CZconnoisseur
Active member
Made it out today with Dad and Gerald again not far from where we hunted last week - we started out finding a lot of clad, but after about 60 minutes and only one Wheat between the three of us we decided to find some older dirt. Drove a couple blocks away, saw a rental, and called the number listed. Didn't get immediate permission to hunt THAT house but Gerald knew someone who lived in a house across the street we let us have a go in his front yard as well as the house next door! We were all excited to get digging, but almost as soon as we turned on the detectors, EMI became a eal nuisance.
I looked overhead and noticed no less than 10 wires running into the two houses from the street - this part of town I guess NEVER buried their cables - so there was no escaping the interference today
I started off in 4 khz and the noise was just stupid - tried 12 khz which was marginally better, but there existed a lot of deep iron targets that 12 khz liked to false on! 8 khz and 18 khz were absolutely unbearable, so I just decided to grin and bear 4 khz and sacrifice some depth. Reactivity 2 handed EMI better than Reactivity 3 - so didn't come out of that for the entire hunt. Gerald was first to score an old coin - a Wheat, and then Dad found a shallow one not ten feet from me. I got a funny "48" signal that was fairly steady which turned out to be 3 nickels and one dime stacked together in the same hole! Too bad that spill wasn't about 30 years older - but clad adds up over the months so I'll take it. I think EMI affected everyone today, I remember Gerald having trouble with one of his detectors not giving a consistent readout while scanning a target - come to think of it I had the same problem! So, relegated to picking tones out from the chatter, all three of us just kept swinging and digging...
Next I got a mid 60s moderate tone and pulled a beautiful green 1926 Wheat that still had lots of detail remaining. Rescanned the hole and found another Wheat, dated 1924; in almost the same state of preservation - Wheats around here usually don't fare well, but these two lovely coins somehow escaped our corrosive soil!
Not long after that Dad got a signal that he liked right from the start. He called me over and I got a strong "86" in 4 khz- and told him he'd probably like that one! From less than 2" down out comes a 1961 quarter - and this got all of us excited even with the horrible EMI! No matter what I tried with the Deus today - the EMI was just almost overwhelming, and I knew we all were walking over deep targets, but what can you do?
After we had our fill of the first yard, we walked next door and started hunting the homeowner's place where Gerald had found some nice coins on a previous hunt. First target I hit was a shallow 1941 Merc, then he pulled a Wheat soon after. This yard was much smaller so it didn't take nearly as long as the EMI-infested yard. There was again - a lack of deep targets here, but I suspected fill dirt at one location since occasionally large trees died in the neighborhood which required heavy equipment to come and pull out the stump, and I would venture a guess that some people paid to bring in fill dirt to keep their yard level.
Once we hunted boht yards, we were standing around wondering "Where to next?"
About three houses down I saw a rental sign but found out through a neighbor the house wasn't original to the old neighborhood. Both houses we hunted so far were built between 1905-1910, and I didn't want to give up the old dirt if I could possibly avoid it. Two houses down - the opposite direction - I noticed a man moving into a duplex, so I approached him and asked permission to scan the front yard. He gave us the OK, and we all talked a little bit once we were done - this guy is in a residency at one of our hospitals and just came here from Kansas City. We showed him what we'd found so far - and I made the joke of "Well I only found one old coin in your yard (1913 Wheat), so your house was rather stingy!" He had only been in Memphis for 2 days, so we all suggested some nice restaurants in the area, of which he was grateful since he was a self-admitted "foodie" LOL
One never really knows who they will run into when "obtaining permission" or "door knocking", but at times like these our hobby is "out for display" so not leaving any digging evidence goes a long way if you'd like to hunt the neighbor's yard, and then his neighbor's yard, and then the house next to him, et al.
GL & HH
I looked overhead and noticed no less than 10 wires running into the two houses from the street - this part of town I guess NEVER buried their cables - so there was no escaping the interference today
I started off in 4 khz and the noise was just stupid - tried 12 khz which was marginally better, but there existed a lot of deep iron targets that 12 khz liked to false on! 8 khz and 18 khz were absolutely unbearable, so I just decided to grin and bear 4 khz and sacrifice some depth. Reactivity 2 handed EMI better than Reactivity 3 - so didn't come out of that for the entire hunt. Gerald was first to score an old coin - a Wheat, and then Dad found a shallow one not ten feet from me. I got a funny "48" signal that was fairly steady which turned out to be 3 nickels and one dime stacked together in the same hole! Too bad that spill wasn't about 30 years older - but clad adds up over the months so I'll take it. I think EMI affected everyone today, I remember Gerald having trouble with one of his detectors not giving a consistent readout while scanning a target - come to think of it I had the same problem! So, relegated to picking tones out from the chatter, all three of us just kept swinging and digging...
Next I got a mid 60s moderate tone and pulled a beautiful green 1926 Wheat that still had lots of detail remaining. Rescanned the hole and found another Wheat, dated 1924; in almost the same state of preservation - Wheats around here usually don't fare well, but these two lovely coins somehow escaped our corrosive soil!
Not long after that Dad got a signal that he liked right from the start. He called me over and I got a strong "86" in 4 khz- and told him he'd probably like that one! From less than 2" down out comes a 1961 quarter - and this got all of us excited even with the horrible EMI! No matter what I tried with the Deus today - the EMI was just almost overwhelming, and I knew we all were walking over deep targets, but what can you do?
After we had our fill of the first yard, we walked next door and started hunting the homeowner's place where Gerald had found some nice coins on a previous hunt. First target I hit was a shallow 1941 Merc, then he pulled a Wheat soon after. This yard was much smaller so it didn't take nearly as long as the EMI-infested yard. There was again - a lack of deep targets here, but I suspected fill dirt at one location since occasionally large trees died in the neighborhood which required heavy equipment to come and pull out the stump, and I would venture a guess that some people paid to bring in fill dirt to keep their yard level.
Once we hunted boht yards, we were standing around wondering "Where to next?"
About three houses down I saw a rental sign but found out through a neighbor the house wasn't original to the old neighborhood. Both houses we hunted so far were built between 1905-1910, and I didn't want to give up the old dirt if I could possibly avoid it. Two houses down - the opposite direction - I noticed a man moving into a duplex, so I approached him and asked permission to scan the front yard. He gave us the OK, and we all talked a little bit once we were done - this guy is in a residency at one of our hospitals and just came here from Kansas City. We showed him what we'd found so far - and I made the joke of "Well I only found one old coin in your yard (1913 Wheat), so your house was rather stingy!" He had only been in Memphis for 2 days, so we all suggested some nice restaurants in the area, of which he was grateful since he was a self-admitted "foodie" LOL
One never really knows who they will run into when "obtaining permission" or "door knocking", but at times like these our hobby is "out for display" so not leaving any digging evidence goes a long way if you'd like to hunt the neighbor's yard, and then his neighbor's yard, and then the house next to him, et al.
GL & HH
You both got your coil over some silver. I hunted that location last Summer, but the dry conditions and EMI drove me away. I think I did find the oldest wheat penny (1910) and tell you dad that 100 peso coin that I found is worth more than a whiff of a taco. 
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?79,2207562
Pretty good day for working under the wires! That strategy my help you guys get into a place that nobody could hunt back in the day...if you can find where some old lines go through an old section of town?