Question about hunting in a trashy site.

[Mick in Dubbo]

I was hunting on this site today where an old weather board house stood.This house was burnt down recently and the top layer of dirt scraped off.The ground is full of nails eta.I decided to hunt in the all metal mode on my X-T30 despite the number of hits I was getting,and was wondering under these conditions,with so many hits on the coil,when I pass over a coin(they are either all copper or silver) is it normal to get a solid hit, or will a nearby junk target cause the signal to be chopped?
Thanks,
Mick Evans.

 

[Tinfoil]

if you get a good/iron signal, raise your coil up off the ground some to see if you can separate the target and get the good target tone. Or just pinpoint it and see what the tone is and if it changed or got better. Dig the iron target and see if the good target is still there. Some times a piece of iron will high tone along with a low tone making you think you got a Iron/good target. Hunting in the iron is a real challenge even for us old guys that have been around a long time. However I have dug some really nice stuff out of the iron and trash. You got to do the work though. Maybe some of the other guys can help you on this one. That is what I do anyway. Around here the trash and iron is the only place you can find any decent targets unless you want to do some driving. It has been hunted that hard. hope this helped you some. Now go try it out. You might be surprised. Later Jerry aka Tinfoil

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

Thanks Jerry.
It's a bit too cluttered to do that.There are some spots that you can do that, but the reason I am using the all metal mode is I hope to tell if a good target is been hidden by the iron.This is a double house site, both were burnt to the ground. The first house was made of brick and built around 1880. The second house(which is the one I was hunting yesterday was a miners cottage built around the early 1900s.There has been only one other detectorist that has hit this site(most days for the last 2 weeks) and so far it has netted him around 50 coins and still producing!He even pulled out an 1878 U.S trade dollar!Not bad for a site that is about as far away from the U.S. as you can get!He swings a Quattro. He tried to hunt where the miners cottage was, but found it too hard for his Quattro.
So far, I have managed to pull out a 1943 half penny(on the drive-way) a gunpowder holder, used for loading the old muskets, and an old lead soldier.I'm looking forward to getting back to this site to see what else it can reveal as this is really the first time I have specifically targeted a site for pre-decimal coins(did go here about 8weeks ago). Just looking for a bit of insight from those that are more experience at this (like yourself)as to how to tackle a site like this.In the mean time, experimenting looks like the way to go.
All the best,
Mick Evans.

 

[Digger]

Mick, The problem you are encountering at this site is very similar to the problems I mentioned a week or so ago on this forum. I'm convinced that it has nothing to do with how we have adjusted our X-Terras. But everything to do with the size of the coil. The current 9-inch concentric coil simply allows too many targets to be analyzed at any one time. It isn't the choppy audio created by a nail being adjacent to a coin that prevents me from finding the goodies. When running in all-metal, if I can hear both tones, I will investigate. The problem is target masking. The nails and iron were so dense at the site I hunted that I couldn't detect a coin laying on top of the ground. The rejection of the trash simply caused the X-Terra to blank out on anything under the coil. At sites like this, I believe the only solution is a smaller coil. Unfortunately, there is not a smaller coil available for the X-Terra at this time. I understand Minelab is working on one and hopefully, it is available soon. Until then, I might suggest you continue to hunt in all-metal, so you do not create more of a target rejection "blanking" situation. And, since the top layer of dirt has been removed, try detecting with the coil held several inches above the surface. I know that sounds odd and will probably be physically tiring. But the "target sensing pattern" of the concentric coil will be smaller with the coil held further away from the targets. Remember to overlap your swaths more than you normally would with the coil close to the ground. You can replicate this with airtests, to a certain degree, and get an idea of the detection pattern required to separate targets and the "depth of detection" that you can maintain. JMHO HH Randy

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

Thanks Randy.
Yeah you're right on about the smaller coil.
It looks like you and Jerry are on the same page on how to approach a site like this.I must have been half asleep when I read his post yesterday as I only took in the bit about raising the coil to pinpoint.I'll also try lowering the sensitivity to see if that helps.
The very thing I hate about the concentric coil looks like being my saving grace in this situation (normally after ground coverage for cherry picking all those $1 and $2 coins in the parks, over $500 with the X-30 so far).If I can find time, I hope to get back to this site over the week-end and if I make any descent finds I'll post them.
Thanks again for the insight,
Mick Evans.

 

[Digger]

Mick, Congratulations. Finding opver 500 $1 and $2 coins is a remarkable accomplishment, considering the short period of time that the X-30 has been on the market. Nice job!!! Let us know if you have any luck at that site this weekend. HH Randy

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

Looking forward to markedly improving on that come October.Due to a couple of long term injuries from my current employment,I'll be taking some long service leave and going down to the city of Newcastle to look for work and hopefully move to.I've already identified about 40 really hot zones that of which at least some I should do very nicely. Oh and there are also heaps of beaches to hit too!Yippee!Can't wait to get down there.
Mick Evans.