Silver Umax questions

[skateteacher]

I need to say I'm a complete noobie, never detected until yesterday when I got my Silver. I'm learning the ropes in my backyard, digging holes as neat as I can so when I get out there I can make other MD'ers proud.

Here's some questions that I need some help on:

1. Is there such a thing as a false positive, ie., will the detector give off erroneous signals (beeps) in any mode (all metal or disc) or does when it beeps is there some sort of metal there?
2. I have my disc set to foil and when I begin to swing I have it set to all metal. When I get a beep I then switch to disc and if it then doesn't beep does that mean it's likely junk?
3. If I'm primarily going to hunt coin (old and new) and jewelry (any) what should I set my disc to?

Thanks

Dave

 

[Smudge]

1. It is possible for any detector to false, but it is not a common occurance unless you are in a particularly nasty patch of soil. If you get a fairly a repeatable signal, you will have metal under the coil 98% of the time.

2. If you hunt in all metal then any piece of metal will signal. If you flip to discrimination at the foil setting and the signal disappears, then its likely iron. Does that necessarily mean its junk? Not if you're a relic hunter. But if you're a coil and jewlery hunter only then you can probably move on.

3. Set it no higher than foil. You will dig a lot of trash, but there's no avoiding that if you want gold jewlery.

 

[Hombre]

OK newbie.......

If you are going to stick with this hobby for very long, you are wanting to dig some coins right away, not junk. Might as well make it easy on yourself and find an easy place to dig, say a around a play area that kids use alot, like tot lots, sand volley ball courts, tot lots that have wood chips, swing area's and the like. I may catch some heck from some people, but turn up your discrimination knob to knock out some common junk, like pulltabs, pop bottle caps,etc. these will disc. out at about 7

 

[SkiWhiz]

Well said Randy, great advice.

 

[slingshot]

Put it in minimum discriminate and learn all the sounds with different targets. Some will be smooth, some will be scratchy, some will have a skip in the signal.

 

[BarberBill]

Randy said it very well. However, it will take a good number of hours on your machine before you begin to hear some of the faint nuances in the tone that help determine trash etc. I know em when I hear em now, but it's difficult to describe to a newbie, but give it time and you'll begin hearing them too.

Another thing concerning discrimination - put a nickle on the ground and swing the coil back and forth over it as you slowly thumb the disc. knob higher. When the nickle signal begins to pop and crackle, it is just about to disc. out. Practice this with different targets and you'll learn some of the nuances of the sound more quickly. I often use a nickle when I start out by setting it just below the crackle where it still gives a good signal. That setting will still detect a good percentage of jewelry etc., but you'll still be digging some alum, tabs and larger iron. When you hit a good signal, you can thumb the disc up to see where the target drops off. If it doesn't drop off the odds of it being silver, a dime, quarter or half are very high. You'll be surprised at how well you'll eventually be at identifying targets this way. Not so much dime versus quarter, but trash versus coin etc. You may wish to mark the spots where you lose the nickle, tabs. and zinc pennies. Copper pennies and clad or silver coins should still sound off at full or near full disc. You'll still pick up the odd piece of trash once in a while, but this system works pretty well with practice.

One other thing - if you aren't using headphones you need to pick up a pair as that helps a great deal in hearing the slight changes in the tone. Hope this is helpful.
BB

 

[skateteacher]

Thanks to all for the advice. I'm setting up a coin garden in my yard so i can practice. I got headphones yesterday and I agree they are a must have. Everyone here is so helpful which is so different from nearly any other forum I've ever belonged to on the web.

Dave