Iron Masking?

[KurtB]

I have been detecting for a couple of years now and it seems that every detector out there is in some way judged by it's ability to accurately detect in iron. My question is why is detecting in iron so important? Is it a relic hunting thing? I coin hunt most of the time and modern trash is way more of a problem than iron. The can slaw, aluminum foil, pull tabs and the like are closer in conductivity to coins and jewelry than iron so wouldn't it be better to see how a detector id's against the modern trash instead of iron? Heck, even the very old sites have modern trash these days.

Kurt Bartek

 

[GRAY GHOST]

hello kurt, i think what your're talking about is the machines ability to discriminate out iron objects. you detect "in iron" every time you go out. it's your machine's ability to navigate around the undesirable iron - through discrimination - that makes your settings work so well for coinshooting. i've not yet seen the machine built that will bypass canslaw, pulltabs, or other aluminum junk without losing a lot of good stuff in the same spectrum. i personally hunt for everything; it's easier for me and i don't end up boxed in. when i'm hunting relics, i will dig a good iron signal. hh, and hope it helps.

 

[KurtB]

I usually don't use discrimination and never thought it was hard to tell an iron object even with the different detectors that I have owned. Everybody gets fooled sometimes but I seems that the modern trash gives more fits than iron. I guess what I should have asked is "What do they mean when they say a detector handles iron well and why is it such a common benchmark for detector performance"? Thanks Grey Ghost for your post and to any others that might want to add to this.

Kurt Bartek

 

[Steve(MS)]

Masking can happen with both non-ferrous and ferrous items but for relic hunters and people who hunt in iron, whatever form it comes in, particularly nails can more easily mask a non-ferrous item. Detectors react in different ways when there is a lot of iron in the ground in concentrations, the better ones can give an edge to the hunter so he can find more non-ferrous items.
Non ferrous junk can be dealt with by using a smaller coil, sizing up a signal and/or just ignoring certain segments of conductivity. Either type of trash, it is better to dig "good signals" to find the good stuff.
The reason iron masking is mentioned more than non-ferrous separation is for detectors it is much more of a challenge to the detector, and hunters try to find the older places to hunt that is not littered with modern trash. On the other hand, modern trash isn't much fun to dig up in large quantities.

 

[Jackpine Savage]

usually don't use discrimination and never thought it was hard to tell an iron object even with the different detectors that I have owned.

Iron masking is not about just being able to ID iron. As Steve pointed out, rusty nails and in my experience, rusting away irregularly shaped flat iron cause havoc with detectors discrimination circuits. Some prefer machines that operate quietly around old iron and some like the noisy detectors that let you hear some of the iron bleeding through in the audio. Detector designers have a couple choices when it come to handling iron and for most serious iron hunters the noisy machines are usually the top picks. Some of the newer detectors have a little better balance in that they are quieter in iron yet still allow the closely co-located non-ferrous items to be heard.

Tom