My Civil War settings need some advice

JmCraz8

Bronze Member
Apr 2, 2011
1,623
693
Ohio
Detector(s) used
Currently using: XP DEUS, T2 SE and the Garret Carrot lol
Have used: Garret Ace 250, Garret AT Pro, Garret Pro Pointer
Primary Interest:
Relic Hunting
Hello fellow Deus users, boy oh boy this is a killer machine and love every bit of it. I've been using the Deus for a full year now and still working out the kinks and finally getting a handle of the machine and even have Andys new updated book. Here's my settings below, I'm using the x35 11inch coil and primarily hunt civil war relics and trying to get as deep as possible, so go ahead and pick apart these setting haha I hunt West Virginia soil and it's not hot at all and have used these settings in Culpepper VA with success but if I can get deeper that would be awesome. Thank you!

Put together using the deep program

Frequency: 11.6
Iron Volume: 3
Reactivity: 3
Silencer: -1
Audio Response: 4
Notch: 00-00
Disc: 0.0
Full Tones
Sensitivity: 98
 

vferrari

Silver Member
Jul 19, 2015
4,910
8,376
Near Ground Zero for Insanity
Detector(s) used
XP Deus with HF/x35 Coils and Mi6 Pinpointer/ML Equinox 600/800/ML Tarsacci MDT 8000 GPX 4800/Garrett ATX/Fisher F75 DST/Tek G2+/Delta/Whites MXT/Nokta Simplex/Garrett Carrot
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Hello fellow Deus users, boy oh boy this is a killer machine and love every bit of it. I've been using the Deus for a full year now and still working out the kinks and finally getting a handle of the machine and even have Andys new updated book. Here's my settings below, I'm using the x35 11inch coil and primarily hunt civil war relics and trying to get as deep as possible, so go ahead and pick apart these setting haha I hunt West Virginia soil and it's not hot at all and have used these settings in Culpepper VA with success but if I can get deeper that would be awesome. Thank you!

Put together using the deep program

Frequency: 11.6
Iron Volume: 3
Reactivity: 3
Silencer: -1
Audio Response: 4
Notch: 00-00
Disc: 0.0
Full Tones
Sensitivity: 98

Not bad settings. I have a custom program similar to this in my custom settings but seldom use it for relic hunting any more. Here are some comments:

If you are solely looking for deep settings, then you can tweak these slightly:

The frequency is OK but since most relics are mid-conductors like lead and brass, you might want to try 25 khz. It tends to excite mid-conductors better than the lower frequencies and also tends to help with smaller targets like cuff buttons, small gold, and pistol bullets. The lower frequencies do tend to penetrate deeper into ground, but are less sensitive to mid-conductors vs. high conductors like silver and copper. So give 25 khz a spin and see what you think.

Also, your reactivity level is a little high if you want max depth. I would go with 2 or 2.5. The higher reactivity level helps with separation in thick iron or non-ferrous junk but at the expense of potentially missing deeper targets because their target signal duration will be shorter (like a short blip) vs. when using a lower reactivity setting. Only use a reactivity setting as high as you need to in order to provide target separation. If targets are spread out, go ahead and use a lower reactivity like 2.

I like your audio response setting.

This doesn't affect depth so much as target ID accuracy, but I am not a big fan of full tones. I used to be a big full tones guy until I discovered some flaws in the way XP implemented the feature on Deus. First of all, if you are using full tones, the only way to hear iron is to run 0 disc, just like you have it set up above. The iron volume setting doesn't do anything when in Full Tones. A lot of folks are under the mistaken impression that running with any level of discrimination lowers detection depth. On Deus that is not true, and Andy Sabisch has demonstrated in videos that he shows during his Deus bootcamp sessions (I have assisted him in instructing bootcamps when he brings his bootcamp to Virginia/Maryland/Pennsylvania) that detection depth is not compromised even when disc is run as high as 10 or 15. But you may ask, even if disc doesn't adversely affect depth, why run discrimination at all, especially, if you do want to hear the iron? There are two reasons. First, running with disc at or above 7 enables the horseshoe display to accurately reflect ferrous/non-ferrous targets and to more accurately display depth. Second, running with discrimination, even if you are running with iron volume, allows the Deus to give a more accurate target ID because the ferrous is filtered out from down-averaging the non-ferrous signal.

So, my recommendation is to run with discrimination at between 7 to 10 with some iron volume set at 1 to 3 (hearing the iron allows you to know where the nails are which can clue you in to where people and old dwellings were present and that's where the relics are). I personally like to run pitch audio vice tones. My second choice is to run 3 to 5 tone audio. I like pitch because it is most sensitive to any non-ferrous target in the ground, it's intensity varies with the signal strength of the target and you can listen for those non-ferrous whisper pitch tones. You will still hear the ferrous iron grunts with iron volume engaged. Alternatively, you can just use 3,4, or 5 multitone ID set up with breakpoints consistent with whatever frequency you are running (if you are running without ID norm on). Running with ID NORM off allows you to test for ferrous falsing and bottlecaps as you can apply a low frequency signal to a potential bottlecap and if the target ID does not decrease then you have a likely bottlecap. Or you can just run with ID NORM and all target IDs will correspond to as if you were running 18 khz regardless of the actual frequency you are using.

One of the best relic detectorists I know simply runs with Deus Fast default settings with the white elliptical coil and frequency set at either 28 or 74 khz, disc at 6.8 and 3 tones and just kills it with banner find after banner find.

Anyway, those are my comments on your setting for your consideration.

Other tips - if running in high mineralization like in Culpeper, lower TX power to no more than 2 and lower if possible. Also experiment with GB tracking, which works really well in version 5.

Also, I would experiment with Gold Field, it is similar to running discrimination mode with pitch but is set up with a threshold tone and iron rejection instead of iron discrimination (I typically run with 0 iron rejection with gold field, especially in mineralized dirt because the iron rejection feature can be fooled by the iron oxide in mineralized dirt. This is like an all metal mode and since it is designed for small gold detection, is very sensitive and can be deep. You can run it at any frequency, but I like to run it at 25 - 28 khz when relic hunting. Lower if coin shooting. Give it a shot.

HTH.
 

OP
OP
JmCraz8

JmCraz8

Bronze Member
Apr 2, 2011
1,623
693
Ohio
Detector(s) used
Currently using: XP DEUS, T2 SE and the Garret Carrot lol
Have used: Garret Ace 250, Garret AT Pro, Garret Pro Pointer
Primary Interest:
Relic Hunting
Not bad settings. I have a custom program similar to this in my custom settings but seldom use it for relic hunting any more. Here are some comments:

If you are solely looking for deep settings, then you can tweak these slightly:

The frequency is OK but since most relics are mid-conductors like lead and brass, you might want to try 25 khz. It tends to excite mid-conductors better than the lower frequencies and also tends to help with smaller targets like cuff buttons, small gold, and pistol bullets. The lower frequencies do tend to penetrate deeper into ground, but are less sensitive to mid-conductors vs. high conductors like silver and copper. So give 25 khz a spin and see what you think.

Also, your reactivity level is a little high if you want max depth. I would go with 2 or 2.5. The higher reactivity level helps with separation in thick iron or non-ferrous junk but at the expense of potentially missing deeper targets because their target signal duration will be shorter (like a short blip) vs. when using a lower reactivity setting. Only use a reactivity setting as high as you need to in order to provide target separation. If targets are spread out, go ahead and use a lower reactivity like 2.

I like your audio response setting.

This doesn't affect depth so much as target ID accuracy, but I am not a big fan of full tones. I used to be a big full tones guy until I discovered some flaws in the way XP implemented the feature on Deus. First of all, if you are using full tones, the only way to hear iron is to run 0 disc, just like you have it set up above. The iron volume setting doesn't do anything when in Full Tones. A lot of folks are under the mistaken impression that running with any level of discrimination lowers detection depth. On Deus that is not true, and Andy Sabisch has demonstrated in videos that he shows during his Deus bootcamp sessions (I have assisted him in instructing bootcamps when he brings his bootcamp to Virginia/Maryland/Pennsylvania) that detection depth is not compromised even when disc is run as high as 10 or 15. But you may ask, even if disc doesn't adversely affect depth, why run discrimination at all, especially, if you do want to hear the iron? There are two reasons. First, running with disc at or above 7 enables the horseshoe display to accurately reflect ferrous/non-ferrous targets and to more accurately display depth. Second, running with discrimination, even if you are running with iron volume, allows the Deus to give a more accurate target ID because the ferrous is filtered out from down-averaging the non-ferrous signal.

So, my recommendation is to run with discrimination at between 7 to 10 with some iron volume set at 1 to 3 (hearing the iron allows you to know where the nails are which can clue you in to where people and old dwellings were present and that's where the relics are). I personally like to run pitch audio vice tones. My second choice is to run 3 to 5 tone audio. I like pitch because it is most sensitive to any non-ferrous target in the ground, it's intensity varies with the signal strength of the target and you can listen for those non-ferrous whisper pitch tones. You will still hear the ferrous iron grunts with iron volume engaged. Alternatively, you can just use 3,4, or 5 multitone ID set up with breakpoints consistent with whatever frequency you are running (if you are running without ID norm on). Running with ID NORM off allows you to test for ferrous falsing and bottlecaps as you can apply a low frequency signal to a potential bottlecap and if the target ID does not decrease then you have a likely bottlecap. Or you can just run with ID NORM and all target IDs will correspond to as if you were running 18 khz regardless of the actual frequency you are using.

One of the best relic detectorists I know simply runs with Deus Fast default settings with the white elliptical coil and frequency set at either 28 or 74 khz, disc at 6.8 and 3 tones and just kills it with banner find after banner find.

Anyway, those are my comments on your setting for your consideration.

Other tips - if running in high mineralization like in Culpeper, lower TX power to no more than 2 and lower if possible. Also experiment with GB tracking, which works really well in version 5.

Also, I would experiment with Gold Field, it is similar to running discrimination mode with pitch but is set up with a threshold tone and iron rejection instead of iron discrimination (I typically run with 0 iron rejection with gold field, especially in mineralized dirt because the iron rejection feature can be fooled by the iron oxide in mineralized dirt. This is like an all metal mode and since it is designed for small gold detection, is very sensitive and can be deep. You can run it at any frequency, but I like to run it at 25 - 28 khz when relic hunting. Lower if coin shooting. Give it a shot.

HTH.

Thank you so much, so much insight always good to have others knowledge!
 

Digalotajunk

Full Member
Jan 4, 2018
229
419
KCMO
Detector(s) used
Have used a Bounty hunter "Lone Star," Tesoro "Cibola." I now use an XP Deus.
MI6 pinpointer
Lesche digging tool
Predator piranha shovel
Primary Interest:
Relic Hunting
V hit it on the head, as usual. I run my detector at 7.7 Kz and find that it "grabbs" targets better than any other. I also run pitch tone...love it! Just my 2 cents.
 

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