CZconnoisseur
Active member
Haven't been hunting as much as usual lately due to unpacking and adjusting to the new neighborhood. It's definitely a lot safer and more convenient to everything, but haven't had a lot of time to pour over old county maps and such to locate those older sites (all in good time!)
I dug up my old test garden from the other house and decided to make a new one, but this time it will be easier to access. I hunted some of the front yard and cleaned out a few deep cans from 6-12" down in GM Power, and then used Deus Fast to get the smaller items - I want to build a CLEAN test garden first, and from the responses I get from my custom programs, make a DIRTY test garden later on. So I cleared out almost every metal target and have planted 6 coins already - 3 clad dimes, one nickel, and 2 clad quarters. Dimes are 3, 6, and 9" deep, the nickel is 7" down, and the quarters are 4 and 8" deep. Typical copper-based targets one would encounter in older areas, maybe a tad deep for the average target - but the key is...little to no trash.
The DIRTY test garden will have similar coins at similar depths, but with nails, foil, etc added at various depths - over and/or under the coin(s) in some cases.
So far, I've tested and experiemented with some factory settings and the custom 4 kHz settings over the clean garden, but no matter what I do I can't get the 9" dime in any setting. The 8" quarter sounds best in 4 khz custom settings while the 7" nickel sounds terrible in 4 kHz. I've dug 7-8" nickels in 4kHz reactivity 2 but they all were just repeatable blips with wild VDI readings. Still found 'em though! Switched to 18 Khz reactivity 2 and the nickel sounded beautiful, but so did the adjacent pulltab...so I'm finding out exactly what settings to use per site. 12 kHz can't hit the 8" quarter, but sounds off loud and clear on the 7" nickel. 8 kHz hits both coins "so-so", but still something I would dig in the field. Switching to Reactivity of "1" and low silencer settings helped bring in the 8" quarter better with 12 and 18 kHz settings.
Still learning this awesome machine after 7 months of fairly heavy use - I average about 10-15 hours per week of swing time but lately it's much less due to several things. Hopefully this new set of gardens will improve my perception of the beeps and blips, and then it will be time to unleash Deus in the worst trashy areas of the fairgrounds again!
Once I get everything planted, I have been growing curious as to see how an Etrac or a 3030 will perform in the garden. From what I've read people have been hitting coins at 10" and beyond consistently with these two machines, but anything past 9" (at least as it stands right now for me) I can't reach with the Deus. If either the Etrac or 3030 can hit those deeper coins more confidently than the Deus...then it may be time to add to the arsenal! I know there HAS to be deep, deep coins at the fairgrounds...just wondering how capable another top-of-the-line detector would be in that setting!
I dug up my old test garden from the other house and decided to make a new one, but this time it will be easier to access. I hunted some of the front yard and cleaned out a few deep cans from 6-12" down in GM Power, and then used Deus Fast to get the smaller items - I want to build a CLEAN test garden first, and from the responses I get from my custom programs, make a DIRTY test garden later on. So I cleared out almost every metal target and have planted 6 coins already - 3 clad dimes, one nickel, and 2 clad quarters. Dimes are 3, 6, and 9" deep, the nickel is 7" down, and the quarters are 4 and 8" deep. Typical copper-based targets one would encounter in older areas, maybe a tad deep for the average target - but the key is...little to no trash.
The DIRTY test garden will have similar coins at similar depths, but with nails, foil, etc added at various depths - over and/or under the coin(s) in some cases.
So far, I've tested and experiemented with some factory settings and the custom 4 kHz settings over the clean garden, but no matter what I do I can't get the 9" dime in any setting. The 8" quarter sounds best in 4 khz custom settings while the 7" nickel sounds terrible in 4 kHz. I've dug 7-8" nickels in 4kHz reactivity 2 but they all were just repeatable blips with wild VDI readings. Still found 'em though! Switched to 18 Khz reactivity 2 and the nickel sounded beautiful, but so did the adjacent pulltab...so I'm finding out exactly what settings to use per site. 12 kHz can't hit the 8" quarter, but sounds off loud and clear on the 7" nickel. 8 kHz hits both coins "so-so", but still something I would dig in the field. Switching to Reactivity of "1" and low silencer settings helped bring in the 8" quarter better with 12 and 18 kHz settings.
Still learning this awesome machine after 7 months of fairly heavy use - I average about 10-15 hours per week of swing time but lately it's much less due to several things. Hopefully this new set of gardens will improve my perception of the beeps and blips, and then it will be time to unleash Deus in the worst trashy areas of the fairgrounds again!
Once I get everything planted, I have been growing curious as to see how an Etrac or a 3030 will perform in the garden. From what I've read people have been hitting coins at 10" and beyond consistently with these two machines, but anything past 9" (at least as it stands right now for me) I can't reach with the Deus. If either the Etrac or 3030 can hit those deeper coins more confidently than the Deus...then it may be time to add to the arsenal! I know there HAS to be deep, deep coins at the fairgrounds...just wondering how capable another top-of-the-line detector would be in that setting!
