Made a trip "back home" to Utah for some seminar business and to help the locals thin the coin and jewelry count at a major city park renovation. I arrived on Thursday, two or three weeks after they first started tearing out the lawn, and was notified they had already brought in a lot of fill dirt, but there was still digging going on around the outer sidewalk areas. I had other things loaded in my XL7 but brought along my primary-use tools, the FORS Relic w/5½" DD and 5½X10 Concentric coils, and my Racer 2 w/5½" DD.
I spent all of Thursday daylight after I arrived at 1:00 PM, and most of Friday, from dawn 'til almost 2 PM, and found a lot of the filled center area to not have very deep fill in spots, maybe only 1" to 2", and I also arrived when they were digging and widening the surrounding sidewalk to about 10 feet. There were already 6 people there hunting different areas when I arrived, and the number increased to about a dozen on Thursday afternoon.
I tried to beat the crowd on Friday with an early start, but there were four already there on my arrival, and four more showed up in the next half-hour. By the time I left Friday for an appointment and family picnic in early afternoon, there were 15 people there hunting. This torn-up 10 acre park was definitely drawing a lot of competition, and from what I was told, the first week or two it was much 'busier' and good finds are now slower to come by.
There was still more open area than I had been told so I used the Relic and 5½X10 Concentric coil most of the time and that teamwork served me well. I started out hunting the sidewalk widening area where three fellows had been working right along following the tractor as it dug while backing up. They were using an XLT, MXT [size=small](original)[/size] and Deus, all with their 950 or 11 " coils. They were finding stuff, but following them up I recovered several digable targets they missed, including wheat-back cents a Buffalo nickel, a costume ring and more.
I enjoyed two days of very warm and pleasant detecting, drew quite a few comments and discussions about the Nokta and Makro detectors, features and performance, and especially enjoyed the results I had. I spoke with two city workers and one of the contractors running the back-hoe and was told about their end-of-day digging efforts, so I planned a hunt there today before my six-seven hour drive home ... and it's 90% forecast for rain and thunderstorms, and that makes for a miserable muddy mess. Darn!
However, while I could have used the stock 7X11 DD coil I left home for more open areas, I have really been enjoying the 5½X10 Concentric together with the 5½" round DD for most sites I work with dense iron trash or renovation work, like I am hunting here, where it is relatively clean, but with trashy areas mixed in. The FORS Relic is really a splendid performer, and for me the three-coil set-up I rely on seems to have most needs covered.
Going to swap back to that small killer-coil, the 5½" DD, for my drive home because I just might 'detour' to a couple of favorite ghost towns that I know are a very dense iron trash mess. If you have a Nokta FORS Relic and select the best coil for the task at hand, you will have a terrific set-up with excellent performance. That I do know. Best of success to all Relic owners during their 2016 detecting season.
Monte
I spent all of Thursday daylight after I arrived at 1:00 PM, and most of Friday, from dawn 'til almost 2 PM, and found a lot of the filled center area to not have very deep fill in spots, maybe only 1" to 2", and I also arrived when they were digging and widening the surrounding sidewalk to about 10 feet. There were already 6 people there hunting different areas when I arrived, and the number increased to about a dozen on Thursday afternoon.
I tried to beat the crowd on Friday with an early start, but there were four already there on my arrival, and four more showed up in the next half-hour. By the time I left Friday for an appointment and family picnic in early afternoon, there were 15 people there hunting. This torn-up 10 acre park was definitely drawing a lot of competition, and from what I was told, the first week or two it was much 'busier' and good finds are now slower to come by.
There was still more open area than I had been told so I used the Relic and 5½X10 Concentric coil most of the time and that teamwork served me well. I started out hunting the sidewalk widening area where three fellows had been working right along following the tractor as it dug while backing up. They were using an XLT, MXT [size=small](original)[/size] and Deus, all with their 950 or 11 " coils. They were finding stuff, but following them up I recovered several digable targets they missed, including wheat-back cents a Buffalo nickel, a costume ring and more.
I enjoyed two days of very warm and pleasant detecting, drew quite a few comments and discussions about the Nokta and Makro detectors, features and performance, and especially enjoyed the results I had. I spoke with two city workers and one of the contractors running the back-hoe and was told about their end-of-day digging efforts, so I planned a hunt there today before my six-seven hour drive home ... and it's 90% forecast for rain and thunderstorms, and that makes for a miserable muddy mess. Darn!
However, while I could have used the stock 7X11 DD coil I left home for more open areas, I have really been enjoying the 5½X10 Concentric together with the 5½" round DD for most sites I work with dense iron trash or renovation work, like I am hunting here, where it is relatively clean, but with trashy areas mixed in. The FORS Relic is really a splendid performer, and for me the three-coil set-up I rely on seems to have most needs covered.
Going to swap back to that small killer-coil, the 5½" DD, for my drive home because I just might 'detour' to a couple of favorite ghost towns that I know are a very dense iron trash mess. If you have a Nokta FORS Relic and select the best coil for the task at hand, you will have a terrific set-up with excellent performance. That I do know. Best of success to all Relic owners during their 2016 detecting season.
Monte
