Iffy target turns out be be silver

[C&RHunter]

Even though it's another 100+ day and extremly dry, my detecting buddy and I decided to hit an old park this morning. The park is only used for "frisbee golf" now days, but has been a park back to the 1930s or longer. For me the day produced 6 wheaties and one merc dime, along with assorted clad coins. Nothing stellar about the finds, but I thought the recovery was interesting. I'll add this park has been detected by very many people for a lot of years, but still gives up good finds on occasion. I was using a tight coin discrimination pattern in P1, P2 had only the bottom line disc'ed out. Respose was normal, Recovery Fast on, Deep off. Target Seperation was High trash, pinpoint normal, and was using combined tones. Running in P1, I hit a taget that would chirp right and left from one angle. If I turned 90 degrees, there was no tone at all. So I flipped over to P2 and rescanned. I got a chirp and a blatt (75 hz from 18 down) from one angle and the crosshairs jumped from the bottom right corner up to 12-14/45-46. Then turned 90 degrees again nothing. I then pinpointed by locating the tone center, and then by using the pinpoint button. The target was in the same location with both methods. The target depth was showing 7", so I tried scanning from different angles, the whole time thinking about a couple of posts on here and the CTX classroom. Earthmansurfer has a video on the CTX3030 Classroom "Iffy Signals on Good Targets" that his first coin was very similar to what this was doing. Also, Someone made a post (I believe it was Gonehunting) about pinpointing to determine if an iffy target is more likely a nail or a good target. Summing it up he said using the tone pinpoint and the pinpoint trigger methods, if the target pinpoints in the same place with both methods, it is worth investigating, if not, the target is most likely a nail or some other junk target. With those things in mind and the fact the target was showing 7", I decided to dig. I got down 4-5 inches and the target was still in the hole. I loosened another couple of inches of dirt and the merc popped up. My Lesche digger is 6-1/2" from the hilt to the tip, and I was just starting to get the hilt in the hole on my last dig. I was very surpised that the target that had been so iffy and was 6-7" deep in this extremly dry gound. I would guess it must have been pretty much on edge, from the way the target would tone right and left from one angle, but turning 90 dgrees it was silent. I am very anxious to get rain to find out how this machine will operate with moisture in the ground........HH

 

[firefighter254]

Congrats on the silver and all the finds and thanks for the info on the iffy signals in time we will all figure this machine out the more we use it the better well get HH

---

ctx3030
Etrac
m6
pro pointer
Ulster county ny
http://www.youtube.com/user/firefighter2542005

 

[grouser]

no other items in/near the target ?

 

[squirrel1]

Good information. One would have to figure maybe coin on edge or next to iron. Were you in auto sensitivity and did you try manual? To hit that coin with a tight disc pattern says something good about the CTX too. Thanks for sharing your information.

 

[grouser]

there was probably iron rods in the,, sidewalk,,

 

[Gonehunting]

Even though it's another 100+ day and extremly dry, my detecting buddy and I decided to hit an old park this morning. The park is only used for "frisbee golf" now days, but has been a park back to the 1930s or longer. For me the day produced 6 wheaties and one merc dime, along with assorted clad coins. Nothing stellar about the finds, but I thought the recovery was interesting. I'll add this park has been detected by very many people for a lot of years, but still gives up good finds on occasion. I was using a tight coin discrimination pattern in P1, P2 had only the bottom line disc'ed out. Respose was normal, Recovery Fast on, Deep off. Target Seperation was High trash, pinpoint normal, and was using combined tones. Running in P1, I hit a taget that would chirp right and left from one angle. If I turned 90 degrees, there was no tone at all. So I flipped over to P2 and rescanned. I got a chirp and a blatt (75 hz from 18 down) from one angle and the crosshairs jumped from the bottom right corner up to 12-14/45-46. Then turned 90 degrees again nothing. I then pinpointed by locating the tone center, and then by using the pinpoint button. The target was in the same location with both methods. The target depth was showing 7", so I tried scanning from different angles, the whole time thinking about a couple of posts on here and the CTX classroom. Earthmansurfer has a video on the CTX3030 Classroom "Iffy Signals on Good Targets" that his first coin was very similar to what this was doing. Also, Someone made a post (I believe it was Gonehunting) about pinpointing to determine if an iffy target is more likely a nail or a good target. Summing it up he said using the tone pinpoint and the pinpoint trigger methods, if the target pinpoints in the same place with both methods, it is worth investigating, if not, the target is most likely a nail or some other junk target. With those things in mind and the fact the target was showing 7", I decided to dig. I got down 4-5 inches and the target was still in the hole. I loosened another couple of inches of dirt and the merc popped up. My Lesche digger is 6-1/2" from the hilt to the tip, and I was just starting to get the hilt in the hole on my last dig. I was very surpised that the target that had been so iffy and was 6-7" deep in this extremly dry gound. I would guess it must have been pretty much on edge, from the way the target would tone right and left from one angle, but turning 90 dgrees it was silent. I am very anxious to get rain to find out how this machine will operate with moisture in the ground........HH

thanks for the info.. I will have to pay a lot more attention now.. I tried digging a few iffys like in EmS vids and I still haven't closed the deal on one..

 

[C&RHunter]

I forgot to mention that I was using Auto +3 sensitivity. And, after recoving the dime I rescanned with the pinpointer, filled the hole and rescanned with the CTX. There was nothing to indicate another nearby target or iron in or near the hole. Maybe I got lucky on the dime, but if I get another response like that one, I will pay close attention and check to be sure I am not leaving deep on edge coins. This is all part of learning what this machine can do......HH............Thanks for the replys folks....

PS - I'm not sure what the sensitivity number was when I found the merc, as I don't watch that all the time. I do know the area near there was running around 22-24 range. The machine ran very smooth all day in the park. My XS I always ran Auto, my Etrac I always ran manual. This CTX, I'm leaning towards using Auto, since a lot of places I hunt (farm fields) I have to adjust the sensitivity quite often if I use manual. I guess only time will tell.

 

[Niffler]

Thanks for detailing your efforts. A good account like yours had made it a lot easier for me to understand some of the experiences I've had with iffy targets. Thank you again.

 

[Big Boys Hobbies]

Congrats on the silver! I have yet to turn a true iffy target into a good one by digging.

 

[earthmansurfer]

C&R Hunter - Really nice report. Curious, were you running in high trash? Because I only get those bounces in high trash (or ground coin), never in ferrous coin. The bounces on the E-Trac were a language all it own, lots of fun.

Regarding iffy signals - I have dug quite a few coins that were iffy, maybe 5 or more. At first I was posting that the CTX gave good signals on all coins but I started to look deeper into the iffier signals in the spots I had hunted out with the E-Trac and then hit fully with the CTX. They started turning up. Now, if the ground has lots of trash, I'm not going to be digging as many of them - well, I should say I won't be filming as it takes too long! But when the ground has a fair amount of iron, then I'll try out those iffy signals.

I know a lot of experienced hunters rely on pinpointing to ID good targets from bad ones. I pinpoint (sizing) every target to get an idea of the shape, depth and perhaps (as Evan said) if it is iron or not. But that said, my absolute best find to date was that 9" deep, silver DMark (quarter sized) that hit two ways ok (one plane), but pinpointed just like iron - Super wide. It totally was giving me the idea of falsing on the end of an iron object. But it was a clean hit, not like an iron false, which often is just not as clean or as repeatable. But the VID was more silver coin than iron. And the signal was pretty consistent, but not a 4 way. I'm still upset I didn't film that one, I came so close - would have been award winning.

Answer me this, you have a silver quarter at depth and it's sitting close to a decent sized piece of iron. But not to close that you won't get a signal. What will pinpoint show you? How well might that coin hit being close to iron? I think you got to dig the better iffy signals, clearly not all of them unless you want to clean out the iron.

Next, the difference between 50 Conductive and Combine is huge (at least in my somewhat iron mineralized ground) and I run both in ferrous coin. Combine is GREAT at ID'ing iron. 50 Conductive falses on it alot (but I run sensitivity hot). BUT, because Combine is so good at ID'ing iron, it also seems to improperly ID some targets near iron as iron. Make sense? It can't get them all right, but I have to say, it has only been wrong 2 or 3 times in 40 hours and I check EVERY TARGET in both modes using the shortcut feature. Now, to be fair, I don't dig all of them that Combine says is iron and 50 CO says isn't, I sort of weed through them and dig the better sounding ones. Relating to this - Evan - if you are hunting in Combine I don't think it will turn up as many coins giving iffy signals as 50 CO, due to all that I just said (but hey, I think you are digging less iron than me!). Just my opinion and I'd love to hear yours as I respect you as a hunter - and you other guys as well of course.

C&R - If I can say, IF you are looking for deeper targets - fringe depths for your soil. When you are in auto, the magic number seems to be around 23 or so (but I have to test this) to where the depth cuts off some (just like on the E-Trac - it did it at 24 or 25 - a boost mode kicked in). When I run auto and it drops below that 23 value or so, that is when I switch to manual to keep the depth going. When I'm filming and doing a dig I often turn manual to auto to quite things down. When I start hunting again, if I forgot to turn it back to manual, I notice real quick as I just ain't hearing any deep iron. Just my style, if you care to try.

Learning...
Albert

 

[C&RHunter]

C&R Hunter - Really nice report. Curious, were you running in high trash? Because I only get those bounces in high trash (or ground coin), never in ferrous coin. The bounces on the E-Trac were a language all it own, lots of fun.

Thanks for the input...........Yes, I was using High Trash tone separation...........I will try switching to manual sensitivity if I see the auto dropping below 22-23, and see if that helps produce more deep good targets for me...

There has been a lot of very useful information reported here and on the CTX classroom forum, both by individual reports and the videos you, Gonehunting, and others have posted. Seeing what is going on with the machine during a hunt and then the results, is really helpful...........Thanks to everyone......HH