Metal detector false positives

[candicetresch]

So I began metal detecting a few months back.

After spending over 100 hours on my yard, I thought I just sucked.

I bought a better metal detector for my birthday and metal detected a park. So many hits and all gave me something new.

When I tried again in my yard it just kept going off. So annoying I had to turn the volume way down.

Went and metal detected my dads house, and it didnt do that.

So why does my yard do that? Yet no where else has?

 

[Diggindumbstuff]

Could be a lot of garbage everywhere or lots of electrical interference. Power lines above or below ground, dog fence, WiFi. Maybe wrong settings. Could be a few things. I had a similar problem years ago and it ended up being a goofy coil. Hard to say. You will figure it out. Stick with it.

 

[candicetresch]

Definitely will stick with it. I love finding everything, even if it is just screws and nails lol!

I love this hobby

 

[Ronstar]

Wait til find for first ring or silver coin.......let the good times roll!!!

 

[WV62]

Congrats on a good start, you figured out that the problem was your yard or the area your yard is in and not the detector. Some would have give up and put the detector in the next yard sale. You need to tell us what kind and model of your detector and these guys will help with advice. Once we know what you have then they can fist tell you if the machine is any count or not. Trust me I have went through a bunch of junk machines in my years of detecting.
If your machine turns out to something that they think you can work with they will start giving you tip on settings and get you huge jump start.

We will be watching,

Ron in WV

 

[Ronstar]

Back to your original question, a couple thoughts. Not sure what detector you have but if you can discriminate out (or eliminate) the iron tones by the controls, try that and see if it quiets down. If so, turn your gain controls up down and see if it further descends. Ground balance another noise maker. Diggin..... is correct too, electrical interference a party pooper. Where you live, older or newer housing area? Sometimes backfill is brought in from outside area and that could be contaminated with trashy junk. Yet, if it came from an old farm or rural area you could have older coins under you that are way before the area was built. Keep being a detective as that works. Dont get me started on gold rings, they be in the trashy signal range.

 

[Tony-Ok]

So I began metal detecting a few months back.

After spending over 100 hours on my yard, I thought I just sucked.

I bought a better metal detector for my birthday and metal detected a park. So many hits and all gave me something new.

When I tried again in my yard it just kept going off. So annoying I had to turn the volume way down.

Went and metal detected my dads house, and it didnt do that.

So why does my yard do that? Yet no where else has?

At first it is good to did a lot , even trash ! Start to listen closely to the repeatable signals .... how they sound smooth, small signals . Also listen to the crackley, scratchy. The main thing is audio-first good stuff usually has smoother audio practice, practice.. it’s something you learn over time .what detector are you using???

 

[still looking 52]

After reading your original post a couple times it sounds like your yard is the problem not your detector, there are certain areas you just can't metal detect because of power lines around, we've all hit areas like that, nothing you can do about it.

 

[candicetresch]

At first it is good to did a lot , even trash ! Start to listen closely to the repeatable signals .... how they sound smooth, small signals . Also listen to the crackley, scratchy. The main thing is audio-first good stuff usually has smoother audio practice, practice.. it’s something you learn over time .what detector are you using???

Delta 4000

 

[Tony-Ok]

Delta 4000

That’s a good detector! Practice.... the more you use it , the better it gets

 

[MattBullSummerville]

Some models of detectors get real chatty in some soils when the sensitivity is high. Play around with your settings and may be turn down the sensitivity lower than you usually run it in places like your yard.
HH

 

[jmaclen]

I have tried a Fisher F44, Teknetics Minuteman, Teknetics Gamma and a Teknetics Omega 8000 in my backyard which has lots of electrical interference, lots of ground mineralization due to volcanic and iron rich dirt and lots of roofing nails from having several roofs in the 27 years I have lived in my house due to hail storms. The electrical interference and the ground mineralization drove those 7.65 kHz metal detectors crazy in my back yard. I also have tried to run several 13 kHz detectors like the Teknetics T2 and Fisher F75 there too and it was impossible without lowering sensitivity to 1/3 power. Same problem with several other similar detectors from other companies. So, these are all great detectors just like your Teknetics Delta. They just happen to not like the detecting conditions in my backyard or in any other high EMI/ground mineralization area I have tried to use them in. On the other hand, the Fisher F19 and Teknetics G2+ operating at 19 kHz are totally quiet which tells me that the EMI is mostly at lower frequencies than 19 kHz and that the ground mineralization in my backyard is handled better by shorter/smaller wavelength detectors.

So, I bet your Delta 4000 is fine. Next time you turn it on in your backyard, use your normal settings and point the coil up at the sky and/or point the coil away from the ground in mid air about waist high and rotate 360 degrees. If you get lots of chatter no matter where you point the coil you know that your yard is flooded with EMI.

If your detector is fairly quiet pointed away from the ground but gets noisy as the coil nears the ground, try lowering the sensitivity and maybe rejecting iron since your detector's preset ground balance setting cannot handle your soil conditions.

If the first two tests do not show any problems but when you sweep the coil over your backyard you gets tons of signals, then you just may have a really trashy backyard kind of like my yard full of roofing nails at various depths.