How well did the Deus do at Culpeper ?

[reconj]

How did the Deus do with the three diff size coils in that red soil ?

 

[vtcivilwar]

I ran the 11 inch coil and the Gold program. It took some getting used to but I dug bulletts at 6 inches. I also dug some iron. It was hard too get used to, the biggest thing I found was non ferrous TDI numbers would flash briefly on the screen. To me, everything sounded about the same. I am hoping the new version will have a "Culpeper" program.

 

[stumpr]

I was running with the 11" coil. I had previously set up a hot ground program that I thought would allow me to accurately discriminate (tonally) down about 5"-6". I thought the Gold Field program might have some answers but like what vtcivilwar said, it all sounded about the same and the target ID was all but useless. Besides, I have a Garrett ATX pulse which is my primary machine at these hunts. That machine goes deep but I must literally dig every target. I felt the first DIV hunt my have some promise for my Deus as this hunt site has a lot of woods where the ground is less mineralized than our second hunt site. My first day, I fire up my special hot ground program (Sens:90, Discrim: 6.3, Freq: 17.6, Reactivity: 3, Silencer: -1, TX power: 2; all with a manual GB. The FE bar was about 50% lighted. I then buried a bullet at 5" and had an accurate discrimation of the target. I know this isn't a very accurate test due to the fact that the bullet had not been buried for 150+ years, hence no halo effect. After about twenty minutes, I noticed that I was not hearing many targets. I re-buried my bullet, checked my GB and scanned the target. Not a peep this time. I tried to increase reactivity and slightly increase the silencer with no effect. I tried cutting TX power to 1, I tried cutting sensitivity back to 80. Nothing helped in my attempts to hear that 5" bullet. That is when I put the Deus away....I later got into a deep trash pit with plenty of nails and ration cans. Was able to dig two bottles. The Deus work flawlessly in scanning my loose trash pit dirt pile. If you have ever tried to scan a trash pit/hut dirt with a pulse machine, it is just about impossible. The Deus will work well in doing this job. However, it still isn't ready for prime time in Culpeper.

 

[shoover]

stumper. Why would you run reactivity setting of 3 for relic hunting? You loose depth with that high setting.drop it to 1. Silencer -1 drop your freq. to 8 kHz and go buy Andy Sabisch book. I owned a Deus for 3 weeks now and see problems with your program because of his book. Had I been their I would have been running non motion audio disc. Then switch back to your program when you find a target and see if you can ID it. I would have been digging every thing except nails that ID .

 

[stumpr]

I ran reactivity setting at 3 as I was hunting a dug-in winter site that is totally infested with flat nails. I will read up on the non-motion audio disc. Andy's book does suggest using the lower frequency settings so I messed up on that one. Thanks for the tips!

 

[shoover]

No problem, Hate to see someone spend money to go to DIV and get flustered. Hope you had a good time besides the struggle with the Deus. I had to edit to add this comment. If you have a deck on your house with nails or screws holding the boards in place. Take the deus out and swing across the nails with the disc. set to zero. Now play around with the reactivity settings, you will see that a setting of one you will hear every nail. You have to sweep a little slower with a setting of 1 but not that much slower.

 

[squirrel1]

stumper. Why would you run reactivity setting of 3 for relic hunting? You loose depth with that high setting.drop it to 1. Silencer -1 drop your freq. to 8 kHz and go buy Andy Sabisch book. I owned a Deus for 3 weeks now and see problems with your program because of his book. Had I been their I would have been running non motion audio disc. Then switch back to your program when you find a target and see if you can ID it. I would have been digging every thing except nails that ID .

With Deus over hotter soil, Reactivity level 3 is better than 2,1, or 0. A setting of 4 would work as well over hotter soil. Remember over hotter soil your depth limited anyways. And I think I'm correct when I say this. The version 3.2 update changed this making the Deus a better detector in hotter soil with reactivity level of 3.

 

[Low-Boy/LCPM]

You would think the deus would work in bad soil but I have read that it is tough on most detectors...I wonder what the racer would do

 

[shoover]

stumper. Why would you run reactivity setting of 3 for relic hunting? You loose depth with that high setting.drop it to 1. Silencer -1 drop your freq. to 8 kHz and go buy Andy Sabisch book. I owned a Deus for 3 weeks now and see problems with your program because of his book. Had I been their I would have been running non motion audio disc. Then switch back to your program when you find a target and see if you can ID it. I would have been digging every thing except nails that ID .

With Deus over hotter soil, Reactivity level 3 is better than 2,1, or 0. A setting of 4 would work as well over hotter soil. Remember over hotter soil your depth limited anyways. And I think I'm correct when I say this. The version 3.2 update changed this making the Deus a better detector in hotter soil with reactivity level of 3.

I'm not sure my book dosen't cover the latest update, I'll have to check it out. Thanks.

 

[markg]

I have yet to have the Deus detect good targets deeper than 6" with the reactivity setting of 3 combined with a silencer of either 0 or -1. Case in point, yesterday I was hunting an old school yard. One where not only I but my hunting buddies have covered many times over. My buddy that hunts with the CTX found what he thought might be a fairly deep wheat or silver dime. His machine gave a fairly constant audio, a little scratchy, but good enough to dig. As usual we cross check the deeper targets between us. I brought my Deus over and got about the same sounding audio. Good enough to dig, but a little scratch too. My settings were frequency 7, discrimination 5, full tones. reactivity 2, silencer 0. Just to drive home my point I changed to reactivity 3, silencer 0 and the audio became so erratic I'd never stop to investigate. The reactive setting of 3 is fantastic in trashy sites where the sink rate is not fast and I can say I've found many good targets at less than 6 deep using these settings. When we recovered the wheat penny it was around 7" deep. Easy for the Deus in clean ground with the correct settings, but if it had been in the Culpepper area I doubt it would have given a peep.

 

[CZconnoisseur]

I have yet to have the Deus detect good targets deeper than 6" with the reactivity setting of 3 combined with a silencer of either 0 or -1. Case in point, yesterday I was hunting an old school yard. One where not only I but my hunting buddies have covered many times over. My buddy that hunts with the CTX found what he thought might be a fairly deep wheat or silver dime. His machine gave a fairly constant audio, a little scratchy, but good enough to dig. As usual we cross check the deeper targets between us. I brought my Deus over and got about the same sounding audio. Good enough to dig, but a little scratch too. My settings were frequency 7, discrimination 5, full tones. reactivity 2, silencer 0. Just to drive home my point I changed to reactivity 3, silencer 0 and the audio became so erratic I'd never stop to investigate. The reactive setting of 3 is fantastic in trashy sites where the sink rate is not fast and I can say I've found many good targets at less than 6 deep using these settings. When we recovered the wheat penny it was around 7" deep. Easy for the Deus in clean ground with the correct settings, but if it had been in the Culpepper area I doubt it would have given a peep.

With my machine and 11" coil, I lose about 2" of depth between Reactivity 3 vs 2. The soil here is mild-to-moderate, and I understand in some other places people struggle to get 6" coins with Reactivity 3 with other similar settings to what you posted. Next time you two are together, try out 4khz and then 12khz with all other settings equal. I'd bet that deep Wheat will hit better in 12khz

4khz works like a charm in aluminum-infested trashy areas if 12khz gets too chatty

 

[markg]

Thanks for the advise, I'll surely try it.

 

[shoover]

Like Markg said , I have a test bed and to hit my 12" nickle and quater I have to set the reactivity to 2 and a silencer of -1 and disc on 0. But my ground balance is 75 and I only have two blocks on the mineralization bar filled. I'd like to have a five gallon bucket of that ground for testing purposes.

 

[Low-Boy/LCPM]

So we can test it at home and see what and how to program our detectors and create a program and save it for when we are in really bad dirt...

 

[stumpr]

It isn't only the dirt but all the broken flat nails that liter these dug in winter camps. I have also learned that all Culpeper red dirt isn't created equal. There are areas in the woods and lower areas that are less mineralized. Then there are other areas, mostly cultivated fields where the ground is super hot. When I see my FE bar light up 50%-60%, I know it is hot.

 

[stumpr]

I did dig a nice trash pit that contained a nice lock plate and two bottles but I found that with my pulse machine. While digging out the trash pit, I would scan the dirt every 10-15 minutes. The machine worked flawlessly. Maybe if this site had not been pounded so badly with pulse machines, especially the Minelab GPX series, I could have coaxed a few shallow bullets to discrim. As I said, on a buried 5" bullet, I had no problem.....then elsewhere on the property, I hardly got a pep with the bullets at the same depth. The Garrett ATX is rock steady in that hot ground so I was just looking for a better option (the Deus) to being able to tell the difference between nails and bullets at "5-6" in the heavy brush and stickers where others may not have gone. There is absolutely no question in that hot ground that the pulse is going to go far deeper in that hot ground.