Soil problems help.

[larrylwill]

I recently moved to Jackson County Alabama. I have a DFX. Today was the first time I really tried detecting for any length. I went to a park and a school. The school started as an elementary school in the 30s, then added Jr high then High and now belongs to the county.

So I would assume there would be at least a few silver coins there. I did most of my detecting in Florida and Cullman, Al. Any way here is in the Tennessee valley not far from the river. The soil survey map says Its supposed to be made up of limestone, sandstone and several types of clay. The clay starts from a couple of inches to 6-7" down. Every coin I found was erratic, my friend was using a Tesoro Umax, he had the same problem. Most of the coins we found were nickles, a couple of dimes and a couple of pennies, nothing old. nothing deeper than 2-1/2 " Lots of pull tabs and some pencil eraser metal., tinfoil and iron. Because I starting digging everything.
Most target read dime/penny/foil/ring/pulltab as you walked around the target.
I cut a slit and pushed one dime back in it about 2-1/2" on the surface it read good and solid, in the ground it was all over the place. I tried 3khz, 15khz and coins, coins jewelry, deep silver, and the published hi trash program. I also tyried prospecting mode but it sounded like the ground was full of metal which it was not.

So I'm looking for recommendations how to search this soil. I assume a smaller coil would help. I have the standard DFX and my friend the standard Tesoro.
What program is recommend or what should I change, I'm not really proficient with the DFX programming, but I know the settings and how to change them pretty good including the discrimination and notch settings.

Any help appreciated. Any programs?

 

[ixlr8]

Larrylwill,
You might want to try the 6x10 Eclipse dd coil, It's the white one that's oval. When I come across some bad ground, that one usually works well, very stable. Also try to lower your AC and DC sensitivity, a little bit at a time until your running smooth. Lower your Pre Amp gain, And always ground balance twice.

Good luck
Steve

 

[Old Katz]

Hello Larry:
Dito on what Steve said. The 6x10DD works wonders and is
VERY easy to pin point.
Katz

 

[Larry (IL)]

My best friend with the DFX and noisy ground was Correlate mode. I also used the 6X10 for a lot of years until I moved to the 10" DD which added more depth and still had the same separation as the 6X10. There is a lot of good advise in the DFX Users Classroom.

 

[larrylwill]

Update: I bought the 10" DD coil and went out again. We went back to the school we were at before in town and another spot 15 miles out in the country.
I was armed with the DFX with 2 different new programs suggested, the standard coil, the DD coil, a Garrett GTA 1000 with a DD coil, a Tesero and Garrett Ace.
All the detectors performed the same way. The signal continued to jump around like the ground was possessed. I buried a wheat penny 1.5" and walking around the target I got everything from a good signal to nothing depending on my orientation. Didn't matter what coil or what detector. Over 2" the penny was not detected by any detector. I got no solid reading on any target I found which was only 2 penny's, my friend also found 1 penny and 1 nickel. The ground is mostly made up of dirt, small rocks and clay. The first school was built in 1880's and no fill that I could tell. The 2nd school was torn down in the 70's and was now a open field. There was a lot of aluminum cans detected which leads me to believe that ground was plowed along with a trash pile or could have been from the ball field that used to be there.
The cans detected like a dime or quarter and read 0-1" and were about 5" deep. Best description is the ground sounded choppy. Moving the coil over it produced uneven choppy signals anywhere I went including my own yard which is 10 miles from the 1st site and 35 from the 2nd. My yard is 1300 ft higher than the other places and was not as choppy but still was very unreliable detecting coins buried 3-4". The target ID will not read constant. Using the detector 50 miles south works normal. There are no radio or TV transmitters anywhere near any of the sites. The first place was in town and it could have been some interference, the 2nd place was far from town but could have been trashy ground, but my yard has none of those problems.
The only thing I have left is to try my Whites Surfmaster PI to see if I can detect anything solid. I'm open for any ideas.