Using Discrimination on Sov.

[D Wes]

I just got my Sov back after it got stolen and sold to a fellow Hunter who uses a Whites XLT. He was ready to give it up, could not get use to the tones at all.
He was not aware that it was stolen. Excited to go out and detect awhile at a old home stead my partner and I have hunted hard, I didn't realize the Discrimination was turned up all the way.
After digging up 6 Wheaties and a neat Token that were between 6 and 8 inches deep, I then realized it was turned up all the way.This site is loaded with Iron and very hard to hunt. My partner hadn't dug a single coin and was getting discouraged. Our last hunt at this site only produced two coins and a pouch full of iron junk. I have never used discrimination before on a Sov and I was shocked at my finds and the depth I was getting. Sites like these produce a lot of false signals taking up time and the frustration starts to build up. The discrimination reduced the false signals and aloud me to cover more ground and focus on
good signals using the Sov Wiggle method on the deep ones. To day we hunted 4 old houses that are being torn down, in the back yards I used no discrimination and had good results. When we got up front
the area of these front yards were very small and loaded with trash. My partner was doing pretty good and I was struggling to find a single clad, so I cranked up the Discrimination wide open and started digging
coins. My rule of thumb is to use no Discrimination due to the masking and the loss of lower conductive targets along with depth loss as well, but I have learned that in certain situations with my Sov, using discrimination will get better results. I have been swing a Sov since they first came out and just learned this new trick. Yes you can teach a old dog new tricks.

 

[gear box]

I'm new to the Sov. but I thought that you didn't lose any depth with disc cranked all the way up. It would just null more. Somebody straighten me out please. Thanks.

 

[Art (NWOH)]

Should I tell you that you are correct right now, or should I wait for a while first??

HH

 

[mickance]

however at times i have found that some items that are deep or small may be ignored when under strong discrimination ..despite being non ferrous ...yet when dug a little and closer to the coil they will register full strong discrimination

 

[gear box]

Right now is good Art. Thank's Gary

 

[Art (NWOH)]

The only problem with too much discrimination is that a weaker hit may be rejected because the first pass registered too low in conductivity and was discriminated out. Unless you take another swing over the target when you hear a threshold tone that is a little low to see if it will come up you will pass it by.
I have seen tokens and coins that were weak enough that the first pass registered like foil, but each additional pass pulled the tone higher until it had the right reading, or near so.
Sovs often need to have a second ( or third) look to ID a very weak or trashed target right .

A good reason to take another pass to see if anything climbs.... and a good reason not to use discrimination if you want the weaker hits.

HH

 

[gear box]

That's a good tip Art. I wrote it in my notebook. I haven't been able to use my new Gt yet but I have been doing a lot of reading and studying. This forum and the people on here are a great help. Thank's again, Gary

 

[Dan-Pa.]

It has a discrimination knob and am sure many do well at various settings...situations..ground conditions and the like..Personally like to set mine to catch low foil up and usually know right from the get-go what I am after as a silver coin will stop me right in my tracks as will a low foil as thats where the womens gold rings with nice stones are.
I feel good tone interpetation is where its at and on most detectors high discrimination usually causes some loss of depth but it does pay to experiment as even though the hunters that have hunted for years learn something new now and then and when the weather breaks have to try high disc. if in silver coin area and see what happens..

 

[Rick(ND)]

When disc is set high it will now null over anything that is disc out so we know it will null more than before with disc set as low as it can go. With it nulling so much(same with silent search) you will not hear the tone of a good target close by unless you go over it a second or 3rd time. This high disc will work good for clad hunting or where targets are not deeper and weaker, but you will miss the nickles and most all gold rings and other interesting relics and collectibles. You will still get all alum cans,screwcaps and zinc pennies as they can not be disc out no mater how high the disc is set. Hi disc does have it advantages too for the areas that is solid pull tabs so you dont have to listen to all of them, but I feel myself from experience you will miss many good targets so this is where I will use the notch and get rid of some of them, but not all of them.

 

[Art (NWOH)]

In the past, I have mentioned sound patterns......particular patterns of sound created by the coil sweeping a target when the sweep speed is right to give you a pattern rather than what sounds like just a blip of a singular tone. This is dependent to a considerable extent on the narrowness of the detection field....the ability to resolve small changes in conductivity and being able to hear the changes as the target is swept.

Here's something that may help under the right conditions....
If the targets are not too thick, there is a different kind of target patterning that can be useful. This is not the individual target tone pattern that I mentioned, but a pattern of multiple individual targets......
Any individual target gives a particular target tone followed by a threshold tone unless the target is discriminated out...in which case you only get the threshold tone for that target after a null.
So when you sweep over multiple seperate targets, you may get a pattern like...."ching--chang--chung". Sweeping back over for a second pass from the opposite direction you would hear "chung--chang--ching". So what if you hear "chung--ching--ching" on the back sweep? You better check out the one that changed...the reverse pattern was not what it should have been. This could have been caused by the middle target being weak, or the middle target being mixed with trash. It bears investigation.
Constantly painting back over the ground slows you down, but can get you more finds. How thick the targets are and how many different tones you can place in a pattern for just a few moments will determine how much work it will be.
When hunting trash you always want to back sweep anyway in case something becomes unhidden by the different sweep direction.

HH

 

[mickance]

i put up a post on this but got no replies ...so i am asking here

when i started using my get i used the volume control and thresh hold normally .......then i discovered that when i had the thresh hold turned up high that the volume control works in reverse ........................as if to compensate for the threshold being so loud


by doing this i get a deeper slower sounding threshold instead of a higher somewhat annoying thresh hold and the detector feels more powerfull and sensitive ..................it may not be but fels that way


has anyone experienced the volume working in reverse with a high threshold .....oh .by the way .this will not work in all metal mode

 

[Dan-Pa.]

And certainly thanks for sharing and all seem plausible..Personally don't have the best hearing at 70 but have excellent tone determination which puts me in the ballpark to further investigate and using the Sov. wiggle my meter tells me to dig or not..In addendum silver coins or gold articles usually have the sweet smooth which further helps me
to determine my target> I would guess mineralization and the particuliar tuning of your unit all plays a part and one can never know enough about this seemingly easy hobby...