Menu
What's new
Find's Treasure Forums

Welcome to Find's Treasure Forums, Guests!

You are viewing this forums as a guest which limits you to read only status.

Only registered members may post stories, questions, classifieds, reply to other posts, contact other members using built in messaging and use many other features found on these forums.

Why not register and join us today? It's free! (We don't share your email addresses with anyone.) We keep email addresses of our users to protect them and others from bad people posting things they shouldn't.

Click here to register!

Need Support Help?

Cannot log in?, click here to have new password emailed to you

S-5 & Tornado 10" Coil Seperation Tests/Comparisons

C

Critterhunter

New member
I wrote this up on Microsoft Word and it turned out to be rather long, but at least it's detailed! Read at your own risk of falling asleep.

With the arrival of my new (used) 5.5
 
I can't edit my message and I made a mistake here where I said...

"First, Id like to quickly point out the obvious. Iron Mask does indeed seem to work but it looks like it prefers going across the width of the trash target rather than its length. This might be more due to the coil signal than anything else. The detection line goes from tip to tail of the coil. If you are sweeping across the length of a nail Im thinking that this detection line hits the nail and gets deflected, not allowing the coin to be seen as easily as it would if you were sweeping over the nail width wise. This also could be because its easier to put the detection line on the coin while not crossing over the nail or other trash, but that wouldnt explain target #1."

Meant to say it wouldn't easily explain target #3. That target has a screw laying directly on top of it. If you think of the coil signal as a straight line from head to tail of the coil in the middle, and then think about a nail being at a 90 degree angle to that signal, it's easy to see why the signal would hit the nail and be deflected from passing over the coin. On the other hand, with the nail and coil's signal line both being parallel to each other, it sort'a makes sense why it would be easier to hit the coin while missing the nail.

While the coil's signal shape can explain a lot about the results, it still appears that Iron Mask is doing what they claim- allowing the machine to ignore an iron signal and still allow anything non-ferous to sound off. In one of the links somebody recently posted to Sovereign tips this was discussed in more detail. Not only is the BBS technology not comparing the coin to a ground signal like a normal VLF machine, it also is able to seperate the ferous and non-ferous signals and not blend them together...which would either result in a total null or severe averaging on most of these targets by those machines.

Short summary: The S-5 coil will take many nulled targets and at least make them sound off, improve garbage signals to being worth taking a risk on, or even take completely nulled targets and garbage signals and make them a perfect audio/180 ID that you'd always dig. If anything, many targets that you would never touch will be probably be improved enough to fall within what you consider is worth digging.

One other area, besides coin shooting in heavy trash, where this coil might prove deadly would be in ring hunting. I could see myself setting up my notch for pulltabs (as discussed in the "Splitting Hairs On Rings" thread) and not having to hear the thousands of them that are so thick at some of the parks I hunt. I'd then set the discrimination dial to kill everything below around 90 to knock out most foil. This would keep me from being distracted by the very heavy trash and allow me to concentrate on any and all other signals I hear. As discussed in that thread you'd still be recovering a large portion of gold rings while avoiding well over 80% of the tabs. You could further discriminate remaining signals by ear, only digging what sounds smooth/warm/soft/round and locks on in both audio and VDI, as much of the trash out there will tend to break up, bounce around, or sound harsh/tinny. The combination of this coil and that notching technique could allow you to ring hunt where anybody in their right mind would never even try. Mainly I'm talking about around picnic tables where frisbe and other sports are played but the trash produces almost a constant signal as you sweep.

For old coin hunting in areas such as this I would avoid using the notch or discrimination if you can stand it, only doing so when the amount of noise is becoming more of a distraction than a help at locating signals worth investigating. The reason why I'd try to avoid using any discrimination/notch for the coins is that many of these being masked by junk will not give an initial "perfect" hit, often sounding off much lower down the scale and jumping all over the place, until you've positioned the coil perfectly to hear a good coin signal. If you were notching/discriminating and just nicked the edge of one of these targets you might not hear anything. The whole point is being able to hear any target and then doing the fast wiggle and slow crawl over it to try to pull out a good coin ID. Check any signal, even a null if you wanted to get real particular about it, and try to make it give up that coin signal your looking for.
 
That is some pretty interesting testing you did. Nice job. You mentioned that you almost couldn't go fast enough when doing the wiggle. I also found this out shortly after getting my GT. I started just laying my coil over the target and shaking it vigoursly not really sweeping it. I found the numbers would lock on and the tone would begin to climb. The most movement from side to side was probably only about a half inch at the most. It's going to be interesting to see how you do in the field.
Good luck Gary
 
Thanks. As I said before this sort of stuff is what I like to do. Testing is half the fun for me. Besides, it really helps you to get to know the abilities and traits of a machine. Always thought it was funny when people would ask in various forums how a deep silver coin would sound and act on their particular machine. Nobody can really describe that for the most part, and seeing and hearing is always the best teacher, so why not just put a coin on the ground and sweep the coil over it as far away as you can get. I'm suprised more people don't do this kind of testing to better know what their machine is doing and how it will respond to various conditions and targets.

I'll be doing more of this masking/seperation testing in the near future and playing with the sensitivity. I want to see if seperation gets worse as it's increased, and if auto seems to seperate better or worse than the lowest manual setting. I have a theory that auto might actualy do worse in that it might be trying to smooth things out as it goes over the iron, and in the process also not be hitting as hard on the coin. Just a theory. Might be the reverse and I'm eager to test all this.
 
I have yet to do the seperation tests with auto/manual on the S-5, but I wanted to mention one thing that I didn't point out the importance of as clearly as I feel I should. The good signal you will get in the right spot over a coin masked by iron or other trash is very solid and gives a perfect audio/vdi response in all the targets tested above. Not one of them couldn't produce this with the S-5 coil from some angle, and the 10" was also able to do this on at least some of them as indicated by the chart. The audio and VDI will sound like a perfect coin signal. However, sweeping from other directions on some of these targets (again, more so with the 10") would either null them out or produce a bad signal of one degree or another. With that in mind it's important to not only check all signals from every angle as you circle around the target, but as I said you need to crawl the coil forward and back as you do the fast wiggle. Once you do hit on a perfect signal I would dig it regardless of if it nulls or produces a bad signal from other directions. In the testing I did I could easily see/hear that this perfect signal is much better than the ghost signals from iron or the harsh/tinny/hallow/slightly changing coin signals from non-ferous trash. It was real easy to tell the difference between one of these masked coins and something like a rusty bottle cap or other form of trash that can produce a coin signal in certain places.

I'm sure there are going to be instances in which the coin doesn't quite make it to perfect regardless of which direction you sweep over it, but the above testing shows that the vast majority of them should from atleast one angle over the target. I'd dig any signal in thick trash that is able to do this. What other types of targets that can only manage iffy coin signals you decide to dig will have be decided on your part. There may be areas where lots of trash can produce a marginal coin signal and you might wish to avoid those, looking only for the perfect ones from some sweep angle. On the other hang, where there seems to be little trash that is able to give an iffy coin signal you probably should dig those targets as some of them might be badly masked coins. If anything the above testing shows that you can be picky if you want, digging only good solid coin hits from any direction, or at least ones producing those from one or two angles, and still avoid most trash while digging numerous coins.
 
I managed to get out with this coil Saturday to hunt the thick trash at an old park. This place dates back to the 1800s and a lot of old coins have come out of there, mainly in the less trashy open space areas away from the picnic tables. I headed right to the thick trash within 50 yards or so of the tables with it. I placed a quarter on the ground and did some depth tests in auto sensitivity and then in manual at the highest position and at about the 12 o'clock position. What I found was that in auto the coil gets impressive depth, somewhere in the 5 to 6" range on a clad quarter while doing air tests. In manual highest sensitivity setting I was getting maybe 6 to 7", so it only looked like a gain of about an inch to two in depth versus auto. At the 12 o'clock position the depth only looked slightly deeper than auto, if any. If it did have more depth than auto I'd guess maybe a half inch to an inch.

Based on my experience with auto and the 10" coil I would never use it with the 10". But, the depth in auto with the S-5 is really good. Way more than I expected. Maybe even deeper than the 10" in auto. What I'm thinking is that auto isn't adjusting the sensitivity level down as far with the S-5 as it does with the 10" in order to remain stable, as I would guess auto is constantly adjusting it based on interference. I'll have to do more testing of the S-5 in auto and various manual settings to further confirm this in the field. Also, as I said before I want to see if seperation is any better in auto, high or low sensitivity, as well as how close I can get to large metal objects with various sensitivity settings. When I have the chance to do all the above in the field I'll post some results.

A friend was along with his 5.3" Bullseye (or BlackMax, this Whites coil is called different things over the years but they are all the same) on his 6000 pro xl. I placed these coils side by side and found the Whites was much bigger. That confuses things. The S-5 is actually 5.5" in size, while the 5.3" Whites coil looks like it is really about 6" or bigger in size. Regardless, I was happy to see the S-5 is even smaller than the Whites. I want max seperation when going small, and that means as small a coil as possible.

I showed him the air test I was doing in auto and asked what the depth looked like to him. I guessed 5" but he said it looked more to him like 6". Lacking a ruler that's all I can say, It's got very good depth in auto at least at this place where there aren't nearby houses or wires that might cause auto to drop lower at other places. Since this area is loaded with trash and also has some mineralization I figured I'd leave it in auto. I didn't see much improvement in depth when air testing in manual and I didn't want to play around with the sensitivity at this site. It would take some time to figure out if the sensitivity was too high or if the machine was just nulling on iron, so auto is where I felt like trying it that day.

With the GT mounted under the shaft in the back the machine is light enough to hunt all day with, unlike the 10" where I prefer to hipmount it. The little coil had no trouble moving around in the trash and isolating signals for me. If I had been sweeping the 10" I could probably be hearing an almost constant chatter of trash signals. With the S-5 there was plenty of quiet time during a sweep. Really helps to improve your concentration and investigate each and other signal you come across, without having to sort through 3 or 4 signals from the same sweep. Pinpointing on this little guy is right on. No need for pinpoint mode. When I checked where I thought the target was before digging with my Pro Pointer I was mostly dead on.

I decided to run my notch at 152.5 to 165 to kill most of the pulltabs and discrimination at 90 to silence most of the foil (see the splitting hairs on rings thread for info on these settings). Before doing this I popped a few roundtabs at 2 to 4" deep. That was good news, because this told me that there should at least be some very shallow silver, well within range of the depth of this coil. This area is mostly clay and has a lot of foot traffic around the tables, so I figured coin depths wouldn't be much more than 4 or 5" here. Unlike the back of the park away from the tables where in the past I have dug deeper silver with less compacted soil and also less trash.

I was mostly looking for coin signals and doing the slow crawl/fast wiggle over junk signals to try to find those. Really I shouldn't have ran the notch or discrimination to be doing this because a coin masked by trash might only produce a signal further down the scale until you center right over it properly. Still, I was wanting to dig a few potential ring signals as well so that's why I ran the notch as I set it up for rings. Third target turned out to be a junk ring. Score one for the notch setting, which I've only used a few times so far since I posted the spreadsheet data in the rings thread.

When I got a junk signal, a null, or a threshold change that indicated I passed over something I had notched or discriminated out I would do the slow crawl/fast wiggle over the target from every angle. I quickly found several perfect 180 coin signals that read properly from any direction, but as I said before I'd dig any good sounding 180 signal even if it nulls or breaks up from others. In my masked coin tests these can sound real good to where you know they are a coin, but might null or break up from other directions. They don't sound like "iffy" 180 signals from certain directions. You'll know they have to be coins based on how good they sound, even if they go bad from other directions.

Several good 180 signals (about 5 or 6) turned out to be clad dimes at depths from just under the surface to around 4" deep. I would then sweep around them out to about four inches away to see if any trash signals where nearby and might have masked them to other detectors and larger coils. I would say probably 4 out of the six dimes I dug at various spots had pulltabs very close to them, and several had another pulltab or iron on the other side of the coin, so they were pretty well masked. Getting down on the ground before digging I pulled out my Pro Pointer and checked the coin signals and nearby trash to get a more exact idea of how close they were. Several coins had a pulltab within an inch of them by the looks of what the pinpointer was telling me, or had other trash on the other side as well within 3" or less. Although I didn't pull out any silver I was please with how well this coil seems to be seperating in actual field conditons. I'd bet most of the coins I found would have been very hard to get a good coin ID out of with a larger coil or another machine.
 
These perfect 180's you got, were they short, narrow spikes, or a blip, of a higher tone, to alert you to a good target? This is turning out to be quite interesting. I've been playing around with the idea of a small coil for some of the places I hunt. Some of the old park's I hunt have old bandstand's and you know these area's attract the most people and also the most tab's. This could be a perfect spot for a tiny coil that still get's good depth. One thing you said though makes me want to make a comment. you said that when in manual you "only" got 1 or 2 inches more depth than when in auto. In my opinion that is quite a bit, every bit helps. Let us know about your next outing.
Good hunting,Gary
 
The "perfect" 180 coin signals that I got from all the tested targets above at least from one angle are just that- They sound, ID, and act like any other coin that isn't masked. You can easily tell the difference in sound from a real coin than a bottle/screw cap or other junk target that can give a coin ID from at least one direction. They'll sound warbly, tinny, harsh, break up a little in audio, or keep trying to drop a few digits down and then back up to 180. The coins masked by trash in the testing above gave perfect hits that sounded/acted like coins, and didn't really fight you to be perfect like trash can. You'll just know it has to be a coin, even if it breaks up or nulls from other directions. The important factor being coil placement. Regardless of how well you place and fast wiggle the coil over trash it probably never will sound/act perfect, but these coins will. Move a hair off them, though, and the signal quickly degrades.

That's not to say that there aren't going to be some severly masked coins that can't quite manage this perfect coin signal from at least one direction, but the testing above indicates a majority will be perfect...at least from some angle...and sound perfect unlike the tell tale signs that various trash will give you that they aren't really coins.

Like I said, you can get as picky as you want. Look for coin signals that are perfect from any direction as some now will be thanks to the S-5. Others that nulled or were very bad with the larger coils will now at least give a perfect coin signal from certain directions and I'd suggest always digging those too. If you have a trained ear I bet you'll be able to still avoid most of the trash digging those. Dropping your standards even further, if the area doesn't have a lot of iffy/bad coin signals I'd dig those as well because the ones masked the worst may only produce a scratchy/jumpy signal, though I haven't seen any coins in my testing that I couldn't at least pull a perfect coin ID out of from some direction.

The 1 to 2" (by eye) air test increase by using the highest manual setting versus auto is to be expected. I'm just pleased at how deep the thing goes in even auto. 5 or 6" is nothing to laugh at. Most machines with a small coil like this would struggle to muster that kind of depth with the highest sensitivity setting, let alone do it in auto. The area I was hunting didn't have any nearby wires or other electrical noise from buildings and such. I'm willing to bet that auto will adjust further down and give much less depth in other areas due to the interference. I did notice in my garage that the S-5 in auto seems to give more depth than the 10" in auto, probably due to the 10" picking up more noise causing auto to drop a lot lower. I want to test this further to confirm because I wasn't really checking that, just noticed it by chance.

I'll be testing auto and manual in lowest and highest in the field more to judge depth and seperation, as well as how close each can get to large metal items like fences. I'll try to bring a ruler and take some photos to post. I also want to strap the 10" back on for the same comparisons. I want to measure how much closer the S-5 can get to things like fences compared to the larger coil as well. I still need to do a lot more mask testing in the garage. I want to see just how badly I can mask a coin and still get a perfect ID from the S-5. None of the above targets prevented it from getting a solid/perfect coin ID from at least some direction. I'll post pictures of further masking too when I get around to that. Maybe tonight.
 
I just did some more S-5 testing to see how close I can get to various large metal objects (refrigerator in my garage) before the coil would sound off. I used a yard stick laying on the ground to the measurement would be precise. 13" in highest manual setting. 11" in auto. 8" in lowest manual setting. I haven't tested my 10" coil yet but I expect the distance to be much further.

I'm looking forward to hunting some of my old coin spots as near to fences and other metal objects as I can get. I have a feeling this little coil will pick up a lot of coins that other machines just can't get near enough to the fence to see. Also a good reason to use a little coil like this in playgrounds when ring hunting. One other place that comes to mind is an old coin spot that has metal bleachers over dirt ground. First time I hunted that spot (not with the S-5) this summer I bagged a nice silver ring in minutes. I'm sure there are more rings and even older coins laying around in this very trashy area which also limits access by all the large metal support posts every five feet. I see some fun days ahead with my S-5!
 
I finally forced myself to take off the 15x12 SEF coil and use my Sunray S-5 5.5" coil for only it's second time out since I bought it. I had been impressed with the depth and maximum separation of this little guy the first time I used it, but the SEF coil just has had a hold on me with it's performance since I first used it. So, yesterday I decided to put the S-5 on and give it a work out for a few hours at a local school. Hunting along the fence I kept it Sensitivity in Auto as was able to get real close to the fence. Ended up finding a junk ring along that which read as a good penny signal.

Off I went under some bleachers and I popped 4 or 5 nickles, 5 or 6 dimes, and a quarter or two. That was nice to see because I had pretty much gridded under there a few months back and missed those coins, yet they were deep enough to know they were present the last time I gridded that spot (with either the 10" coil on my GT or a 9.5" on a QXT, can't remember which I used). Each coin was right next to iron or other trash that had hid them on the prior hunt. I didn't grid this time but just wandered through the spot.

There is a particular spot at this site where heavy black soil containing hot rocks and iron made my prior machines give only iffy coin signals at best and required low sensitivity to work it. I had dug a few mercs and wheats in this area before with other machines but they gave only about 60% good signals. Often a small coil can get deeper and better IDs in a spot like this than a larger coil can since they will see less ground and thus minerals/iron/hot rocks along with any coin that might be present. You'd be surprised to see how much deeper a small coil can get in a place like this than say a 10", or at least at the improved target quality it will provide. Anyway, worked the post for a few minutes and got a clad quarter about 4" deep that we must have missed several times over the years with out other machines. Also dug a copper penny at about 5" deep that had a rusty old nail right beside it. This coin only gave me a coin signal swept from one direction and was a total null the other way. However, I *knew* it was going to be a coin based on just how perfect and good the signal sounded from one direction. Not washed out or ghostly like a false iron hit, but rather as perfect of a coin signal as you could ever ask for.

How I found it was by listening for any nulls (iron or hot rock hits) in the threshold and then doing the slow advanced or "walking" of the coil as I quickly wiggled it as described previously in this thread. Only in one spot could I get the good coin signal, and swept from any other direction or even moved off slightly from that spot it would go to a complete null due to the iron, nail, and hot rocks present. Very happy with the potential of this coil. Work your nulls or even "trash" signals around the edges and look for any other signals present. Move the coil forward or back slowly but wiggle it fastly. This works with any coil for the Sovereign but is even more effective with the S-5 for obvious reasons. If the target sounds perfect but nulls or degrades from any other direction you'll *know* it's just got to be a coin based on how much it differs from coin spike or false coin hits from other pieces of trash.

Oh, and I was able to run at max sensitivity over this site but opted to run in auto just to see what it could do. I'm not totally convinced yet but I think auto will help find even more masked targets in heavy iron/minerals/trash than maxed sensitivity because it will see less ground and nearby targets by not running so hot. Still more testing to go on this. It for sure will help stabilize a target ID when the amount of trash/minerals/iron present is trying to make them jumpy. Air testing showed about 5 to 6" depth in auto and about 7" in max sensitivity. I'd expect slightly deeper in the ground as we all know the Sovereign doesn't air test well.
 
I headed out yesterday with the S-5 still on and went to a spot with heavy soil, hot rocks, minerals, iron, and RF noise. Yea, it's one of those dream spots that has everything going for it. Up until the GT none of my machines could handle this spot without going so low in sensitivity that they had the effective depth of a Garrett (shun intended :rolleyes: ) and even then target ID and audio wasn't all that great. As I've said before the only machine that could do any better at this spot was my Explorers which did manage a few silvers/indians/large cents, but even with those target ID/audio was only about 70% "there" and I got them by digging the best of the iffy signals. This is the spot where the 15x12 and GT popped out a standing liberty quarter a few weeks back that gave a perfect ID and tone at around 7" or so, and I was even hunting in auto sensitivity. I've gridded that area from several directions with my Explorers so I know I didn't miss that coin but somehow the GT got it while the Explorers didn't.

Anyway, the S-5 coil handled well in the area and managed a few copper (non-wheat) pennies next to trash or iron that were deep enough for me to know that they've been there for years and so I missed them with other machines. I also popped several round tabs at about 4 or 5" that I had missed with other machines before. I know I did because this was around a large oak tree where some of my better finds had come with the Explorer (not just coins) and so I had dug everything that gave a remotely good signal with it, regardless of target ID being a possible "tab" or any other signal for that matter. These round tabs on the GT and this coil give perfect hits, though I did dig a few that would only ID one way and would null the other. That's how bad the ground and iron is at this spot, and these targets were non-existent with other machines prior to this. While I didn't dig anything old other than one ornate piece of metal (hair clip?) that I have to investigate yet, I was pleased with how the GT and this coil gave me solid target IDs at good depth even in auto at a spot that I thought had nothing left to offer due to the harsh conditions.

My next testing of all three coils (S-5, 10" Tornado, SEF 15x12) should be of interest to some people. I plan to mask coins in various ways with mostly iron but other trash as well to the point where they can just hardly be ID'd properly with the S-5, and in some cases where the S-5 can no longer see them despite any sweep angle. Once I've got an assortment of various masked coins in many ways, and a mix of those that the S-5 can see and can not see, I'm then going to glue them in place right where they sit on some cardboard without moving them at all. This will insure nothing left to error when I switch to the other coils and see how well they can unmask the targets to compare. I plan to make a picture chart with the findings to make things as easy to compare as possible, and will also include photos of each masked target for each slot in the chart for quick reference.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and not just state the obvious, that being that the S-5 should probably unmask the most targets. What I'm also going to bet is that based on my experience with the SEF 15x12 coil I think it may in fact unmask coins that the S-5 wasn't able to in some situations, and I also bet the SEF will do as well and probably better than the 10" Tornado with all targets tested. The S-5 will probably reveal the most coins but I'm real interested to see if the SEF can get ones that even the S-5 can't based on both it's ultra thin detection line and also it's unique hybrid coil dynamics.

While conducting these tests I also plan to compare Iron Mask ON to OFF and also Auto Sensitivity to max stable sensitivity. I'm curious as well about these functions, and if say auto might do better or worse than max stable setting. It might due to the coil being less "hot" and so seeing less of it's surroundings, or also because it does a good job of resetting the threshold and allowing the target to break through. Yesterday after playing with auto/manual on some iffy coin signals (due to nearby iron) I found that auto provided slightly more consistent and stable IDs to the targets. Reasons why are up for debate, but I've got the above theories to work with.
 
I figured this little field report would be better suited to add to this old thread since so far as I know I didn't start an S-5 field report thread like I've down for the 15x12. Up until yesterday I'd say I've only had maybe 4 or 5 hunts with this coil and I think only 1 or 2 of those hunts was for any length of time, meaning more than an hour or two. In other words I hadn't really gave this coil a good major work out in heavy trash but it still bothered me that as of yet I don't think I had dug any silver with it.

I think that's why I decided to throw this coil on yesterday and head for probably the most trashy old park that I know of in my area. I've hunted this park with it one prior time before for about an hour or two and produced nothing in the way of silver. Much of the ground around the picnic areas of this park is clay that has been packed hard due to all the foot traffic. That combined with the tons of old and new trash makes a spot like this a good candidate for a small coil.

You don't want to use a small coil like this in deep rich soil that doesn't have a lot of trash as it's out of it's element for that kind of hunting. You want two things- heavy amounts of trashy and the kind of soil (usually packed clay or soil with a lot of stones in it) that prevents most targets from sinking much more than say 6 or 7" (well within the depth ability of this coil). The only other situation where I can see a small coil like this to be of potential good use would be in very highly mineralized ground and perhaps containing a lot of tiny little hot rocks, which some might call black sand.

Anyway, when the introductions and circumstances laid out above, I was off to this old park. Forgot to mention that not only does this park have those two suited traits (packed clay and tons of trash), but it also contains some tiny hot rocks (or if you want to call it black sand) that I've seen degrade target signals on some prior machines I've owned. In those types of soils often a smaller coil can actually get better depth due to it not degrading the target with all the ground material it's also seeing. Small coils like this aren't just about max separation. They can help to clean up signals and even in some cases get deeper due to the severity of the ground soil.

I'm happy to say that I gave the coil about four hours of hard hunting, picking my way in and out of the trash where it was at it's worst near the picnic tables. I managed a green penny that might be an indian (have to get the green crust off of it) at almost 7" deep with perfect ID. That was a good start. Also popped a silver war nickle at like 3" deep that read perfectly as 146 on the VDI. Later near a large tree within about 4 inches of the trunk I heard two shallow trash targets about 5 to 7 inches apart and probably by should were only 3 or 4" deep. I swept over those and worked the edges of them 3 or 4 times and then started to step away when for some reason I decided to turn around and sweep around and between them one more time. This time in between those two unknown junk targets I got a nice soft/deep 180 signal which turned out to be a Rosie at probably 6 or 7" deep. I knew it was going to be silver by the sweet soft signal it made and the depth. Again, in this particular area of this park with the hard packed clay 6 or 7" is about max depth for most targets no matter how long they've been in the ground.

(Message continued in a few minutes)
 
This park is well known for it's age and the quality of finds in years gone by with the detector crowd so it gets hit hard on a regular basis. I'd say over the last 6 or 7 visits to this location in the past year or two I struck out in silver. It's been a long time since I've popped silver there but it's not like I hunt it that often. Still, regardless of how hard a park has been hit I start getting a little cheesed off when I can't manage at least one silver within 3 or 4 separate hunts. So not only was I happy to see this park still producing with the right amount of effort, but I was equally pleased that I also broke the cherry on this coil in terms of finding some keepers and got not one but two silvers in doing so. This coil was in it's element with the very mineralized soil, sea of old and new trash, and the packed ground which kept targets within reach. This is one of those spots where you can see round tabs laying on top of the ground. That's always a good indicator that not only should silver exist, but also that chances are the targets aren't going to be real deep.

While I was running no notch or discrimination while looking for coins there I decided to crank up the discriminate dial all the way as I headed for the truck. Reason being that I was hot and worn out and didn't want to hear all the ground chatter unless it was going to be a coin. In old threads some Sovereign owners call this "silver mode" and it can be useful when the amount of noise while coin hunting is outrageous to the point of being a total distraction. Mainly I'll only do that when I'm tired and towards the end of the day when I'm just trying to walk through all the junk and get to my vehicle as quick as possible. Within 5 to 10 feet of the parking lot I kept getting good coin hits that sounded through and they ended up being a quarter and several copper (non-wheat) pennies, all mixed in the even heavier trash at this location. That was nice to see because it once again confirmed that this coil will sniper out targets like nothing else can due to it's tiny 5.5" diameter.

Back to the Rosie for a minute...Everybody always hunts around old trees and so I'm sure hundreds of machines and coils have passed around that tree over the years, yet none of them saw that coin. I believe two factors caused them to miss it. The most obvious being that it had trash about 3 or 4" on either side of it, but the other reason I feel is because the coin was within 3 or 4 or so inches of the trunk of the tree. That would make it impossible for most coils to center over that dime due to the trunk of the tree obviously. Not only were two targets masking the dime on either side of it but it's proximity to the trunk also prevented hunters from getting a coil dead center over it where they might have been able to unmask it if that was possible.

Almost forgot to cover the sensitivity. As you guys know and I'm sure are sick of hearing I have been advocating sticking a silver dime in the ground at fringe depth and then calibrating the sensitivity for best depth/easiest ID. What I found interesting at this site is that even with a tiny coil like this the best/easiest ID was achieved with a 2PM position on the sensitivity dial. The 10" Tornado also calibrated to that setting at this same site on a prior hunt. One would expect that with a smaller coil the best calibration setting would end up being somewhat higher in sensitivity due to it seeing less ground. For whatever reason that was not the case. My silver test dime was buried at about 6", which was fringe depth on a freshly buried target like that. Based on how hard the rosie I found and the wheat or indian at 6 or 7" I have no doubt that this coil could hit a dime or penny at probably 8 or 9" probably. Remember too that this is rough ground, but I think that firms up the theory that smaller coils often will get more depth in high mineral locations or loaded with hot rocks. It isn't all about trash/target separation. Smaller coils can punch deeper and clean up target signals. You see this difference more on other detector brands because Minelab BBS and FBS technology handles ground minerals much better, but I feel there still is a benefit to going to a smaller coil on these Minelabs other than just the obvious separation factor.

So now I'm happy this coil is no longer a silver virgin and has proven to me that under the worst of conditions and hardest hit of spots it can find you some keepers. I'm also impressed with it's stability and depth even at only 2PM on the dial. Doing an air test at that setting it looked like about 7 or so inches of depth on a silver dime, but we all know Minelabs go deeper in the ground. It also pinpoints like a laser is I even need to point that out.
 
Sorry for the multiple separate messages on the same field report but I keep getting kicked off this computer. I wanted to further add the even more obvious- that the weight of this coil is almost non-existent and it's so tiny that you feel like you are pointing a stick around more than a coil. One major advantage to a coil of tiny size is that it can take a sea of endless trash sounds and space them apart so that a spot doesn't seem nearly as trashy compared to using a larger coil. In other words, you'll have much more "quiet time" between sweeps with this thing where as with something bigger you'd be hitting 5 or 6 targets per sweep in heavily loaded trash locations. Instead of that kind of situation, now you are hearing nothing or maybe one or two targets at the most per sweep. This really improves your concentration and causes you to notice and investigate each and every signal more than you would if you were hearing a bunch of hits with a larger coil per sweep.

I'm more than impressed with the depth of this coil even with that low of a sensitivity setting and in that rough of ground soil. Target quality was also perfect due to it seeing less hot soil with the signal. I might wager that this coil might in fact get as deep as my 10" coil in this kind of ground, because I can't recall digging any targets deeper at that specific soil area of the park with the 10". From memory I think a few 6 or 7" coins I've dug there (clads) with the 10" before weren't quite as "perfect" in quality due to the black sand/hot rock type matrix. That's not a snub to the Sovereign or the 10" coil, because my Explorers did even worse there and other brands had even more trouble. Just goes to show how coil choice can improve response quality even on a machine that doesn't really need much help in that department. For that reason I'd highly recommend anybody who has a bad mineral/hot rock/heavy iron content type of soil to try your smallest coil at. Don't just think in terms of small coils for heavy trash. And don't blast the sensitivity because the ground is already too hot. Remember too that the more packed the soil the more suited to a smaller coil.

The final thing I'd add to this field report is that I snuck off into the woods at the edge of the park just to see how she felt compared to my usual 15x12 or the 10" coil when it comes to moving around brush and other obstacles. Needless to say this coil lets you poke it into brushy spots no bigger than a dinner plate with no problems in the way of snagging on things or being unable to sweeping over the spot properly. I only stayed in the woods for maybe 15 minutes but ended up getting an old crusty clad quarter in such a brushy/branchy location that I'm positive no larger coil could have ventured into. Remember that as well for your wood hunts in locations that aren't as open with older trees than you normally like.

Lastly, I'd like to emphasize to anybody using any smaller coil to make sure you use it right. Don't just sweep around and expect to find stuff that way. You want to seek out the trash and then nip at it's edges. Instead of running away from trash you should be seeking it out in it's heaviest locations, such as right next to picnic tables or garbage cans. Take your time and work the little coil around and in between the trash. Work it in a circle motion as well and mix up your sweep style much like the motion involved in waxing a car or something. Even with a small coil like this often there is going to be just one spot where a coin will ID it's self amongst the trash it's floating in the soil with. By mixing up your sweep angles and motions over the same exact spot for several seconds before moving on you'll really be pushing max unmasking and using the coil to it's full potential. As I think I've said previously in this thread you also want to do the Sovereign wiggle and slowly advance or retreat the coil over any hints of high tone amidst the trash. Through my testing I've found that often that will even further enhance it's ability to sound off to a clean and proper coin ID in the best manner possible.

I hear good things about the Excelerator 5" coil as well so if I was buying new I'd probably opt for the cheaper Excelerator. I managed my S-5 used for $65 so I couldn't pass that up. I was considering trading off this coil until yesterday. I can see myself sniping not only old coins but also rings in trashed areas such as under bleachers. Another possible use would be hunting amongst rocks or boulders on land or even in water where a larger coil just ain't going to fit.

Hope you enjoyed this endlessly long field report. Just think, your Sovereign using a tiny coil like this is matching the depth of most machines on the market using an 8 or 9" coil. 7 or 8" deep is about max depth for many machines out there regardless of the lunker sized coil they are flopping around. :smoke: I'd also like to say that while of course the separation of this coil is exceptional, in a way I think it separates differently than my 15x12 SEF. For some reason I feel even that big SEF might unmask certain coins under the right conditions that this coil may not and vise versa due to the different field dynamics of the two.
 
Was wondering if anybody has any success stories of using the S-5 or Excelerator in high trash areas that have been hit hard by other machines/coils over ther years. I noticed even Etrac users are reporting more finds with these two coils at sites they've worked hard with the pro coil before hand, so that tells me a Sovereign with an S-5 or Excelerator can pop some keepers in spots that the pro coil missed. Again, at 7 or 8" or so in even Auto this coil gets as deep as most machines on the market using a 8 to 10" coil. Very impressive. Have not used it nearly enough. Want to compare it to 12x10 on masked tests and post that here to go along with comparisons to the 10" stock coil.

Think about it...in pounded out sites to find more coins you either find them shallow but masked or they are very deep. You should have two coils, one for each situation. Glad I have the S-5 and 12x10.

By the way...This coil is 5.5" in size. If I want wax trash seperation I want smallest size, so I don't care for 6x8 coils and such which will mask more due to the extra lenth or width. The Whites bullseye coil is really like 7 1/4" or 7 3/4", much bigger than they advertise it. Looks huge compared to my S5 side by side.
 
The S-5 is a great little coil ..... I have it for both the Sovereign and for the E Trac .....I still have my Excal and will set it up to accept other coils, and the S-5 will probably be one that I will keep .......The boat anchor that's on it now will have to go ( BBS 1000 ) and I'm kicking myself now because I sold my 10x 12 SEF when I sold my Soveriegn .....Oh well , live and learn ..... Anyway, back to the S-5 .....This coil has always excelled for me in trashy parks , and the best use for it is in the woods of said parks .... When you get into these REALLY OLD parks , that have not been filled with dirt , you find these massive tree's and the roots are sticking up out of the ground , and you can sneak in between the roots with this little baby , and you can hit PLENTY of targets that people have lost over the years by leaning up against the old tree !!..... I've gotten a LOT of Silver like this .... This little coil goes DEEP !!......I remember when I first got it that it SHOCKED me to see how deep it went .... I've pulled Barber dimes at 7-8 inches with a nice soft, flutely, tone that only Silver can give ..... You can get into that knarly cover that's on the ground in the woods too without having too much difficulty ......... Nice little coil for tot lots too !!...... It will force you to swing a LOT slower ....You will pass a target in a NY second !!....

One thing I noticed with my S-5 that you wouldn't noice with the Sovereign was that the numbers were off by ONE ...... You can calibrate the Sovereign meter before hunting , but you couldn't calibrate the E Trac !!...... I think that maybe all the smaller 5-6 inch coils read the same way ..... Jim
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top