Iron falsing - my DD coil or the Delta?

[bb_maine]

Just picked up the 11" DD coil for my Delta, and although I have only got about 20 hours in with it, I notice a good amount of iron falsing. Generally, I'll have iron nulled out, and often I'll get a nice repeatable reading, in the 80's on the VDI, and then when I go to pinpoint I notice there's a really strong iron signal right nearby, between 6 and 12 inches away. When I dig, this is confirmed. So it appears that it give a false reading right on the fringe of the iron signal. Has anyone else noticed this? If so, which piece of equipment is more to blame, the DD coil or the Delta? I realize the Delta isn't a world class machine, but others have spoken highly of it. I feel like I just can't ever trust what it's telling me. Had a reading today, was coming up between 75 and 82, 3-4 inches deep, turned out to be a bottle cap. A lot of nails coming up as silver... What gives? I think it would give me a good reading on a target if it was relatively shallow, and there was absolutely no iron around. In any other case I feel like it s a crapshoot. Kind of disapointing and I'm thinking about another machine...??? I think I am walking away from a lot of targets that might be keepers because the readings on this detector are all over the map... Last question - what is teh best sensitivity to run teh Delta on? I've been sticking to 10 - I'm guessing the higher the sensitivity the more likely it is to give a false reading, right? Thanke in advance for any insights... B

 

[Steve missouri]

bb maine: DD coils have a tendency to false when you sweep over a piece of iron and go off of the edge of the iron, usually giving you a quarter signal and reading,worse at higher sensitivity. Raising the coil and sweeping slowly will usually tell you that is what is happening, not always but most of the time this will work.

 

[bb_maine]

Thanks Steve - yep, that is my experience... I will try the coil raising method and see what happens. Basically, I've been going into all metal or pinpoint, and if there is a real strong iron signal right next to the good tone, I'll walk away, especially right now since the ground is still basically frozen making digging a real chore... But you never know when there actually might be a good target next to a ferrous object, in which case I'll miss out on a regular basis...