What Makes the Decision for You to Dig?

[grumpyolman]

I am really new to the Explorer SE. I am digging the clad stuff fairly reasonably, I think, if it's there. Some deep and some surface. No silver and I think there's some there. I found 2 silver quarter there in the last year or so. When you here a possible target and_

If when you swing the coil from left to right thats "1".
If when you swing the coil back, from right to left. its"2".
You then rotate your swing direction 90 degrees.
If when you swing the coil from left to right thats "3".
If when you swing the coil back, from right to left. its"4"

Do you have to hear the target in all four numberd directions before you dig, or is just "1" enough...or must you hear "1" and "2"? I think you get the drift of what I am trying to learn. There's probably some other variables that I am not considering, but your answer to the above might start to give me a clue to increase the chance for some silver. Thanks! Regards...Jim.

 

[BlackX]

..., from my short experience (5 months), I find that iron edges will often give me a one-way good signal, usual from left to right (I think but not sure) but not the other direction. Whether it does the same thing from 90 degrees depends on the size of the iron and the location of the coil in relation. A horizontal nail will often give a decent iffy signal off one or more ends of the nail that can sound good from multiple directions (though often chopped or other things you learn to recognize). And vertical nails can sound pretty darn good at times but with an iron-sound in the center. But then sometimes the good deep coins seem to have that iron in the center thing too. Figuring out what's goodies next to iron and what's iron-edge falsing is still pretty hard for me though I'm getting better. Sometimes I can tell when there are multiple targets in one hole and usually I can tell singular iron but sometimes they just plain fool me. And sometimes I think I "wish" the iron into sounding good. I keep having to remind myself to listen for that poppy sound iron (and hot rocks) give. I'll often dig 'em anyway but I'm usually right when I think it's iron. I tend to get fooled more the other direction (where I think it sounds good and turns out to be iron).

Another thing: From my level of experience, for deeper iffy coins, the percentage of time the cursor bounces in the upper right quadrant (particularly in the penny/dime/quarter spots) in the smartfind screen is pretty darn consistent with the odds of it being a goodie. If--discounting cursor-locked time--the cursor spends, say, a quarter-to-half of it's time in the upper right quadrant, I'm diggin'. If it spends 3/4 or more of it's time in the upper right quadrant, I'm feeling good before I even cut the plug. (Of course, if your soil's been turned over and you have screw-tops and rectangular tabs down 8" or so, all bets are off for me.)

Most places I hunt, digging from halfway down the depth meter on down considerably increases my odds of pre-clad coins, although occasionally a good one will be shallower.

One of the best pieces of advice I've been given is to adjust the threshold tone to your hearing. Grab a silver quarter and wave it back and forth over the coil (or probe) while adjusting your TH tone up and done a few times and find out where your ear best hears that tone. For me, 8 and 9 give copper and silver a nice flat (non-modulated) "singing" sound. (Probably what others call "flutey".) Once you have that sound dialed into your brain, when you hear that sweet sound coming up from deep you won't mistake it. (Though sometimes goodies aren't going to sound that sweet.) I've pulled 4 pre-1800 coins, and one pre-1700 coin, out in the past couple of weeks and they all had a "sweet" component to the sound that told me "DIG". (While I've been using ferrous sounds the vast majority of the time since I've had the machine, I've recently been playing with conductive on occasion. My last LC was found in Conductive and it sounded just as sweet with that TH setting as the others did in Ferrous.)

Have fun. It's a great machine. (I'm lovin' it!)

 

[dewcon4414]

There are no short cuts to the learning process unfortuately. You just have to dig more to find more or you are going to loose some good targets until you get comfortable with the tones. A proble like the X1 really helps as does just cutting a small plug before digging to china. Pinpointing with the SE will give you a better reading on the target. If the coins shallow say down to 6" the SE does a reasonable job of IDing it. Watch your depth meter and learn that LOUD sounds showing as deep targets normally are trash like can shrades, and outline your targets once pinpointed to check for size. The larget the target sometimes the closer to the surface it reads. Im a iffy kind of digger... but the longer you hunt the more you tend to NOT want to dig trash so your ears get overload and your swing gets faster. I try to pinpoint the target to ensure the coil is directly over it then do the 90 degree thing with short FASTER strokes... kind of a wiggle as they say.

 

[grumpyolman]

Appreciate the long and detailed descriptions. I'll read them a dozen times or so and then maybe it'll sink in to operating differently.
I've read a lot here about Ferrous and Conductive and know what they are and how to change them. but how does that make the same target sound differently or does it. If this has been explained lots of times here, a link would help lots. I do have the X-1. As suggested here, it was the first add on I bought. It is truly a major helpful tool. Applying the same to a beginning welder, it's like buying one of the automatic hoods that one can see through, to know where what your welding is, until the arc strikes and then it turns dark like a regular hood, is all the time. Regards...Jim.

 

[BlackX]

...Ferrous and Conductive...how does that make the same target sound differently or does it.

With Ferrous, iron is low grunts (except for the falsing). Indians and Zincs will sound about the same (given the same depth (though zincs are often more corroded and sound crappier)), copper cents and dimes will sound a little higher, and quarters/halves will be the highest yet. Crown caps and a lot of bullets will also be at the highest pitch. Nickels will sound higher in Ferrous than in Conductive.

In Conductive, crown caps, foil, small gold rings, (and the 3-cent nickel coin if you're lucky!), etc., will sound low with nickels generally just above them. Then, overlapping with nickel and generally short of high coins, the pull-tab (and larger gold objects and other odd things) fall in the large span until you start hitting coins again where the zincs will be around Indians again, with dimes/nickels/quarters all generally hitting around 28 so have the same pitch pretty much.

So, while there are differences, overall high coins will sound roughly the same in either mode. Nickels will switch from a low tone in conductive to a medium-high tone in ferrous. Nails will switch from a high pitch in conductive to a low pitch in ferrous. Crown caps will switch from a low tone in conductive to a high tone in ferrous.

Have you seen Mike Moutray's screens? They're easy to find via Google if you haven't. They're pretty helpful when starting out.

 

[mattockman]

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[BlackX]

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[mattockman]

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[Mick in Dubbo]

Great post BlackX.
I printed it off so that I can remind myself of what to listen for.
Cheers.
Mick Evans.

 

[grumpyolman]

Thank You for all the information and specially the reference to Mike Moutry's Explorer pages. He indicates that he has both "fast" and "deep" on. I am pretty sure that I saw on Minelab TV that using those two settings at the same time confuses the chip in the detector. I can't technically explain why, but some Aussie sounding fellow with a Minelab shirt explained it. Sounded like a contradictory setting. Your thoughts about that ? Regards...Jim

 

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

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[BlackX]

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[BlackX]

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[Ace]

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