detecting you are doing, such as Coin Hunting or Relic Hunting, because 'trashy' can mean different things.
It's also good to know which search coil you are using. I'll presume, due to the forum we're on, that you're using an MXT or MXT Pro. Are you working with the 950 or 12" coil now? Which one?
What type of site are you hunting and where, geographically, might you be? For example, what might your ground conditions be like, such as the Ground Phase setting be after you Ground Balance (just toggle to prospecting mode to get that number).
Trashy? Let's take a park with a dedicated picnic area. You might go out and hunt in the middle of a large, open grassy area and find coins and an occasional pull tab or other piece of junk. That's not 'trashy.' You might make a few sweeps of your coil before crossing an accepted metal target.
Then you move over and hunt the area from the picnic tables out maybe 15 feet. In many cases, by comparison, that just might be a 'trashy area' that is loaded with pull tabs, bottle caps, foil, and other discarded junk. Your side-to-side coil sweep might sound off quite a bit as you encounter multiple targets in very close proximity.
How does the 5.3 Eclipse coil work? Let me share my very biased opinions about search coils in general, especially my favorite from White's.
** I'm not in my 47th year of very active metal detecting. I live in NW Oregon and have for [size=small]2/3[/size] of my life, and the rest in Utah, my native state (I wish I was home now). I've moved back and forth through the years, and in most of my metal detecting travels i have hunted mainly western states (except for Montana), and several Central and Eastern locations as well.
Many areas have rather mild, mellow ground, such as Florida and Texas and Nebraska, and a few other places compared with most sites here in NW Oregon. Many areas (most, really) have a higher amount of iron bearing ground and our mineralization level is pretty high. I usually only find uglier ground in two Eastern Oregon sites I hunt and two or three of my favorite Ghost Towns in Utah and Nevada that are more mineralized than here.
** I am not, and haven't been, a big fan of many Double-D (wide-scan) search coils. Yes, I have owned a number of them from different detector makers and some aftermarket coils as well. Some work okay. In some applications they might have an advantage, but in others they bring along some drawbacks.
I hunt in bad-ground environments, and that includes detecting many old gold mining camps or gold mining area town (sites), working some very challenging black mineralized sand freshwater beaches, and other places with high Ground Phase read-outs and high Fe3O4 readings (from models that convey that info).
With some makes and models a D-D coil can work okay, but overall I have NOT found them to work as well as a good concentric coil regardless of the ground conditions. That includes the nugget hunting I've done through the years, but a lot of the great coin-producing sites I hunt are better worked with a good concentric coil.
** Concentric coils will usually get a little better detection depth than a similar-sized Double-D coil. They will discriminate better than most D-D coils. They will have less back-reading issues from close targets than a D-D coil. They will usually provide better or more accurate TID/VDI readings on side-to-side sweeps than a D-D coil. Pinpointing is easier than with a D-D coil.
Yes, I have a couple of models that are equipped with a Double-D coils, and they work fine as long as I keep in mind what their intended purpose is, and the fact that they were designed to use the D-D coil. Besides, that company doesn't make a concentric coil for those models.
** I have owned most White's models or used them a lot as I have been a life-long fan of many White's detectors. No, I don't like them all because some models just don't work right, or 'fit' my hunting needs and comfort level. So, I have used all of the Double-D and Concentric coils that have been available for all models over the current 15 years, just to stay with modern models and modern coils, and I prefer the Concentric designs.
With all the XLT's I've owned, and the brand new one I'll pick up this week, I can get by with the stock 950 coil in open-area searches, but if I had a choice I prefer the thin-profile 8" concentric coil as it balances better. That said, 95% of all my detecting time with the XLT has been accomplished using the 5.3 BullsEye coil (or an earlier version with a different decal). This coil measures about 6
