Took the 9" HF Round Out to Play

[CZconnoisseur]

Got out with the HF coil the other night and tested its mettle on some heavily hunted ground...First thing I noticed is how alive the ground is with targets again! I'd hoped this would be the case with this coil, and it was...but most of the signals dug were various sizes of foil balls, some flattened into disc shapes! I used 28.8kHz the entire hunt, which lasted about 4 hours.

Mike and I provided moral support for some of the deeper hits, and he would dig an early Wheat to get things started, 1919 date! There were a few of the foil lumps that sounded very coin-like - and most were between 2-5" deep surprisingly. Other detectors no doubt got over these foil balls in the past, but the lower frequencies would be better at ignoring these and calling them for what they are. Next hunt I will likely lower the frequency offset a little, maybe this will help?

Another thing I noticed was most of these foil targets didn't like to give VDI, but the audio were there and it sounded "diggable" to me, but again I will dig nearly everything at this location...just in case...

First good target I found was another bus token, nearly identical to the one I found last week! I can't recall if it gave any VDI, but a little deeper than the token was a good sized iron nail. It was about 8" deep and didn't have any memorable audio qualities....

Didn't dig too much iron *by itself* with this coil - Only THREE pieces of iron came up "by themselves" and they are the largest three iron bits in the photo. The steel disc sounded like a low-conductor coin, and was only 5" deep. I'm thinking the round shape of the steel disc "helped" it get discovered. The remaining iron and steel bits in the photo were found "colaterally" in the same area as some of the foil and non-ferrous targets with the MI-6

Beavertails - Yes there they are again. 5 total this hunt from 5-8" deep. Got VDI on a couple of them, in the mid-high 70s I think. The audio on the beavertails was a little more solid than the foil, for obvious reasons. VDI didn't lock on with foil, nor did it lock on for any other aluminum that night. Compared to the deep aluminum button from last hunt, these aluminum bits didn't VDI all too well....

At one point I got a good non-ferrous 89-90 indication, and at 8" deep there would be a small pearly sterling earring that would be the first silver to be found with this HF coil. But it didn't end there....one inch deeper there would be a solid copper wire about 2 inches long directly under the earring. Below this and just an inch or so offset would be a old brass machine screw! I'm guessing the coil caught the copper wire and brass screw before the earring - but either way...silver is silver!

Probably the most memorable target would be the 1892 V nickel...The audio on it wasn't really special - it sounded a lot like the foil balls I was so good at locating throughout the night! I remember the target size was bigger than most of the foil detected earlier, and I remember getting only an audio hit but it was a non-ferrous, deep "no brainer" , and finally up popped an 80, then 81 - but this was strained at best. Most of the foil was near the edge of detection so it wouldn't give VDI - this was happening more often than not BTW.

At 9" deep it sounded MUCH better than my planted 9" deep nickel, so this gives me confidence for getting a little more depth at this spot. Just need to figure out how to identify those pesky foil masses a little better! More fieldwork, much more digging required!

 

[martygene]

great hunt and thanks for the great write up. i have a 9" round HF coming soon so your observations are a great help. i'll try to add my results asap.

 

[squirrel1]

Good report CZ.

You might consider doing the following.
Hunt in 28khz.
But check some targets with 14.4khz.

If they hit fainter or not at all with no iron tone coming in,,using 14.4khz,,I'll bet those have high likelihood of being foil.

Now if I heard some iron tones creeping in close to target,,,using 14.4khz maybe not a good idea,,iron could be masking a target.

Or you could try to check using 54khz.
If the target livens up moreso vs uaing 28.8khz,,likely foil.

 

[CZconnoisseur]

Thank you Squirrel1! I will definitely give that a try next time around. I remembered what you said about your planted dime and nickel scenario at 10" IIRC. Switching to 14kHz and NOT get a signal - yep, that may tell you something! Switching to 54kHz and it's stronger - again, very valuable info in the audio!

This detector has 21 DIFFERENT selectable frequencies! Will be putting it through some more tests using these offset freqs - maybe you could "tailor" the machine's responses to certain targets using this feature to where you balance out not digging as much foil vs ignoring the iron, and vice versa. Just a thought though...all those remaining foil balls aren't going anywhere!

Had to send the HF coil to Moe yesterday it works very well after 5-6 hours total time on it, but with one big problem...it won't take a charge! I was the lucky duck on that one...it had to happen to someone LOL