Question for Mike Hillis or other F5 experts

[rabtheranter]

Hi all, I have found a large park here in Scotland that has been a recreational park for around
fifty years and I have hit a real coin seem with so many coins I am leaving the smaller value coins
in favour of the larger getting around 20 dollars every two hours of hunting and it stands to reason
there has to be jewelery there but all I have found is modern rubbish, no gold rings. Questions :-
1: Do you dig every pull tab signal. ?
2: Do you dig everything that is'nt iron ?
2: In pinpoint when hovering over target does gold have a different tone in pp mode ?
3. Is it best to use 2 tone mode or other ?
I feel that if I find a ring i'll at least know what to look and listen for in future but a heads up would help.
my settings are Tone 2 / Disc 8 / Gain 85 / Thresh plus 5 FE 2bars ground damp and undisturbed lawn.

Thanks in advance
Rab

P.S I am detecting in fields at Bannockburn in the next few weeks, next to the real battlefield of Braveheart fame
so I want to be sure to get my settings right, I will post any good finds on here for all to see.

 

[Turtleman]

If you check all the posts by Mike on the F5 he gives the settings to use. I think 3 tone for jewelry hunting in all metal.

 

[rabtheranter]

Hi Turtleman I have checked most of the mike hillis posts but cant see any that answer my questions,
and I cant detect in all metal it drives me nuts, I prefer a fairly quite search with a bit of background hum.

 

[Mike Hillis]

Hi Rab,
Sounds like a great spot if you are pulling that much coinage out it. There should be some jewelry there, however the question is where?

My normal basic jewelry settings are:'
Threshold - a high positive setting, all the time. I like +5.
Gain - raised until it starts to chatter, then reduced until stable. Gound minerals determine if I do this with the coil held still or with the coil in motion.
Tones - most of the time I use the 4 tone mode but it really depends on what I'm focused on hunting.
Discrimination - I usually run around 7 or 8. Unless I'm focused into a particular range of targets in which case I'll use the notches to limit the audio as much as possible to just that range.

Since my turf spots are highly mineralized (maxed out FE304 meter) I also have to setup for that, but since you are only seeing 2 bars on the FE304 meter, you don't have to worry about it and I'll not get into it.

The only places I recover every non-ferrous target and sometimes every ferrous target as well, is in woodchip or sand playgrounds where the recovery is easy and fast. I'm not a fan of digging it all in turf. First, because target recovery in turf takes time and I don't have a lot of time, and second, digging trash for the sake of digging trash isn't fun and I do this for fun. So site reading is a must. If there is not much trash, then sure recover it all. If you get into a lot of trash then its time to be more selective.

I recommend you spend some finding out more info about your park, who uses it, what for, and where. Then hunt jewelry based upon that info. If the local mens football games are regularly played on the south end of the park, then hunt for men size jewelry items in that area. Biggest focus area for mens rings is going to be tab and zinc range targets and that is what you want to set up for and focus on recovering. If the girls and ladies frequent a particular area for sunbathing or what not, then you hunt that area with foil and nickel range targets as your primary sought after target. Set up the detector to allow you to focus on that and ignore the rest.

Chains are different. Since they are normally a hard target to find anyway, if you are going after chains in turf you have to increase your odds of finding them by hunting where they will most likely be found. And that means honing your site reading skills to a higher level. On the tiny girls chains, the F5 will not hit the links but it will hit on the clasps and tags, which means you are after the tiny foil signals hiding in the grass roots and there is a lot of trash in that range so its worthless to spend time recovering those unless you know you are in the best area to hunt for them.

But based upon your coin count it appears you are in a very good spot. I always clad hunt new areas first just to see where the activity is, and I use trash the same way. Soda tabs are also a good indication of activity while foil is not as it gets chewed by the mowers and spit and blown all over the place.

Good luck,
HH
Mike

 

[rabtheranter]

Once again mike excellent advice I shall heed it and keep swinging and investigate the site
further and see what it yields. I'll keep you posted on what goodies I find but I'm still looking
for that elusive gold ring but you never know.

Kind regards
Rab