First Deus Hunt Today (Friday, 5/6/16)

[HighPlainsHunter]

Taking my newly acquired Deus out for it's maiden voyage later this morning. Going to a 1929 local park. I'm thinking of just using one, or several, of the stock programs just to get my feet wet. Any other suggestions for a complete newbie with the Deus?

Thanks...

 

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[GrandBlancDig]

Run it on basic 1 or deus fast and get a feel for your beautiful machine.

 

[vferrari]

Run it on basic 1 or deus fast and get a feel for your beautiful machine.

Agree. Good starting points.

 

[Calabash Digger]

The pros all agree on the starting point im just backwards, I made a post on another forum about how I started and it was totally different from that. did you find anything?

 

[can]

Have fun.

 

[HighPlainsHunter]

I posted this on another site, but wanted to post it here for those that my not visit the other place. Sorry for the copy and past, but I'm too tired to try and reword it to avoid the redundancy. Besides, the story's the same.

I got out on Friday as planned. The weather was sunny, fairly low humidity and warm. The site I choose was one I hadn't been to yet, so I wasn't aware of the best places to hunt. I started at one location with the 9" coil, and hunted there for about an hour or so before this nice looking young woman came over and asked my politely if I wouldn't mind moving my car as they were getting ready to have an event for the new 2017 Nissan GTR. I told her "no problem", and I went ahead and finished digging another rusted bottle cap, and headed back to the car so I could move to another location in the park.

I moved over by a pavilion to try my luck there, and switched to the 11" coil. For both hunts I used program 3 "Deus Fast" in the stock configuration. The quantity of signals was somewhat hard to believe as the detector was reporting almost a constant barrage of targets. This was probably not the most ideal place to begin my learning curve on a new detector, but it's the one I chose as I've been wanting to go there. Now I know why others told me the place was loaded with trash. They weren't kidding.

I really struggled with the rusted caps that have not been an issue with other machines I've used in the past. They sounded so good, and the ids were right there in the low 90's. I remembered about the coil wiggle, and pull back, method for helping to identify them. I started calling them before I dug them when the nice high tone dropped off at the edge of the coil. I did have a couple of targets that remained with a high tone that still turned out to be trash, but I don't remember exactly which ones now. I know it's only been a little over 24 hours, but my memory isn't what it used to be. I wasn't finding any good targets with the 11" coil at this particular location so I decided to change a couple of settings from the stock #3 program. One thing I did was to reduce the disc from 6.8 to 1. I left it at 1 as I thought I remembered something about not being able to hear the iron at 0, That may not be correct, but I thought I read that somewhere, and I was ready to try something. I really don't remember what else I did other than try different frequencies along with the disc change. Whatever I did seemed to help as the next target I dug was a clad dime. That was the first coin dug with the 11" coil. It was also after making the changes that I began finding the smaller denomination coins that I wasn't either finding, or I wasn't able to identify them for what they were.

I hunted for approximately 4 hours total. I was quite satisfied with the weight of the Deus, and the fact that there were no wires to contend with. I only found 8 coins for a face value of $1.22, but I wasn't expecting too much for the first time out with a new machine that I still haven't finished reading the user's manual, much less Andy's book. I would love to have been able to tell you about all the wonderful type coins I found, and how deep I had to dig for them. I guess that will have to wait for another episode. None of the coins I dug today were more than about 4" deep. I found the Deus to be quite challenging, and find myself eager to learn more about it, and how to be able to understand what it's telling me, and how to modify the settings for sites I will be hunting in the future. I had previously asked about coil size, and which one to get between the 9" and 11". The answers I received were about 50 - 50, but I'm thinking I may prefer the 9". Especially after the shear number of targets I ran across with each sweep of the coil. I'm sure there is a massive amount of masking going on at this location I hunted yesterday. The site became an official city park in 1929 so it's not that old, but it's not new either. I'm sure there are good targets there hidden beneath all the modern junk. I'm still positive that the Deus can be the detector I'm expecting it to be. I just need to apply myself to the task of learning it's secrets.

Thanks for all the encouragement, and thanks for looking...

 

[Calabash Digger]

hang in there you will click with it!

 

[Tedyoh]

Switch to Full Tones and you'll really be able to pick out the bottle caps......or when in doubt over a cap crank the Silencer all the way up....and the the cap signal "disappears" or becomes very chopped, a coin will still sing through (as long as it's not 8" deep)

 

[baspinall]

You may want to bump the frequency down to 11.5 instead of the stock 17. seems o help a bit in the states as apposed to the UK.

 

[HighPlainsHunter]

hang in there you will click with it!

I'm not going anywhere just yet. Can't even consider not going forward with only 4 hours. I'm heading out again on Friday, and will post "Day 2"...

 

[HighPlainsHunter]

Switch to Full Tones and you'll really be able to pick out the bottle caps......or when in doubt over a cap crank the Silencer all the way up....and the the cap signal "disappears" or becomes very chopped, a coin will still sing through (as long as it's not 8" deep)

That's definitely a tip I will try out next time. What about the switching to the second program that is exactly the same as you'e hunting with, except it's at 4kHz, to test the bottlecap? Have you tried that one?

 

[HighPlainsHunter]

You may want to bump the frequency down to 11.5 instead of the stock 17. seems o help a bit in the states as apposed to the UK.

Thanks for that tip. I was mostly using the 18kHz frequency. I did switch between the others, but am used to hunting with a higher frequency. I'll certainly try them all I'm sure...

 

[ggossage]

What about the switching to the second program that is exactly the same as you'e hunting with, except it's at 4kHz, to test the bottlecap? Have you tried that one?

This is the method I use for bottlecaps that sound like coins. Switching from 4K to 12K the VDI should increase for a coin; a bottlecap's VDI will decrease. Likewise, switching from 12K to 4K, a coin VDI will decrease while a bottlecap VDI will increase. However, watch and listen close for possible co-located targets. You'll know what I mean when you pull a silver out of the same hole as a bottlecap--good luck!

 

[Tedyoh]

That's definitely a tip I will try out next time. What about the switching to the second program that is exactly the same as you'e hunting with, except it's at 4kHz, to test the bottlecap? Have you tried that one?

I have but this is before I moved to full tones and before I truly understood how the reactivity and silencer worked (together) I also felt I didn't need to take up a program slot just for checking caps, main reason I do not hunt parks, I'm more of a relic hunter.

Also, do not be afraid to crank the reactivity all the way up to 5 in those trashy areas as you explained by your pavilion area, (I'd put the 9" on and lower the freq. to 8 or 12, 18 makes aluminum sound just too good) a lot of people say it's not necessary and you loose too much depth at 4 or 5, I find a lot of nice things in nail beds with high reactivity. In nice neutral soil you may loose 2" in depth, but it's the price you pay picking out the goodies in the junk that other detectors just can't see or separate from the iron.