Rules of thumb

[raptro5618]

This past week really had my head spinning. Last week I could go out to my local park and find a few things in a half hour if that is all I had. I was finding a coin nearly 75% of the time that week. Now this week trash or empty holes. It got me trying to analyze what was different. As I thought I came up with a few things that seem to work for me.

With little time I stick to the upper 30's 35 and up with 38 or 39 being in my head a sure thing. Not really but seems like less trash shows up here.

I listen for the really high tones and if a number bounces around or covers a big area I may dig but usually it is trash.

That is about all I have because I am really new to this. But I was wondering what everyone else has as rules that they consider when they are out detecting to determine when to dig and when to move on.

 

[beachguy777]

Raptro, I do pretty much the same game plan, but watch out! Gold can come in at some pretty weird numbers. I scanned a gold ring of a friend of mine and came up with 7, and I think I got a 19 reading on another piece of gold. I think it gets down to, the area your searching in, the type of finds (you think) might be there, what your willing to risk as far as digging or not digging, etc. I think Andy Sabich delt with this issue in his book. I think he's right. I've read tons of posts where some of the "heavy hitters" said gold can come in at different numbers, but if your mainly looking for coins, I think the 30 and above sounds pretty safe, except for nickels that can come in at 16 or so. Take this advice with a grain of salt, because you can have some strange numbers on some really good finds, because of ground conditions, patina, time in the ground. Man this thing gets complicated, doesen't it, but it's still worth the effort, I think, and thank God, this detector is as accurate and discriminating as it is. We still have a lot of power to work with here.

 

[raptro5618]

The more I learn it seems like the less I know. For a short while 38 or 39 was like a sure thing. Then the other day I had lots of time and I got solid 38's that were empty holes. Lots of coal ashes in the area and in some places it must cause weird numbers or there are big objects deeper. Anyway I dug deeper, wider and scanned each handful, used the probe and well nothing. I find it interesting how coal sets the pinpointer off.

I know gold can be at different numbers and most of them are the same as pull tops, alum cans or pieces of aluminum and sometimes copper pipe. In this park I am not sure I am ready to start digging all those numbers that could be gold. I wonder if there is one number that is a good place to give it a shot. I was thiking 19 with a really high tone might be worth a few digs.

I think I am going to go through my yard and grab everythings. I found a 1920 penny in the yard when I was just learning so now I might run through it again and check all those iffy numbers.

 

[beachguy777]

Yea, Raptro, it's sure frustrating, especiall on the gold thing. I'm amazed at your responses to coal. I've never had to deal with coal so I guess I'm lucky. That's pretty interesting that the coal would set the detector off at all. Interesting stuff. I also forgot about the tone diferentiation, which is available on the Quatro. I wish I could give you a good number to start with, but I'm not sure. Try and see if some of the old posts have some info on that. I know they used to, but they might have been erased.:|

 

[JHM]

I think detectors measure conductivity and coal is highly conductive.It's all carbon which would cause a detector to react like it's in really bad ground.It's the same as if there were alot of iron in the ground.

 

[Golden]

most of the gold rings I've found that were 9ct gold read in at anywhere between 9+ and 13+. Silver usually reads around 38+. That's silver braclets and rings. But one silver bracelet that was fairly corroded from the sand, and dug at low tide line, about 12inches down, read in at 19+ and was slightly irratic. I almost walked away from it. When I finally pulled it out, I though it was a shark rig! Turned out to be one of those thick surfie chain looking bracelets with a broken clip. The only time I've come arcoss carbon in the ground is when I'm detecting over old botle dumps, and the carbon from the ashes of past fires are there. But I haven't found it a problem. What like to set off my detector is a lot of iron, or iron ore in the ground, and red clay that's often mineralized. It makes it difficult to fish out the coins, and I still get coins from this type of ground, but I'm sure I miss a few due to the constant sounds from the ground. I wouldn't detect in anything but All Metal Mode, as with discriminating you do risk losing targets, especially if the keepers are in close proximity to the rubbish. Only in All Metal can you be sure to differentiate b/w the two, given time. Anyway it's good to read that you'r experimenting with the setting, keep it up, as I've said it before, write things down on a pad, for referring back to, and it"ll all make sense in time. You'll soon be an expert in no time!
Cheers Golden