minelab admits that in Ferrous-Coin setting it will not always provide audio response (probably an understatement). Consider that Ferrous-Coin was a signal processing scheme that is designed to sharpen the difference between ferrous from non-ferrous. I think that using this mode in higher mineralization soil (or nail beds), for which it was not designed, will cause the nulling audio to happen. In this case you would be better served to switch to Ground-Coin mode, which I believe is doing a similar subtraction scheme but makes allowance for the stronger ground signal (ferrous signal), which Ferrous-Coin assumes to be negligible.

Generally, for the audio to null and the coin to show only on the TID, the non-ferrous coin signal must be weak (can be deep or masked by iron). In other words, the signal processing is meant to sharpen the non-ferrous, even when they are on-top of each other (according to the Minelab manual page 42). To do that it has to dial down that ferrous signal, which also dials down (somewhat) the non-ferrous signal too. It would work best then when the remaining non-ferrous coin signal after processing is strong enough to drive the audio.

Unfortunately, a lengthwise sweep over a nail over-top of a coin is effectively blocking the coin's interaction with the primary field, and whatever field that is generated by the coin is being bent on the return back into the nail (horizontally bending it along the nail length). A double-whammy coming and going. Thus, very little secondary field is available to destabilize the receive coil - producing a very weak signal even when inches from the coil.

That weak non-ferrous signal is further lost by the ML signal processing using Ferrous-Coin as it tries to reduce the ferrous signal. In the end, the audio processing often will not respond in this situation. The TID plots the weak coin signal - which is moving about depending upon the effectiveness of the nail to redirect the non-ferrous field. The nail is sensitive to sweep angle, so it depends upon how the coil crosses the nail as to how the nail acts as a conduit. The nail is much less effective when swept by the coil short-ways at keeping eddies off the coin. Recall that the DD coil directs the main primary field N-S across the coil center. A W-E iron nail is very effective at nulling all non-ferrous under the coil (up to about 3-4" away) when swept with the primary N-S field (lengthwise).

Just assume that when in Ferrous-Coin when over mod-high mineralized ground (or heavily nail infested soil, which has the same effect) that you're going to have problems with audio nulling. I think the Minelab reply if you asked them would be "why are you using the wrong mode, switch to Ground-Coin".

Johnnyanglo "

 

[MINELABBOB]

THE BEST THING I CAN SAY
is try everybodys tech. and come up with your own this is a good way to learn. take a little from every one and make your own set-up.
this is a good way to see what works (IN YOUR AREA)!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Stogger]

Thanks again mrwilburino!

 

[MINELABBOB]

I PLAY ALOT
and all i can tell is ferrous coin needs to have a backup mode like GC OR HT TO BACK IT UP in most areas!!!!! wen it comes to sm. nails or bolts.
and at times i use 5 modes to tell me if it is a dig or no dig!!! today i dug a 10-12 in. token in a area that i had been over before after 5 modes i
new it was dig. so use your modes to make up your mine

MINELABBOB.

 

[sube]

MINELABBOB I wish there was a sure way of a backup but there is not one that works all the time .Look at my vid on top of the page with the screw and half dollar a silent hit but it shows the half on the 12 line degraded to 12.37 this is a high percentage coin hit with a screw in east west hit Lot's of red in the coin cursor a must dig in my book .The more red the better the chance of a coin with iron . Now switching to ground coin you well only get a iron grunt and no cursor on the 12 line = missed coin or nonferrous item .This goes for all other modes except ferrous coin .

So ferrous coin in my book let's more targets show than any other mode even though you receive no audio but at least it's on the screen .As for round iron bolt heads washers and square near round items I dig them because they are very difficult to disc out it a good thing there are few in the ground compared to pull-tabs and foil .As far as using other modes in mild to medium ground in my book ferrous coin is the go to mode I have medium ground where I am at and don't have any use for the other modes .I have used ferrous coin always and am still learning if you don't dig iffy signals your not learning the more you dig the more you learn as long as you remember what the screen and sound says before you dig you will get a handle much faster than just digging and not remembering what the sound and screen looked like .Some day I will try the other modes but still learning on ferrous coin

When minelab says modern trash which I would assume would be pull-tabs foil and what not there are always plenty of nails there so this fits just fine with ferrous coin . sube

 

[MINELABBOB]

HI SUBE
i also found this a long time ago i try to use all FC HT GC LT IN EVERY MODE so wen i need a back-up plan i just go to 1-5 modes.
each mode that i set up has 1 TARGET SEPARATION so i have 4 modes to go by. this helps me tell if i dig or not. so yes i use FC in
my coin mode and the other is set silver in GC etc.and my trash to good targets is 80% good!!!!! i also can tell 80%if its IRON also.
i guess i have a good idea on how to work my CTX if you can do better than 80% please tell me and i will try your way as i to
love to learn new tricks.

thanks 4 your info it was well taken!!!

MINELABBOB

 

[amberjack]

don't think mine has been out of FC in 3 years maybe for 10 mins on GC didn't feel as good, no science behind that either just didn't feel as good what are the other 2 modes for LT & HT ?? etrac ??

sold etrac so if I paid more I want to use what I paid for like sube I am still learning FC , still have to get my head around no sound and there could be a coin there, using a lot of Tesoro's I forget to look at the screen unless I hear something.

so how does that work a null with around that 37 number and plenty of red in the target screen curser is worth a look ? I do see it ( curser) up on the screen jumping around when there is iron and blue in the bottom right corner, ground is mild and screen pretty much open.

in combined mod the sounds bleed a lot as in the sound doesn't match the number its assigned too, I have learnt what its saying but find it interesting and sometimes slightly annoying

AJ

 

[MINELABBOB]

well it can be hard to explane as some new bees have a hard time with digging alote of iron in FC giveing a false signal. now with my tech.
useing GC as a back up to double check the signel. i use FC and have found it to be good on deep targets but not the only mode to use in
(MY AREA/GROUND) if you feel good useing FC all the time COOL!!!! i have been useing FBS detectors since they hit the streets and
have loged thousands of HRS. USEING E-TRAC AND CTX so i am not here to blow smoke up your butt just trying to help!!!!!! if you
want to try and if not your not going to hurt my feelings.

have a nice day

MINELABBOB

 

[amberjack]

wasn't having a go at you Bob , we all find what works for us and maybe I not using all the features as best I can, who knows

not much old stuff around where I live and if it doesn't do what I want it too in the water in might be off to market although I am torn about that because I know it does 2 things well for me in the dirt, so time will tell.

was hoping after more than 3 years of owning this machine a new mode or mode fixes would have been put out and wonder if they ever will time will tell I guess but looking at a lot coming up for sale people are getting rid of them as their warranty runs out.

think mine may have just paid for itself maybe if I can hit some gold with over summer it will have !

AJ