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Hey Cody, Got a Question for Ya

A

Anonymous

Guest
Thanks for posting that message about how to pluck coins from iron. I did not know that you could influence the tones like that.
Here's my question: How have you been handling iron in the ground that is wet and has a halo and hits like a silver coin (falsing)? (small rusty iron wire and nails)
I have done alot of playing around by listening to tone differences in IM -16 to try and identify iron vs. silver. I can certainly hear the difference between silver and iron in Ferrous tones and IM-16. But if I sweep over iron in the ground, it gives off a different signal that hits on the screen, and sounds like silver.
One way I deal with the problem is to find the sweep angle that produces the best "silver" hit. Then I assign that angle as 12noon. I then rotate to 2pm, listen and then to 11am and listen. If the signal is extremely reactive and changes with this small angular change, then I figure it is iron.
How do you handle this?
Mike
 
Mike, I use the digital screen as nails will have an inductance and conductivity reading that are about 28/28 to 31/31. That is becasue eddy current flow around the axis of the nail the entire length. If we change the direction of sweep to the nail the reading will change. A silver coin does not change with the very different sounds and reading becasue coil is round and eddy current flow is in a nice round circle.
I get fooled by square nails where there is just a small piece of the head and shank of the nail but I don't have enough of these to be a problem. So from what I read you are doing the same thing I do in general.
Good suggestions on how you reject nails. A person should be able to kill most nails after a little use. The problem is you really don't know if it really was a nail unless you dig them up. I dug up about 15 to 20 the other day to reasure myself at the site where I found the three mini balls. I am often amazed at the depth of the little bits of nails that is found in wet soil.
I have alwasy understood that iron is more easily detected when wet as the surface is more conductive as is the soil. That is such a common belief that I take it for granted. I have resorted to detecting some sites when the soil is dry to avoid more iron and find more silver. On the other hand if relic hunting then detect a site when the soil is good and damp. I guess it is a trade off but really have not done anything to prove this other than it appears to be correct from experience.
Iron decays so bad and there is what I believe to be a halo. When we dig the target is appears to us that the halo is flat but the halo would be in the shape of the target and cause the target to appear larget than it really is. Of course there is a never ending debate about a halo.
Have a good one,
HH, Cody
 
Just like a threshold lets you hear small differeces in a signal giving you more information, so does a small amount of discrimination. At -14 or -15 you will start getting more nulls in iron which are the clues what to dig, and not to dig.
 
Try the quarter and iron touching as I indicated and go from -16 to -14 or -15 and see what happens! You will see why -16 was suggested. There are times to use -16 and each one up to 0 depending on what we are looking for and the site.
Good to see your post,
HH, Cody
 
Hey Cody,
I don't like any tests other than the ones in real conditions. No doubt I could likely find a coin or two by hunting -16, but that would probably be a result of digging the nails, and the coin happen to be there.
You want to do well in iron... Short sweeps from many directions, lots of time in to know your settings, and go 100% by sound!
The coach will never beat the player. <img src="/metal/html/lol.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=":lol">
 
and have still not found the optimal setting. What I have found is that if I run at -16 I go into an "overload". There are so many rusty iron targets that I tend to miss a weak good target signal. In a recent hunt with a companion that has been having good success, I asked him where he had his mask set. He told me that he was using -10. I had previously been concerned that I would miss too much silver with that much masking. But, I have been using that for a couple of weeks and the silver count has actually increased. I may back off a notch or two from -10.
HH,
Glenn
 
all of the nails and junk and noise in the ground would prevent you from finding deep iffy silver in my opinion.
-14 is great, that's how i pulled out my 1857 dime, i won't say how deep it was. <img src="/metal/html/lol.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=":lol"> because the experts know better.
-14 will knock that distracting noise and those nails right out, and still let you get the prizes.
using IM -16, well...you might as well go get you a gp extreme or something, listen to everything and dig. furthermore, if a person uses IM-16 they're not taking advantage of one of the explorer's great features.
on occasion, i even found where anything below IM 0, would prevent a great signal from coming through. so, there's my 3 cents.
players rule. <img src="/metal/html/wink.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=";)">
 
It is really difficult to not go into overload from all the sounds. I think C.C is correct in that at -15 or -14 we kill the most ferrous iron and it is a lot better. Like so many other settings a user has to find the mask they like for their primary setting.
HH, Cody
 
-16 iron mask takes in everthing from non-ferrous small iron and even a 57 chevy. Learned well just may get nice coin amongst the iron...my feelings -6 takes in just about most non-ferrous and can even see going into -10 to go deeper into rusty nails , scews and the like but I won't hear a horshoe or the buried 57 chevy..A lot depends on the individual, his abilities and what type of mineralization he has which includes how much and how big the iron junk is. Nice to discuss these aspects and glad to see more joining in as perhaps we can all learn a bit more....Learned a long time ago we can never know enough and even after years in the field am still learning...
 
Dan, you are right on the mark in my opinion in that it is user preferences based on location and site variables. IM-16 can really get to you quick. However, I use a lot of different setting and that is one of them.
Have a good day,
HH, Cody
 
Don't have to worry about getting a chair thrown at you and your technical aspects have merits but most testing in lab or recently buried objects are ballpark at best...Again do read and enjoy your posts...and think Bobby is a great coach, but then again so are so many who just sit calmly. Sort of like detectorist we all do well in our own way and are willing to learn...and most above all share..Gosh I am glad you fellows don't live in my neck of the woods. Silver is tough the way it is...
 
Dan, I love to play with my Yorkshier pups. They are two little males and of great joy to my family. It can get rough as we pull a sock back and forth. Sometimes I am walking through the house and one will jump out and grab my trousers. I don't think anything of it and say no no or stop and play with them.
I have been trying to teach myself to relax and retire. The back and forth on a public forum is what one would expect. Somewhere in all that we learn and grow as a person as you know. Most of the time when I post the technical I put technical in the subject line so only people that care for the posts can bother with them. A major reason for posting them is for others to read and pick apart so I can see where I am in my understanind. It is like having a couple hundred proof readers and of great value but cost you nothing. You have met guys like me in person in that I really don't care who is right or wrong but wnat to know the answer. I guess I am what one would refer to as a probem solver. That was what I was paid to do for 46 years and I enjoy any kind of problem. When reading about or looking at technical data or out detecting I rebuild electric and acoustic guitars, amplifiers, and install sound systems. I have some very nice Martin, Fender, and Paul Reed Smits Guitars and some nice old Fender amplifiers. One thing that is really great is I can pick what I wnat to work on and when to lay back in a chair and sleep.
I am ok with the forum comments and if we are very technical or just talk about settings. I notice we are not to discuss other topics or post finds so that is pretty much what we have.
I appreciat your comments and interest. Have a great day and enjoy the retirement years.
HH, Cody
 
Glenn, what do you think about this? I started to use all metal detecting with a VLF back in the early seventies. I got back to this with another detector and had the same overload probllem with all those sounds and tones. I don't want to hear the null of the threshold so here is a solution. They make several different EQs for the output of an acoustic or electric guitar. These are fairly small and you can plug them into the output jack of a detector. You can EQ the sound so the low tones for iron are really kicked down before they go to the headpnones and EQ the high tones up so the come through nice and clear. You end up with low tones for the most ferrous iron that now is not a bother. Depending on the number of frequency adjustments you can set the tones and sound as you like. You can EQ for the sounds you like, have no nulls, and detect at -16 for maximum depth and good target recovery.
An old professor told me when I first started to teach to not teach all I knew in the first class because then there is nothing left.
HH, Cody
 
I, like most that I know, prefer hunting in the conductive mode (and ignore the low tones associated with the pull tabs and those "pesky gold rings"). For this mode you do not get low tones for rusty iron. There is so many rusty iron targets in my area that the detector is in the null as much as 75% of the time. Even with the mask set to -10 I get a lot of ferrous targets that break through the mask and produce kind of a "chirping" sound. In this case I turn the mask off and go through the pinpointing process while stil in the tone ID mode. I do this because there might be a silver coin close to the fettous target. Almost always I find that that the target is about 3" or so away from the position that caused the ferrous target to break through the mask. As you move the coil back towards the point where you thought the target was, then the cursor moves to the right on the screen.
On the beach I use Ferrous mode, but there are not so many ferrous targets at the beaches that I hunt.
HH,
Glenn
 
with just crown caps disced out.
Interesting thread and had to chime in.
I think that one of the main strengths of the explorer is all those crazy tones. They give you lots of information, expecially coupled with the 2 axis display, that you will not get with most other detectors.
Running lots of discrimination is denying yourself much of that info. A null is a null is a null, but with a open screen you get all sorts of noises that can help you decide whether to dig or not.
Yes, it does get tiring, but eventually your brain will tune out the useless iron noises and falses and let you concentrate on the goodies. I'm positive that I've found coins that would be missed in an IM 0 or maybe even a IM-10. IM-14,15; probably not, but I'm so used to my setup that any nulling drives me nuts, and most of the places I hunt are iron laden, so even a little iron mask means almost constant null.
What this does mean that if you want to hunt open screen you need to be in ferrous- otherwise all the high-left iron bits sound the same as the high-right good stuff. No way around it unless you are hunting in an area with no iron trash, perhaps Antartica and 20 acres or so in northern canada. (People are REALLY messy)
One of the few environments that I will change settings is in parks with much modern trash that hits lower right and thus grabs my attention in ferrous. For these areas I will often disc out the bottom half of the screen and switch to conductive. Screw the nickels and gold.
And for anyone who hasn't tried this: Set a nail right on top of a silver coin and start swinging your coil over it as you circle it from all directions. You'll be amazed how wonderful the signal is in a couple of locations and how it completely it is masked in the others. Some of the in between angles is when you get a really iffy signal that would be masked by having much iron mask.
Chris
 
You are where I am but I use ferrous for tones. My smart screen is clear excepth for a horizontal line completely across the screen at a conductivity setting of 15 and then verticle at 0. This divides the display into 4 quadrants. I can estimate the digital reading or go to digital screen to check numbers for the crosshairs. About all I look for is the quadrant and relative position of the cross. If I use iron mask at a setting of -14 or -15 then I have this duplicated on the same screen and stored in an S location. I then set the iron mask mode to -16 for all metals or some other setting such as 0 for precious metals. I don't need to do much digging when this is combined with sweeping the coil at 90 degree angles.
The complete setup for the screen is 4 quadrants with iron mask duplicated in smart screen if used then a second one when the iron mask is ON. I am like you in that I hunted for so many years with no null that I really don't want to not hear what is going on. The primary problem with any discrimination null is there are some goodies that will be masked. That is what iron mask is about in that we unmask or mask depending on what we want to do. I guess I unfold this step by step as it get a little involved but is simple one you get use to it. Good post and appreciated.
Have a good one,
Cody
 
This is what the Smart Screens looks like. The quads represent the general targets found in those areas.
HH, Cody
 
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