Using Analyze to ID Iron

[Neil in West Jersey]

During yesterday's outing one of my focuses was on the use of the Analyze screen on deep targets. In the past I was using Analyze to confirm what I already knew. For example, when I found a target that gave a 78 VDI at 5 inches, I used the analyze screen to confirm that I found a dime. I was actually costing me time. Rather than dig, I was analyzing. Lately I found myself using it less and less.

Last Saturday I discovered something by accident when I found the gold jewelry that I posted. It was nearly 7 inches deep just beyond the edge of the discriminate mode so all I got was the hum of the All Metal channel (using Mixed Mode), with an occasional chirp on the positive side of the scale. Certainly a good target to dig when working old sites with many deep small targets. I decided to see how the Analyze screen handled it. ( I have it set to the default Analyze settings, but "Match Search" is unchecked). It took a few swings to get a readout, but when it appeared, it was a nice smooth hump with 7.5 being the dominant hump. This confirmed to me that it was a diggable target. Had it been iron, 22.5 Khz would have been the dominant hump. Needless to say, at this site and on deep targets, I would dig it anyway.

During yesterday's outing I planned on using analyze to confirm iron. I dug plenty of flat nails, and they always had 22.5 Khz as the dominant target.

So how can this be a benefit? Sometimes a target will give the threshold change, but jump into the 80's or 90's on the VDI scale. If the target has a dominant hump showing 22.5, it is most likely iron. If 2.5 KHz or 7.5 Khz was dominant, it would be a diggable target.

 

[The Beep Goes On]

Have you seen the analyze wave pattern where the lines are all wavy?...lots of humps, or sine waves, across the board for each frequency, or one freq sometimes more wavy than the others. If I remember correctly, it was an iron target, but it could have been EMI. I need to start getting pics of the 'out-of-the-ordinary' analyze screens.

 

[jer4004]

In my area the dominate frequency on rusty square nails is 2.5. But the rusty deep bottle caps the 22.5 is dominate. I suppose it all depends on the ground.

 

[BJ in Okla.]

(((((((((((((( It was nearly 7 inches deep just beyond the edge of the discriminate mode so all I got was the hum of the All Metal channel (using Mixed Mode), with an occasional chirp on the positive side of the scale. )))))))))


Neil what coil were you using ???
Is your soil that bad where you were hunting ???
I would think at 7" you would have got a good sound and VDI numbers.
In my soil, with my CZ 3d and 5" coil, Sens. at 3.5 and Vol at 5 and disc at zero, I can hit and ID 8" & 9" dimes with no problem.
I hope that my V-3 does better than 7".
I have read where with the V-3 and 5.3 coil, guys are finding coins deeper than 7".
HH...BJ

 

[jer4004]

(((((((((((((( It was nearly 7 inches deep just beyond the edge of the discriminate mode so all I got was the hum of the All Metal channel (using Mixed Mode), with an occasional chirp on the positive side of the scale. )))))))))


Neil what coil were you using ???
Is your soil that bad where you were hunting ???
I would think at 7" you would have got a good sound and VDI numbers.
In my soil, with my CZ 3d and 5" coil, Sens. at 3.5 and Vol at 5 and disc at zero, I can hit and ID 8" & 9" dimes with no problem.
I hope that my V-3 does better than 7".
I have read where with the V-3 and 5.3 coil, guys are finding coins deeper than 7".
HH...BJ

I have a V3 and in my ground a 8 or 9" dime is no problem with the 5.3 coil.

 

[BJ in Okla.]

When I first got my V-3, my MXT could double the depth in the air with a quarter laying on clean ground, with the same D-2 coil.
I got my V-3 used and was not happy, until I went in and put every program back to factory settings.
Then started putting settings a little at a time.
I was ready to send mine in until I did a factory reset.
Our soil is mild here.
Thanks for your post, makes me feel better, the 5.3 is my favorite coil for where I hunt.
HH...BJ

 

[Neil in West Jersey]

Have you seen the analyze wave pattern where the lines are all wavy?...lots of humps, or sine waves, across the board for each frequency, or one freq sometimes more wavy than the others. If I remember correctly, it was an iron target, but it could have been EMI. I need to start getting pics of the 'out-of-the-ordinary' analyze screens.

I noticed that most of the time iron was pretty smooth, almost like a coin, unless it was a very large target. Also composite targets like rusty old cans give the wavy lines.

(((((((((((((( It was nearly 7 inches deep just beyond the edge of the discriminate mode so all I got was the hum of the All Metal channel (using Mixed Mode), with an occasional chirp on the positive side of the scale. )))))))))


Neil what coil were you using ???
Is your soil that bad where you were hunting ???
I would think at 7" you would have got a good sound and VDI numbers.
In my soil, with my CZ 3d and 5" coil, Sens. at 3.5 and Vol at 5 and disc at zero, I can hit and ID 8" & 9" dimes with no problem.
I hope that my V-3 does better than 7".
I have read where with the V-3 and 5.3 coil, guys are finding coins deeper than 7".
HH...BJ

I have a V3 and in my ground a 8 or 9" dime is no problem with the 5.3 coil.

I was using the 950 coil. The ground has moderate to heavy mineralization. I can hit dimes very deep with this coil no problem at depths around 8 or 9 in most cases. Keep in mind that we a re talking about a small gold target. You will not have the same sensitivity to gold as you will with silver or copper. If you read my normalization report, one of the notes I made was that in any frequency other than 22.5 there is a dramatic loss of sensitivity to gold and other small jewelry. Other factors besides the above things (coil size, mineralization, VDI) is that the targets alignment in the soil will have a huge impact on target depth.

I cannot say that I have found any very deep targets yet like I did with my DFX. It could be simply that I cleaned out my sites pretty good in the past.

 

[TheMarshall]

Hi Beep.......wavy line......yep.....EMI

The Marshall

 

[Neil in West Jersey]

In my area the dominate frequency on rusty square nails is 2.5. But the rusty deep bottle caps the 22.5 is dominate. I suppose it all depends on the ground.

On my last outing I noticed a few iron targets showed with 2.5 KHz the dominant hump. I guess it depends on the ground conditions. I also observed that when it showed 2.5 KHz as the dominant hump on iron, all 3 humps were very close together at the peak,.

I will have to check next time to see if all iron targets have all three humps close together. This would make sense because at the low end of the VDI scale all the numbers become compressed and the VDI of iron targets would be the same in all three frequencies.

Keep in mind that these results are for deep targets that were beyond the range of the Discriminate channel and are only able to be detected in Mixed Mode or All Metal mode.