UK hunting, coil, and program setup

[James31]

I will be travelling to the UK for a 1-week hunt this spring. Can anyone suggest any setups for UK conditions? I have a real slow swing so I am wondering if I will have to force myself to speed up a bit to cover more ground. I usually use the coin and jewelery program and I modify recovery delay, filters, Rx gain, discrimination depending on the site. I set it to accept -30 to +95. I don't use Tx boost very much since my local soil conditions don't seem to work very well with it.

Right now I just use the stock D2 coil. What coils would be good for the UK trip? I was thinking of buying the 15x12 Inch SEF Butterfly or maybe the 10x12 Butterfly. Would one of these be good for the UK trip or would something else be better? I have a newer V-rated Super 12 for my DFX. I like it on my DFX but I only tried it a few times on my V3. I might try a few more hunts with the Super 12 to get more experience with it on the V3. Does it do well in the UK?

 

[Headmaster]

I'm very new to the V3, but am thinking of getting the 6x10 elliptical as it is apparently brilliant in difficult ground. It costs around

 

[ramases]

I will be travelling to the UK for a 1-week hunt this spring. Can anyone suggest any setups for UK conditions? I have a real slow swing so I am wondering if I will have to force myself to speed up a bit to cover more ground. I usually use the coin and jewelery program and I modify recovery delay, filters, Rx gain, discrimination depending on the site. I set it to accept -30 to +95. I don't use Tx boost very much since my local soil conditions don't seem to work very well with it.

Right now I just use the stock D2 coil. What coils would be good for the UK trip? I was thinking of buying the 15x12 Inch SEF Butterfly or maybe the 10x12 Butterfly. Would one of these be good for the UK trip or would something else be better? I have a newer V-rated Super 12 for my DFX. I like it on my DFX but I only tried it a few times on my V3. I might try a few more hunts with the Super 12 to get more experience with it on the V3. Does it do well in the UK?

If you send me your email address I'll send you over a spreadsheet of UK-specific programs that a lot of people over here have been using to pretty good effect. As for techniques, low and slow is, seemingly, the way to go. Mineralisation tends to be an issue for us as is iron pollution on good sites. Personally, I start out with "7.5KHz High" filters as I can't make myself sweep slowly enough for 5KHz !! You may be able to use Tx Boost, but as you have to reduce Rx to compensate, I tend to use it only when double-checking a finds "hotspot" or on the beach. EMI is rarely a problem over here, and can usually be sorted by offsetting your frequency. A lot of us have adopted the 22.5KHz-only when hunting for small, thin, hammered silver coins. As you probably know, you will need to reduce Rx and/or DS to run single frequency mode. I have used about a dozen different detectors over the last 25+ years, and I have never found as many cut-half and minted-ha'penny hammered silver coins with any other machine as I have with the V3 since July!

As for coils, I like the 6X10 as find it pinpoints better and is less susceptible to bumping against stones etc that the stock coil. Sensitivity and depth seem similar and if you have a lot of iron nails etc littering your site, it can work between them more effectively than the larger coil. I've not used the 12" or a SEF coil on the V3 (the SEFs aren't V-rated as far as I know), but I have read forum threads that suggest that they work well. My only concern would be the iron pollution that seems to affect pretty-much all sites that produce old finds, but if they can cope with that then I reckon a SEF would be good.