Xterra-70 and nickles

[James/Washington]

I posted a little about this in a post below but continue to have problems. Ok, now that I have had the Exterra-70 for a while now and have messed with just about every setting except the beach mode. I seem to be having some problem in picking up nickles. I am having very choppy signals on nickles and not the depth I expected. When I do an air test on the nickles the detector really bangs hard and solid with a solid 12 reading on the meter. If I take this same nickle and place it on the ground It is a totally different story! I get little if any signal and then it is very choppy. I am using the stock m coil. I have manually and auto gb and both are at 17 and have moved it from 15 to 25. I can go into all matal or discrimination pattern #1 with all notches excepted, except for -8 down. Sensitivity set all between 18 to 28, volume 30, noise cancel from -1 to +1,threshold from 0 to 10, target tones 3. I have gone in and out of tracking and target stability. I can get good hits using prospecting mode but do not want to use this mode due to the HEAVY trash here. Am I doing something wrong? Otherwise, I love this detector and find it a very easy and light detector and is fun to use. I have found some nickles but not like I should.

 

[Gary in Daytona]

The ground you're testing over may be hot. That could be the difference. I took mine for a walk this morning and found as many nickels as any other coin, including some deep ones that were obviously missed by other hunters. They hit as hard as dimes or pennies, albeit lower in tone. I was using the HF coil (highly recommended for lower conductivity targets such as nickels and rings) but still you should be getting solid hits either way - air or ground -<i>unless </i>something is interfering with your X70 once you lower your coil to the ground.

 

[bfodnes]

Hi

I think You shold leave the auto BG to find its place and then go down one step. Never up.

Then sensitivity may be too high and what destroys you coin signal is minerals, I have had my share of invisible shallow coins due to too much sensitivity to get deep.

The detector will see it in one big soup, all of the ground in the coils detecting field that on the Terra is huge and the coin. The low conductive nickle will have trouble shining out inbetween the mineral signal.

A nickle that is 60 years old will shine better but I have left many silvers too just to that fact with my explorer.

I am a slow learner but have learned that sens and depth is just not everything. The minelabs or any other threshold based detector is forgiving because u can feel the power and turn it down.

There is far more coins masked or blanked then deep I think. Afterall, the majority of coins is just 6" deep or less.

Try on bedrock, thats a nasty combination with too much sens if it is the correct rock.

bfodnes

 

[James/Washington]

I always gb before I hunt. The detector will gb nearly anywhere down here at about 17. Either manual or auto. The ground changes little down here until you get close to the coast and then it is very bad. I even set the sensitivity as low as 14. Maybe I should try it a little lower as most all of the coins I find here are 4" or less in depth! I will continue to play around with the settings. Your ground is probably not as hot as mine. You probably have a lot of sand where I have a sandy clay that gets slippery and gummey when wet. Rhghr now it is almost like concerte so digging ring tabs is not too much fun.

 

[ericdj]

like Gary, I have been using the HF elliptical coil. I've definitely found more nickels with the HF coil than the stock 7.5. If you want to pound nickels - HF coil. A very noticeable improvement.
The other coins - dime, pennies and quarters, seem to have jumped up a segment - quarters were a solid 42 with the stock coil, now they seem less firm. A bit more bouncing from 42 to 44.
Gary, do you notice that?

 

[khouse]

Ditto here with an xt-30 in my test garden. Pattern 1 with -4 notched out. all other coins sound good but for a broken non repeatable tone on nickle. nickle is buried 4 inches deep. beaver tail sounds good. other brand units with a lower frequency had a good hit on the nickle. sensitivity @ 8