Wet/Dry Soil Conditions - How does it effect detecting?

[kanaka2]

Anyone have and facts/opinions on if soils moisture conditions hinder or help as far as detecting goes? As summer has finally dried out my local parks soil - I seem to continue to find more coins in areas I've detected many times since spring. The soil under the sod is dry sandy soil now. Was curious if detectors (CTX) detect better in dry soil or better in wet soil? Or maybe there just isn't any difference.

Thx!
Jason

 

[Johnnyanglo]

Consider that salt based minerals will be activated by water which are difficult for single freq detectors to eliminate (falsing and senstivity loss). Iron filaments in the soil can when moistened become more reactive and create stronger eddies - which in-turn increases falsing and depth of detection for unwanted iron (to include so-called halos around deteriorated iron). This can cause iron and salts to be more problematic, assuming the soil has these minerals, with resultant depth/sensitivity loss and increased falsing.

On the flip side, digging in moist soil is easier. Yet again, if soil is abundantly wet (porus soils especially) it is possilbe for coins to slip deeper, making them harder to find next time out. If it is winter, damp soil when frozen overnight may push taragets upward toward the surface making them easier to find. Still, damped soil can settle the individual grains and result in denser (more compact) soil, which brings the surface soil down through compactation and thereby decreases the depth of the buried target, making it easier to find. But if you have a cheaply made coil, wet grass on the coil without proper shielding can cause falsing as the coil moves about due to capacitance changes, which is unwanted.

Johnnyanglo

 

[CT Todd]

This conversation has everything to do with the soil YOU are digging in your part of the world. I have done very well in moist soil but not all out Wet ground which will make you dig more iron. The CTX is a multi frequency machine exactly for these and other types of reasons.The hole line of multi frequency units is for doing better in lots of different conditions.There are places where the CTX is almost useless like in the red clay highly mineral ground.I would have to say I much prefer moist over powder. I like a "Little Glow" in the ground but I'm old school.

And to point out
If its that dry out you really shouldn't be out there killing the grass on Public or Private ground. Its bad press for all of us.

 

[CopyTech99]

^^^^^ Exactly.....No rain, so no turf hunting for me.

Had a .5 .75 hour shower a while back and it made very little change. Waiting for some real moisture.

IMO wet soil make for better signals and depth.

 

[Agseeker]

I haven't noticed a hugh difference between moist and dry soil; a little deeper in moist soil. Lots of red clay here which usually means the metal detecting season ends between the end of June to mid-September due to how hard the soil becomes when dried out. Haven't been out for a couple of weeks due to the dry soil, but had a good rain today so I'll be back out this Saturday.

 

[mrwilburino]

Wet soil seems to give a little bit more depth. Dry works better for extremely trashy sites.