Sunday was my brother's birthday. I won't tell you how old he is, but will say he is my OLDER brother. We have been studying some of the earliest inhabited sites in this part of the Country, and coming up with a few goodies at several of them. He has "taken the honors" the last two hunts with an 1843 half dime and a 1835 dime. So, I figured it was about my turn.
Anyway, the place we hunted Sunday was the site of an old school house that dated 1870 - 1910. We figured there should have been a few coins lost over that period of time, considering the school was also used for church services and summer picnics. After gaining permission to hunt the site, and walking about 1/2 mile through some rough terrain, we found the corn field where the school once stood. We found lots of pieces of brick, glass and scattered iron. There was so much iron in the ground that I had to walk over the hill to find a spot that was "clean enough" to ground balance. Running in all metal was virtually impossible. So, I chose to run with the X-70 in Pattern 1. After about 3 hours of hunting, and nothing to show for it, I noticed a copper rivot down on the ground, about the size of the eraser from a pencil. Wondering what it would ID, I passed my 7.5 kHz coil over it. No Beep. Nada! Initially, I thought maybe my X-70 had died. But, when I picked up the rivot and waved it under the coil, it did what it was suppose to do. I tossed the rivot back down on the ground and swept over it again. And again, nothing. My brother had elected to leave his X-50 in the car, and chose to use his XLPro with the 5.3 coil. He waved the 5.3 over the small piece of copper and BEEP! BEEP! Loud and clear. Although I can usually hear the blanking of threshold tone when the detector passes over a target that has been notched out, I honestly couldn't hear any blanking around this copper rivot. Bill picked up the rivot and threw a quarter down on the ground. I swept the X-70 over it and got a short beep. If I raised the coil any higher than 3 inches off of the ground, I would not hit on the quarter. Again, his 5.3 coil hit it hard, consistently and at much greater depths. This has to be some of the worst masking (and target blanking) that I have ever encountered. The rivot and the quarter were apparently being masked by all the iron crap in the ground. I know for a fact that I can notch out a pull tab, lay it on top of a dime, and still get a signal from dime with my X-70. But for some reason, and I suspect it was the abundance of iron targets literally every few inches, that made the X-70 totally ignore the copper rivot I came across Sunday. And, I have to believe that my brother was able to separate the copper from the trash with his smaller 5.3 coil. Probably explains why he dug several old shotgun shell casings and I only found one. And now that I think about it, it might explain why he has "taken the honors" the past couple outings.
I have been anxious for a smaller coil to become available on the X-Terra for some of my park hunting. But Sunday's experience suggests that it may be just as important for hunting some of these remote building sites as well. Anybody else had this experience??? HH Randy
Anyway, the place we hunted Sunday was the site of an old school house that dated 1870 - 1910. We figured there should have been a few coins lost over that period of time, considering the school was also used for church services and summer picnics. After gaining permission to hunt the site, and walking about 1/2 mile through some rough terrain, we found the corn field where the school once stood. We found lots of pieces of brick, glass and scattered iron. There was so much iron in the ground that I had to walk over the hill to find a spot that was "clean enough" to ground balance. Running in all metal was virtually impossible. So, I chose to run with the X-70 in Pattern 1. After about 3 hours of hunting, and nothing to show for it, I noticed a copper rivot down on the ground, about the size of the eraser from a pencil. Wondering what it would ID, I passed my 7.5 kHz coil over it. No Beep. Nada! Initially, I thought maybe my X-70 had died. But, when I picked up the rivot and waved it under the coil, it did what it was suppose to do. I tossed the rivot back down on the ground and swept over it again. And again, nothing. My brother had elected to leave his X-50 in the car, and chose to use his XLPro with the 5.3 coil. He waved the 5.3 over the small piece of copper and BEEP! BEEP! Loud and clear. Although I can usually hear the blanking of threshold tone when the detector passes over a target that has been notched out, I honestly couldn't hear any blanking around this copper rivot. Bill picked up the rivot and threw a quarter down on the ground. I swept the X-70 over it and got a short beep. If I raised the coil any higher than 3 inches off of the ground, I would not hit on the quarter. Again, his 5.3 coil hit it hard, consistently and at much greater depths. This has to be some of the worst masking (and target blanking) that I have ever encountered. The rivot and the quarter were apparently being masked by all the iron crap in the ground. I know for a fact that I can notch out a pull tab, lay it on top of a dime, and still get a signal from dime with my X-70. But for some reason, and I suspect it was the abundance of iron targets literally every few inches, that made the X-70 totally ignore the copper rivot I came across Sunday. And, I have to believe that my brother was able to separate the copper from the trash with his smaller 5.3 coil. Probably explains why he dug several old shotgun shell casings and I only found one. And now that I think about it, it might explain why he has "taken the honors" the past couple outings.
I have been anxious for a smaller coil to become available on the X-Terra for some of my park hunting. But Sunday's experience suggests that it may be just as important for hunting some of these remote building sites as well. Anybody else had this experience??? HH Randy
I can't wait till we get some rain. 
Later Jerry aka Tinfoil.
Jerry aka Tinfoil