BarnacleBill
New member
Depending on where(the site & it's targets) you will be detecting and with what machine(the X70 of the X-terra line in this case),you can greatly improve or hurt your success.
To illustrate this I would like to relate a freshwater wading hunt that I did yesterday, and how I approached the task at hand. The beach area is 2000 feet long with water that is generally wade-able to 100ft offshore located at the site of a defunct children's camp. So what to do with 200,000 sq ft of area? First, you want to maximize the number of good targets per hour. Therefore if you plan to follow the philosophy on digging all targets because the "digging is easy", then I hope you own a scrap iron business. Second, to just begin griding the area from one end and working your way towards the other would take years.
As such I am still in scouting mode, as I have been there twice and walked the length of it, which takes several hours at a moderate swinging pace. The main purpose of the scouting is to locate target rich areas, which in this case would be the swim area. I have gone to the trouble of buying a brochure on Ebay from the camp dating in the early 50's to see if any of the photos showed the swim area, no such luck. I don't feel I've located it yet, but it may be the coins are already sunken too deep, more on that later. I have however located where the main dock used to be as there is a nail pattern about six feet wide under the sand that extends from the shore out to deeper water. Using onshore trees and structures I have made a note of where this dock location is to further investigate, as there are good targets mixed in the iron, and I WILL grid it working it very slowly from multiple angles when the time comes.
The underwater beach area is interesting. If one were to walk 50ft offshore parallel to the beach over the 2000ft length, at times you would be in ankle deep water and other times in shoulder deep water.The bottom changes back and forth from fine sand to pea sized gravel which is (mineralisation level) hot and at times a very sticky thick clay mix. There are also places where 6 to 10 inches down are layers of leaves and twigs showing the result of flooding and then sand overlays(sedimentation). Therefore there is evidence of great current forces at work along this beach with the bottom constantly changing. Where there is ankle deep water this year(targets too deep) may be chest deep next year. It also points towards targets sinking fast down to levels beyond the detectors reach.
The targets I am seeking range from old coins and jewelry to some collectible items which may range in size up to 3 inches square. Based on what I am looking for I set the X70 up to reject iron(default pattern 1) and accept all other targets. As my primary interest is gold jewelry I used the elliptical high frequency coil, it floats but not so much I can't control it for long periods of time.
For ground balance I used the tracking feature of the X70 since the bottom changes as described above. Normally if I was looking for small gold I would lock the GB so not track out very fine gold. this would be especially true if in Saltwater GB tracking mode. But in this case small gold(chains) are almost out of the question so I'll opt for the convenience of tracking. If using the X50 I'd simply have to check the GB as I noticed the bottom changing.
The X70(30&50) offer a very convenient notching capability which have their time and place. And even though you may have "your favorite or standard pattern" be careful not to make it the same no matter where you hunt. This beach would not be the place to notch out tabs because there are very few of them and you may easily miss a relic or gold.
Likewise this would also not be the place to look for coin sized targets only. You'll notice in the photo below that several large targets were dug, this was on purpose. If I were silver shooting in a park I would have sized those targets and left them in the ground. But at this beach there are large items that a collector may pay good money for.
Threshold was set to 5 to help distinguish iron falsing from iffy targets. If you get an iffy(short blip) and the threshold goes silent then you are over a piece of iron that has not been completely rejected
and has bled thru into good target response.
Sensitivity I run as hot as I can, but I have the experience to recognize instability. My advice to new users is to run at no more than 50% level, as high levels can be challenging and frustrating. This is one of the major causes of people thinking there is something wrong with the detector.
In summary:
1. Note what the geophysical condition where you will be hunting(Ground Balance) & (Sensitivity level--not too high).
2. Think of what possible targets are there and which of those you are after(Discrimination Patterns & Coil selection).
3. Devise a plan ahead of time as to how you will hunt, but be willing to modify your plan once the hunt is underway.
The hunt results, the oldest coin was a 41' Jeff, which points to the coins being very deep. So I look forward to a multi-year project using machines with larger coils in this location.
I hope this provides a little insight on how to approach a hunt with the X-machines.
[attachment 36674 x70a.jpg]
HH
BarnacleBill
To illustrate this I would like to relate a freshwater wading hunt that I did yesterday, and how I approached the task at hand. The beach area is 2000 feet long with water that is generally wade-able to 100ft offshore located at the site of a defunct children's camp. So what to do with 200,000 sq ft of area? First, you want to maximize the number of good targets per hour. Therefore if you plan to follow the philosophy on digging all targets because the "digging is easy", then I hope you own a scrap iron business. Second, to just begin griding the area from one end and working your way towards the other would take years.
As such I am still in scouting mode, as I have been there twice and walked the length of it, which takes several hours at a moderate swinging pace. The main purpose of the scouting is to locate target rich areas, which in this case would be the swim area. I have gone to the trouble of buying a brochure on Ebay from the camp dating in the early 50's to see if any of the photos showed the swim area, no such luck. I don't feel I've located it yet, but it may be the coins are already sunken too deep, more on that later. I have however located where the main dock used to be as there is a nail pattern about six feet wide under the sand that extends from the shore out to deeper water. Using onshore trees and structures I have made a note of where this dock location is to further investigate, as there are good targets mixed in the iron, and I WILL grid it working it very slowly from multiple angles when the time comes.
The underwater beach area is interesting. If one were to walk 50ft offshore parallel to the beach over the 2000ft length, at times you would be in ankle deep water and other times in shoulder deep water.The bottom changes back and forth from fine sand to pea sized gravel which is (mineralisation level) hot and at times a very sticky thick clay mix. There are also places where 6 to 10 inches down are layers of leaves and twigs showing the result of flooding and then sand overlays(sedimentation). Therefore there is evidence of great current forces at work along this beach with the bottom constantly changing. Where there is ankle deep water this year(targets too deep) may be chest deep next year. It also points towards targets sinking fast down to levels beyond the detectors reach.
The targets I am seeking range from old coins and jewelry to some collectible items which may range in size up to 3 inches square. Based on what I am looking for I set the X70 up to reject iron(default pattern 1) and accept all other targets. As my primary interest is gold jewelry I used the elliptical high frequency coil, it floats but not so much I can't control it for long periods of time.
For ground balance I used the tracking feature of the X70 since the bottom changes as described above. Normally if I was looking for small gold I would lock the GB so not track out very fine gold. this would be especially true if in Saltwater GB tracking mode. But in this case small gold(chains) are almost out of the question so I'll opt for the convenience of tracking. If using the X50 I'd simply have to check the GB as I noticed the bottom changing.
The X70(30&50) offer a very convenient notching capability which have their time and place. And even though you may have "your favorite or standard pattern" be careful not to make it the same no matter where you hunt. This beach would not be the place to notch out tabs because there are very few of them and you may easily miss a relic or gold.
Likewise this would also not be the place to look for coin sized targets only. You'll notice in the photo below that several large targets were dug, this was on purpose. If I were silver shooting in a park I would have sized those targets and left them in the ground. But at this beach there are large items that a collector may pay good money for.
Threshold was set to 5 to help distinguish iron falsing from iffy targets. If you get an iffy(short blip) and the threshold goes silent then you are over a piece of iron that has not been completely rejected
and has bled thru into good target response.
Sensitivity I run as hot as I can, but I have the experience to recognize instability. My advice to new users is to run at no more than 50% level, as high levels can be challenging and frustrating. This is one of the major causes of people thinking there is something wrong with the detector.
In summary:
1. Note what the geophysical condition where you will be hunting(Ground Balance) & (Sensitivity level--not too high).
2. Think of what possible targets are there and which of those you are after(Discrimination Patterns & Coil selection).
3. Devise a plan ahead of time as to how you will hunt, but be willing to modify your plan once the hunt is underway.
The hunt results, the oldest coin was a 41' Jeff, which points to the coins being very deep. So I look forward to a multi-year project using machines with larger coils in this location.
I hope this provides a little insight on how to approach a hunt with the X-machines.
[attachment 36674 x70a.jpg]
HH
BarnacleBill