nulls

[matt04]

Its been awhile since I've done much detecting, but I've recently caught the bug again. I run a Sov.xs-2a Pro. I've finally started a test bed, and wondered how long it usually takes to start getting some repeatable signals. How long does it take for those clads to put out a halo? Also, here in the Texas panhandle our soil is sticky black/brown clay. Is clay considered a mineralized soil? Nulls on the Sov in disc indicate iron, but do they always, or do they also indicate when my sensitivity is set to high. I've always heard you get less depth in auto, but it does stabilize it some at some places I go around town. I may have developed some bad habits in recent years and want to make sure I'm getting the most from my machine. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Matt

 

[cginn]

I don't know how well it works but I read somewhere that if you pour salt water over your planted coins before completely covering the holes with soil, you will achieve a similar halo effect In a day or two as would many years in the ground.

 

[CladJunkie]

I have also read somewhere about using salt water or something like that on coins before you plant them not sure never try it. The Sovereign will null on Iron if you are ruining in the disc mode this is not the same as falsing. With the threshold set to just where you hear a slight buzzing and come to a piece of Iron the threshold will drop out and the detector will become quiet this is the detector nulling out the Iron and is normal, the threshold should come back in a few seconds. As for the sensitivity you should run this in manual mode and the reason being is the detector recovery time will be faster between targets than it the Auto mode. To set the sensitivity start with the search coil on the ground and not moving, (make sure there is no metal there) and with the threshold set to a very slight hum, the threshold should be stable and constant, not "wavering". That's another word for "falsing". When you start to turn the sensitivity counter-clockwise toward "auto" but not clicking into "auto", as you get closer to it, the threshold will start making a "wavering" sound. That's falsing. Turn it back clockwise so that the falsing goes away then your all set. I run my Sovereign with the discrimination and notch off, volume wide open, sensitivity set to the 10 or 12 o'clock position and slight threshole buzz. A most important point is you cannot sweep this machine like a White's or other fast sweep unit you must sweep slowly in order to allow the micro-processor to have a chance to analyse the 17 frequencies. You almost can't go too slow. About 3 seconds for a 4 foot sweep is about as fast as you want to go.I'm certainly no expert with this machine and a lot of what I know, I've learned from reading and by practice with it. Hope this helps.....Happy Hunting.

 

[otlew]

I sweep slow and consequently I don't cover much ground. I hunt with a friend who sweeps his sovereign much faster than I and he covers a lot of ground at the beach and in the parks. He kills me on clad finds, at least 10 to 1, but neither of us have found silver. Another buddy hunts a Fisher F4, and he out does me 5 to 1, he swings it fast and covers a lot of ground. Both find a lot of clad, but I am looking for silver.

Which of us is more likely to find silver with the Sovereign when it passes over silver that is buried deep or null occurs because of iron near by?

 

[CladJunkie]

Oh sure I can turn the disc up and just cherry pick for clad but that's not using the Sovereign to it's full capability and a wast of a good detector. If I just wanted to pick up clad I would not have bought my Sovereign, a 100 buck detector would do that When you go in behind your Buddy's and start to dig up all the deeper stuff they are missing you can just small at them and say "You should have got a Sovereign"

 

[otlew]

Oh sure I can turn the disc up and just cherry pick for clad but that's not using the Sovereign to it's full capability and a wast of a good detector. If I just wanted to pick up clad I would not have bought my Sovereign, a 100 buck detector would do that When you go in behind your Buddy's and start to dig up all the deeper stuff they are missing you can just small at them and say "You should have got a Sovereign"

Now I'm not the kind of guy who would gloat, if and when it happens.

 

[matt04]

Thanks, good stuff. I've been rereading all my old literature making sure I'm doing everything right. I usually run sens. at 11 to 1 o'clock, just wanted to make sure I'm getting the most sens. and depth I can get in our heavy clay soil. I think I may be missing a few deep ones though. I always look for a repeatable signal and check to see if it my pinpoint moves in all-metal, then I know its usually iron, but always check to see if there is another signal right next to the trash. I watered in the coins and junk I buried in the test bed. I'll start checking it next week to see if I can pick it up. Happy Thanksgiving !

 

[Rick(ND)]

I feel with my 13 year using the Sovereign you may not find as many coins as some of the other detectors, but you will find the coins closer to the iron and other trash targets once you know your Sovereign. Most detectors will tell you what to dig with a beep and a ID number or icon, so it can average many targets close to trash as a trash target instead of a coin. The Sovereign will tell you more with it different tones and numbers on a meter if used and if going slow enough you will hear the coin and the trash target, but if you swing the coil too fast you may not hear it. With the Sovereign it will tell you a tone ID and if using a meter will tell you a ID number too to help ID it, so this detector will give you more info and let you decide what to dig and what not to dig.
My wife uses a MXT and does well with it and gets more coins too, but at the end of the day I will have the older and deeper coins than she will and dig less trash too.
The secret to the Sovereign is getting to use it in actual hunting conditions and learn what it is saying to you and go slow so it can see everything and report back to you what it is seeing with it tones and meter readings and let you decide what to dig and what to walk away from. When you know the Sovereign well you will hear all these tones, but you will be able to ignore most of them, but once you hear the right tones you will know it with the first swing over it and check it out further.
One thing more is the more you use it the better you will be with it as you should be learning something new each time out with it.

 

[Critterhunter]

A handy way I've found to determine best sweep speed is to find a really deep target or bury a silver dime at fringe depth. Now try various normal "hunting mode" long sweeps over it at different speeds. Too fast and it will null or even miss the target, but I find that going super slow can also degrade the signal. Something I would call slow or perhaps a slow medium sweep speed provides best depth for me in my soil, but as others have found sweep speed is somewhat dependent on sensitivity setting. The higher you set it the slower it needs to go, and the lower you set it the faster you need to go in order to hit hardest on something deep. Practice will tell you which is what. I know I'm finding that with the 12x10 it prefers a higher sensitivity setting and thus now I'm swinging a bit slower to provide best depth while searching out the next target. Note that this is different than checking a target. That's when a slow back and fourth (3 to 5") constant sweep will bring the best ID/tone out of it.

I've found in particular with the stock 10" coil and the 15x12 that setting sensitivity as high as it will remain stable in my high mineral soil does not provide best depth. It will degrade the signal or even null it out. The 12x10 also suffers a bit from this but by far much less than the others. Most of the time however high I can set sensitivity while remaining stable is where this coil also gives best depth. I believe that's due to it seeing less ground matrix than even the stock 10" coil.

I've always considered clay to be high mineral. Many of my sites around here are limestone clay and tend to have higher mineral content. Not all of them, though. I've got nice black topsoil sites too which tend to have lower minerals.

As for Auto, I think the level of RF noise at a site has more impact on it's depth than mineral content. I've hunted rough ground sites in Auto that gave as good of depth as 2PM on the dial, yet much smoother operation. But I've also hunted low mineral sites in Auto where it wouldn't even give me as good of depth as the LOWEST manual setting. I prefer Auto when hunting something like old paths with stones and packed clay that can cause false hits in any kind of manual setting but Auto seems to smooth out for me. It's interesting that you feel Auto takes longer to bring the threshold back from a null. I've been planning to test it versus manual on various masked coins but my working theory was that Auto would bring it back faster because the machine is constantly trying to keep the machine stable. I look at it like auto ground tracking in a way. I do know Auto has got me coins 6 or 7" deep that I plain out missed with my Explorers and other machines at rough ground sites. I feel it is tuning the machine and thus unmasks coins that might be hidden to a static sensitivity setting when the ground suddenly gets too hot or cold for a static setting.

 

[Critterhunter]

One other thing about nulling. The way I test it is when it nulls I will continue to sweep over that same spot. If the null comes and goes then it's too high of sensitivity. If it's iron you should null over it each and every time. I've found it's always better to turn down the sensitivity when the random nulling happens. The machine is hitting a hot spot that it can't compensate for. I believe if a deep coin is passed over it can push the machine over the edge and it will null over it. I've seen this in tests. I try to always remember that there are far more benefits to having sensitivity somewhat lower than there are to having it somewhat higher when you aren't sure. There is almost not depth difference between say 10PM and 2PM on the dial that I can notice when testing, but the negative factors can a lot. Getting fooled more by iron or hot rocks, erratic machine, unstable ID, and so on. If you find the machine is randomly nulling or that you are digging junk that was giving a halfway decent coin signal too much then chances are sensitivity is too high.

Remember that a fringe depth coin can null just like iron. If I were hunting a clean spot with known deep coins I'd play with sensitivity over that null, or you might want to hunt in PP and start digging those "nulls". Unfortunately most of my known deep coin spots are heavy in trash so I don't dig nulls.

 

[matt04]

I didn't understand the technology behind the sensitivity setting so that helps clarify what that knob actually does. I'd always read and heard to set it until the Sov gets unstable or starts chattering at me and then back sens off just a hair. Now that I've finally put a test bed in I can get a good idea about whats a good setting for our soil. Do you find that soil moisture plays a big part in the Sov being able to detect a target? I've always thought good moisture helped significantly. The last time we went out, it took forever for the threshold to come back with constant nulling. I always assumed this meant that the ground was full of iron. Nice to find out I'm set to high sens. wise. Setting to auto here just playing with it last week did give me better stability and a quicker thresh. return.
Looking forward to trying this in the morning if I can suck it up and bear some cold weather. Thanks for the help.

 

[CladJunkie]

Talking about deeper target signals them are the hardest to describe and are the hardest to learn. What I found is that it's not going to sound like a good signal initially all the time. There is no signal boost with this machine so, the soft signals are just that, soft. Unlike other machines that give those soft or iffy signals, when the Sovereign/Excalibur talks, you need to listen. It isn't going to give you the "false" kinds of signals that we have learned to ignore that you get with the other machines. The good deep signal is going to sound iffy at first but by sweeping over that signal with a very tight, short sweep, the signal on a good deep coin is going to start to rise. Dig those signals. If you find you seem to be digging too many rusted iron targets, ie, nails, screws, etc., you've probably got your sensitivity set too high.

 

[Critterhunter]

Most of the time wet ground equals best depth. But, some high mineral soils actually give less depth when it's wet. I'm not sure why this is but I think when the soil is wet the various different soil components conduct to each other in some way, fighting your coil signal. Most sites for me though give better depth when wet on any machine.