Iron Mask, settings and results

[Anonymous]

Reading Bill in Ill's post on the FBS forum where he found the nail clipper with the silver ring, prompted me to make this post explaining why I think running iron mask with the following settings when ever possible is such a good idea. Now he stated he got a high silver tone, yet the reading on the smart screen was in the indian head area. The way the explorer reads a target on the smart find screen measuring its iron content as well as its conductivity will cause to happen happen, the iron and silver together kind of averages out at a lower reading than silver yet much higher than iron on the cross hairs. Now having the response set to conductivity only, the explorer still trys to report the target with the highest conductivity reading(silver) while over that part of the two targets, so you still get the higher silevr tone. If the audio was set to ferrous, you might not get alerted to this target, at least maybe not enough to make you stop and check the screen, So using you ears with your settings like this, and paying close attention to when the smart screen is not reading where you think it should be by the tone you are getting, will net you some nice finds others might bypass or never hear to begin with. Now Bill says he wasnt running in iron mask when he found it, but I will bet the area of the screen it came in on was open, had it been a gold ring, and the majority of the left side disced out I bet it wouldnt have reported it. I have dug quite a few coins in iron that read high left of middle, not much above where the highest iron mask setting would knock it out, or a ferrous mode audio would have given me a low tone, butn by opening up iron mask a bit to -8 or a bit more and running conductive audio I heard those coins loud and clear, and from where I saw it reading on the screen I knew it was something good, too far right for most iron and the tone unlike the iron ping that almost all big iron that does respond responds with, the combo of good audio with an odd meter reading is almost always a good sign. Had I been running in ferrous audio, I might not even glance at the screen thinking it was just more iron or foil. Trust your ears with the explorer while using the meter as a guide, and you wont dig much trash and you wont miss many good targets. I will be making another post on how to get the smoothest audio responses later on. from reading emails and some of the posts with people having trouble distinguishing tones and getting warbles, I am convinced its the way they are sweeping the target. once you get the correct sweep with the right audio settings it s easy to get a good target to sound good and solid, but still difficult to get a bad taget to sound good and steady.. there are a few exceptions, but once you learn the distinct tones that they give off, most of those can be eliminated also. I am not sure if running in digital will get you the same results when in iron, If digital is reading targets by conductivity alone then it may work as well in that setting as well, but I dont see how you could compare off reading targets unless running in ferrous mode....still praying for one more warm spell..really want to do some 8 inch coil comparisons <IMG SRC="/forums/images/smile.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="">

 

[Anonymous]

Hope to try iron mask out more this week at an old resort where I found some old coins earlier this year.Looking forward to more of your posts.I will be using the 8inch.Took it out once and I like it alot)

 

[Anonymous]

....may illustrate what you are saying. The clips are a bit rough and are only examples of what happens when the goodie is next to or near Iron. I had one configuration that showed the cross hairs around Indian head penny that was still sounding off as a silver dime but the video was too rough to add. But it did show exactly what you just described to a T.
Where you set you reject I believe should be based on one thing only and that is what your willing to tolerate in your headphones. I have hunted in many different conditions, some were clean enough to run IronMask -10, and some were so trashy and Iron ridden that a tight upper right hand corner coin program was the only way to go. The perfect medium was a choice between Iron Mask 0 and the preset coin pattern(both very close), and that's as low as I can go in my current hunting site before it gets unbearable. Turning down the sensitivity and switching to fast recovery helps but not enough.
If I don't always promote using an Iron Mask setting it's because my immediate sites don't permit it and anyone would agree when the nonstop consistent Iron screech began tarring their ears apart <IMG SRC="/forums/images/smile.gif" BORDER=0 ALT=""> I hunt the middle ground conditions because they are quite productive, there are sections of my site that Iron mask -8 is usable but only for a short time and they have been no more productive and are the most clean out spots. After reading your posts I would say that without any doubt if I hunted in any of your sites that it would be safe for me or anyone to run in low Iron Mask, as is shown in your many fantastic finds. The red ash around here though is so prevalent that it can get quite noisy in the phones with less reject.
Anyway, I would recommend Iron mask to anyone whose overall hunting conditions permit using it, mainly because you hear can more but also because there is the possibility that the Explorer recovers faster from accept than reject -which I watch closely when I'm out now.
BTW, great post Jim! Observations are something we can all work with, and definitely help us all excel in the hobby. Plus I realize my 2-1/2 years in the hobby leaves me with many voids that can only be filled with more field experience and reading the posts that you and other more experienced hunters add to the forum.
GL/HH
<CENTER>Here's the link

 

[Anonymous]

pulltab with the crosshairs but sounded good. After I pulled it out of the hole and set it on the ground and ran the coil over it again--same thing, crosshairs read pulltab. At the time I did not know it was silver not until I cleaned it up at home and read sterling did I think about the crosshairs again. Then I remembered that somewhere in the park I was hunting it had happened again but this time I didn't dig. now I can't remember where it was located. Is that a bummer or what? It has to be something good. I will never make that mistake again. Just thought I would tell this story. It does though relate to your post because I Didn't find anything else near the ring. I do love this machine! D.

 

[Anonymous]

Well yes it does relate to what I was saying, it doesnt neccessarily have to be averaging that cause it to read different, size also comes in. Smaller silver read much lower, half dimes and 3 cents dont read as high up and right where a dime or quarter would on the meter, but still give the silver tones... use your ears if it sounds good dig it, and if your in a spot with little targets dig it all, digging everything once in a while is the best way to learn what the differnt stuff sounds like.. you may think theres too many tones to learn, but more imprtant than the tones is the quality of the tones. you get a nice solid tone that doesnt waver its almost always a good thing no matter where it reads.. the good thing is you can rely on the meter in high trash, but still dig those ones that just sound too good to pass even though they are saying tab or foil, Unlike most machines that either you disc them out entirely or bite the bullet and dig it all, me I prefer to spend my time digging good targets, instead of spending 3 hours digging all for maybe one good target of the bunch, again it depends just how many targets are at the site your hunting, but in trash, give me one that tells me as much about the target as it can..At this time I dont think any machine gives you as much info as the explorer, and best yet do it at depth and in tough ground.....