A
Anonymous
Guest
I will attempt to respond to a question about "THE HALO" asked by direct email. My comments are not instructive but rather to explain my thinking.
I don't have an estimate of the thousands and thousands of targets I have dug over the years. I do know that there is often and area of discoloration where a target has been in the soil. It is very obvious where iron decays and is what I consider to be a halo. The halo will depend on how stable the metal is and goes to the heart of the question, can the halo be detected? Does the halo increase the surface area of a target so you can detect the target at greater depths than a target with no halo?
I believe there is a halo and it depends on the metal as to how much time is required for the halo to form. I think most agree on this but may call the discoloration by some other name. Where silver is concerend there may not be much notice of a halo but over time I believe their is one for the following reasons.
With the old TR detector I could center a target and use a probe made of brass with a small ball about the size of a bb on the end to probe the ground and touch the coin. A plug was then cut and the coin removed so the coin was not damaged. There were a lot of old homes and pubic areas where you could hunt as long as the grass looked undisturbed and did not die so we wanted to know the exact locatio nof a traget so we could remove it with the least damage to the grass and soil. I cannot count the times I cut a plug and could see the coin right at the bottom of the plug or in the hole at the tip of where the plug pulled away from the coin.
When I first started hunting with a detector in the late sixties after the coin was removed I put the plug back in the hole as expected and went on hunting. At some point in time during those first few months it came to me that there might be more than one coin in the same spot. There would be times I would scan back over the plug just to see if there was a second or even a third coin. The first time I heard a second sound I removed the plug and could never find a coin. After a few times I came to realize the second sound was what I thought of as a hot spot where the coin had been in the soil. I had never heard the hot spot called a halo. After I had experienced this a number of times and I would try to remove the hot spot to examine it more closely. I could at times see debris that looked like matted grass and soil mixed together and at times only an imprint in the soil. I soon found that I could detect the spot with a very faint smooth sound. If I disturbed the soil then the hot spot could no longer be detected.
I believe the target creates a bonding to the soil that surrounds the target and effectively increases the surface area of the target. I don't think it is like a circle around a coin but rather turns the coin into a ball shape that includes the coin and the halo. This to my thinking accounted for why some targets could be detected deeper in the soil and the older coins gave a stronger signal. I concluded there was a halo and it was dependent on how long the target had been in the soil, the type of metal, and how the target reacted to the mineral in the soil. I hunted for years knowing, as far as I was concerned, that an old dime can be detected deeper and has a halo that makes it about the size of a quarter sized ball.
I don't know about gold as I have only found one gold coil and jewelry comes in so many different sizes and grades that I have never bothered to check for a halo. Gold is so stable that I doubt that a halo exists but frankly don't know from experience.
So, from my personal experiences I do believe there is a halo and that it can be detected even after the target is removed at least with the old TR detectors. I have not tested this with the newer VLF detector and never thought about it up to the debates on the forums. I don't know about the detection of a halo with a VLF detector. There is a very different way that we hunted with the old TR with a fairly high frequency and the VLF of today.
However, I have to say that I do believe there is a halo and that it can be detected, but am not sure if it depends on the type of detector. As example flour gold is detected with a detector that operates at about 60khz which is not far from where the old TR operated.
The bottom line is if told to swear by the answer then I believe there is a halo and it can be detected. It would take solid scientific fact to make be believe I was mistaken all those times and for so many years but..............I can be.
HH, Cody
I don't have an estimate of the thousands and thousands of targets I have dug over the years. I do know that there is often and area of discoloration where a target has been in the soil. It is very obvious where iron decays and is what I consider to be a halo. The halo will depend on how stable the metal is and goes to the heart of the question, can the halo be detected? Does the halo increase the surface area of a target so you can detect the target at greater depths than a target with no halo?
I believe there is a halo and it depends on the metal as to how much time is required for the halo to form. I think most agree on this but may call the discoloration by some other name. Where silver is concerend there may not be much notice of a halo but over time I believe their is one for the following reasons.
With the old TR detector I could center a target and use a probe made of brass with a small ball about the size of a bb on the end to probe the ground and touch the coin. A plug was then cut and the coin removed so the coin was not damaged. There were a lot of old homes and pubic areas where you could hunt as long as the grass looked undisturbed and did not die so we wanted to know the exact locatio nof a traget so we could remove it with the least damage to the grass and soil. I cannot count the times I cut a plug and could see the coin right at the bottom of the plug or in the hole at the tip of where the plug pulled away from the coin.
When I first started hunting with a detector in the late sixties after the coin was removed I put the plug back in the hole as expected and went on hunting. At some point in time during those first few months it came to me that there might be more than one coin in the same spot. There would be times I would scan back over the plug just to see if there was a second or even a third coin. The first time I heard a second sound I removed the plug and could never find a coin. After a few times I came to realize the second sound was what I thought of as a hot spot where the coin had been in the soil. I had never heard the hot spot called a halo. After I had experienced this a number of times and I would try to remove the hot spot to examine it more closely. I could at times see debris that looked like matted grass and soil mixed together and at times only an imprint in the soil. I soon found that I could detect the spot with a very faint smooth sound. If I disturbed the soil then the hot spot could no longer be detected.
I believe the target creates a bonding to the soil that surrounds the target and effectively increases the surface area of the target. I don't think it is like a circle around a coin but rather turns the coin into a ball shape that includes the coin and the halo. This to my thinking accounted for why some targets could be detected deeper in the soil and the older coins gave a stronger signal. I concluded there was a halo and it was dependent on how long the target had been in the soil, the type of metal, and how the target reacted to the mineral in the soil. I hunted for years knowing, as far as I was concerned, that an old dime can be detected deeper and has a halo that makes it about the size of a quarter sized ball.
I don't know about gold as I have only found one gold coil and jewelry comes in so many different sizes and grades that I have never bothered to check for a halo. Gold is so stable that I doubt that a halo exists but frankly don't know from experience.
So, from my personal experiences I do believe there is a halo and that it can be detected even after the target is removed at least with the old TR detectors. I have not tested this with the newer VLF detector and never thought about it up to the debates on the forums. I don't know about the detection of a halo with a VLF detector. There is a very different way that we hunted with the old TR with a fairly high frequency and the VLF of today.
However, I have to say that I do believe there is a halo and that it can be detected, but am not sure if it depends on the type of detector. As example flour gold is detected with a detector that operates at about 60khz which is not far from where the old TR operated.
The bottom line is if told to swear by the answer then I believe there is a halo and it can be detected. It would take solid scientific fact to make be believe I was mistaken all those times and for so many years but..............I can be.
HH, Cody