Question: What to set first, second, next?

[OregonMike]

Hi,

About a year ago, I planted a Merc dime in my yard at about 5 inches. Believe it or not, there are times I go out and swing my detector over it and it is very hard to find. Other times it lights right up. Earlier this month, I buried an Indian Head cent at about 8 inches, and it is nearly impossible for me to find. I know that planted coins don't sound the same as those that have had time to build the "halo," but I'm wondering if anyone can help me with my question, which doesn't seem to be answered by the books or videos I've seen. Before I ask my question, I guess I should say the following:

I'm in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. There's quite a bit of mineralization in the soil. I use the stock DD coil most of all. I use the C and J program, but have worked some with the Hi-pro, and much less with some of the others.

OK, now for the question. There are so many user-addressable settings, and changing some seems like it can cause changes to be necessary in others, that it's hard to know what to do first, second, third, and so on.

Let's say I'm out in the back yard, already ground balanced, swinging over my two planted coins, and I'm not hearing them, or maybe just not hearing them very well. What is the very first thing I should change?

OK, so let's say I changed that. Whether I'm hearing the coins or not quite yet, what is the second thing? The third thing? Next after that?

I want to hear from highly successful coinshooters as to how they "tune in" their detectors to get deeper. Bottom line, halo or no, I want to find that 8 inch deep Indian cent!

Thanks in advance for any answers you can provide.

Mike

 

[leojack]

mike great question!This newby with a new v3i will be following this thread.I have read and tried the many suggestions on this great site and when I apply some of them it often takes me back to square one.I share your thought, that changing one setting necessarily affects another and many of the top shooters I read on here seem to know instictively the next step."I don't" and all of the reading and experimenting is worrisome because I dont know what is affected or how!I have factory reset a number of times however, end up trying a plausible better mouse-trap!I'm sure operator error or understanding is essentially at the root.
On a positive note I love this hobby and have a folder full of wonderful finds with my old coinmaster, so discouragement isn't an option.Not for the cash I laid out for this baby.I remain optimistic that this m/d like my old coinmaster, will become an extension of my arm to dig up history.Time in the field, and reading, and understanding what I read will get the results we all wish for.Stay tuned to this site its been great for info and if pass along as I will useful info.........Thanks for the question Jack from penna.

 

[jalon]

Mike, I don't know about Oregon's dirt, but in my hard as cement, dry ground, running any bottle cap reject will kill depth and general finds. I was running the 10" DD and wondering why I wasn't hitting easy coins. Turned the BC reject off and solved the problem. You might want to try different filters, you didn't mention where you were running, but the 5.0 band or 7.5 band work well around here.
You might also want to look at Magic's/Rob's and Yazoo's program----They are having great success and getting deep targets as well.
Please keep us posted, we all benefit from questions and answers on this board.
Good luck
John London
Amarillo, Texas

 

[jbow]

Others can explain this better but first you will want to hold the coil in the air at waist level, set the detector to frequency offset, pull the trigger to pinpoint, change the offset, and check the pinpoint until you have a stable, quiet tone with no "motorboating"... then you can go on the set the ground filter and the recovery delay to match the ground and to match your swing speed. The best way I know to do this is to find a medium depth target and tweak the filter and recovery to get the best audio. You can always check it again later on a deeper target. Of course you should ground balance after checking and setting the frequency offset... I think.
I set the GB offset to +1 but I don't think that comes in any order. I do think you should set the frequency offset first. The GB. Then Filter, then recovery.

I think it makes more sense to match the filter and recovery to match your swing speed and the ground and trash/targets than to try and adjust your swing speed to match the filter and recovery.

I hope this makes some sort of sense...

J

 

[Goat Rancher]

Mike I will give you my take on the subject. Just bare in mind I am in Indiana and my dirt is different than yours. I can tell you what I would do here and maybe you can get a couple ideas. I primarily coin shoot, but I target only old sites so I have plenty of deep targets. I use a modified coin and jewelry program which I have to give credit to Magic for developing what I use. Since your dirt is different I would see what filter gives you the best depth. I can tell you that here it is the 5 band filter. You can experiment with a target in the ground and see what filter seems to work best for you. I would look for the one that gives you the best depth since that is what you are after.. There is definitely something to accepting all VDI's with some exceptions like +95 and -95 thru -89 or so. If you don't want to hear the iron then assign a 0 tone to the negative VDI's. I use a 5 tone for iron like Magic as it gives a ticking sound. This accepting all VDI's, in my opinion and others, will increase depth. The recovery delay to start with I would run in the range of 60 - 80 and adjust from there based on your swing speed and number of targets in the ground. The D2 coil or larger is a must for maximum depth. I would start with Rx 10 and Disc.at 80 and all metal around 70. Perform a good ground balance and see if you can hit your deep targets.

OK, with the preliminary stuff out of the way the first thing I would adjust is the discrimination and run it as high as I could and still maintain stability. I run 90 most of the time and can sometimes run 95+. I would then adjust Rx as high as I could without falsing. I would rather suffer in Rx gain and maintain as much disc. gain as I could if I have to make a choice. At some sites I can run disc 95 and Rx 12-13 and still run smooth. EMI will force me to do freq. offsets and lower Rx and disc. settings sometimes which will decrease depth. In this case an option is to run TX boost as it increases the transmitted signal, but not the receive so you can pick up most if not all the depth you give up. On deep targets I find a slow swing speed is best. If you get a glimmer of a good VDI indication make several sweeps over the target. I find that good targets will improve with multiple sweeps and give a better response.

I am sure others will chime in as I may have overlooked something or they may have a different approach. I like to run pretty much on the edge of instability and I put up with some falsing as a result. I can put up with an extraneous beep now and then. Good targets will come through and I am consistently seeing targets 12-13 inches deep while swinging.

In my opinion bottlecap reject and salt compensate will cost you depth or at least cause a deep good target to be overlooked.

I can't stress enough how important a good ground balance is for maximum depth. I run in trac lock and ground balance when I can after my original balance because my sites are very trashy.

 

[OregonMike]

Thanks to everyone for the input. We're getting rained on now, so it will probably be a while before I can try any of these ideas.

I appreciate people taking the time to write, and I hope there are some more thoughts before this thread passes into obscurity.

Mike