A few general questions for you

[Minrelica]

Yesterday I went on my first hunt and made my first tnet post and I have some questions I'd like to ask.

1) I have a coil cover for my Garrett Ace 250. My question is, are the coil covers for storage use only? Do people keep them on while hunting? I kept the cover on until I went out hunting yesterday. The last spot that I hunted was very rocky and when I was packing up to go home I noticed the the bottom of the coil had a bunch of scratches on it.

Will scratches on the coil in any way hinder the performance of the machine?

2) What are the benefits of a larger coil?

3) In general, what type of trowel do you use for digging targets? I have a hard plastic trowel that I bought at Home Depot. The reason I ask is because I've seen some youtube videos of people digging targets with metal trowels which are indeed sturdier but wouldn't you risk the chance of ruining/scratching the object?

4) What does a $700 machine do that a $200-$300 machine doesnt?

Thanks a Bunch in advance. Any responses will be appreciated.

 

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[GopherDaGold]

1. Some people keep them on while detecting on rough terrain. Adds life to your coil.
2. I'll let someone else address that.
3. I use the Fiskars trowel. There is always a chance you will damage your find so you need a good pin-pointer or get damn good at pinpointing with your coil.
4. Makes you cuss longer and louder when you damage it. Has more bells and whistles to frustrate you and let you know that the quarter you dug is, according to your $700.00 machine, a nickel.

And welcome to T-Net!

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Yesterday I went on my first hunt and made my first tnet post and I have some questions I'd like to ask.

1) I have a coil cover for my Garrett Ace 250. My question is, are the coil covers for storage use only? Do people keep them on while hunting? I kept the cover on until I went out hunting yesterday. The last spot that I hunted was very rocky and when I was packing up to go home I noticed the the bottom of the coil had a bunch of scratches on it.

Will scratches on the coil in any way hinder the performance of the machine?

2) What are the benefits of a larger coil?

3) In general, what type of trowel do you use for digging targets? I have a hard plastic trowel that I bought at Home Depot. The reason I ask is because I've seen some youtube videos of people digging targets with metal trowels which are indeed sturdier but wouldn't you risk the chance of ruining/scratching the object?

4) What does a $700 machine do that a $200-$300 machine doesnt?

Thanks a Bunch in advance. Any responses will be appreciated.

1. If your hunting land keep the covers on, they will not interfere with depth but will protect your coil....Clean them out before each hunt...Purpose of coil cover is to protect the coil from scratches, and cracks....

2. The larger coil will cover more area and it will go deeper. Highly recommend you get a large DD coil, unless your hunting areas with a lot of trash...

3. If your careful on your recovery you will not scratch most targets, if you dig like your trying to plant a bush or tree you will. Many of us you an electronic probe (pinpointer) to tell when we are close to the target.

4. That is open to interpretation.... Someone who really knows his $300 machine can do better then someone who doesn't know his $700 machine, but someone who really knows his $700 machine will ususally do better then someone who really knows his $300 machine... You will usually get better depth, and identification with the higher end machines, but the extra bells and whistles are not necessary to find the good finds, good or bad, you will most likely dig a lot less. I currently have 6 detectors, and only one has screen, the others do not, they are tone detectors, but they are not cheap detectors. I have 2 Minelab Excals, 2 Minelab Sovereign GTs (one is custom waterproofed for use in the surf), a Whites 6000XL Pro and a Fisher 1235x used for competition hunts.

 

[fathead]

Treasure Hunter, those were great answers.

It is very helpful to have useable information from knowledgeable people.

Thanks from all of us newbies who benefit from your advice.

HH

-Fathead

 

[Minrelica]

1. If your hunting land keep the covers on, they will not interfere with depth but will protect your coil....Clean them out before each hunt...Purpose of coil cover is to protect the coil from scratches, and cracks....

2. The larger coil will cover more area and it will go deeper. Highly recommend you get a large DD coil, unless your hunting areas with a lot of trash...

3. If your careful on your recovery you will not scratch most targets, if you dig like your trying to plant a bush or tree you will. Many of us you an electronic probe (pinpointer) to tell when we are close to the target.

4. That is open to interpretation.... Someone who really knows his $300 machine can do better then someone who doesn't know his $700 machine, but someone who really knows his $700 machine will ususally do better then someone who really knows his $300 machine... You will usually get better depth, and identification with the higher end machines, but the extra bells and whistles are not necessary to find the good finds, good or bad, you will most likely dig a lot less. I currently have 6 detectors, and only one has screen, the others do not, they are tone detectors, but they are not cheap detectors. I have 2 Minelab Excals, 2 Minelab Sovereign GTs (one is custom waterproofed for use in the surf), a Whites 6000XL Pro and a Fisher 1235x used for competition hunts.

That's great to know about the coil cover! I put a lot of unnecessary scratches on the coil yesterday. I know this isn't "good" but is it bad?

What does "DD" stand for and do you have any reccomendations on a DD coil for my Ace 250?


Thanks a Bunch!

 

[Minrelica]

I have another question.

Where can I find out about MD'ng laws for the state of Minnesota?

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Treasure Hunter, those were great answers.

It is very helpful to have useable information from knowledgeable people.

Thanks from all of us newbies who benefit from your advice.

HH

-Fathead

I appreciate the kind words, but I am by no means an expert, what I have learned, I learned from the many fine members here at TreasureNet who were here before me and helped me when I first started. I am still a newbie compared to many here. The best way I can pay it back is to try to share the little knowledge I have with those who ask.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

That's great to know about the coil cover! I put a lot of unnecessary scratches on the coil yesterday. I know this isn't "good" but is it bad?

What does "DD" stand for and do you have any reccomendations on a DD coil for my Ace 250?


Thanks a Bunch!

Scratches will not hurt it, cracks will.

DD stands for double D, basically the coil is shaped like 2 capital D's back to back. On a mono coil the area it covers shrinks as it penetrates like an icecream cone, while a DD coil has the same coverage as it penetrates down.

On a 10 inch DD and a 10 inch mono coil the mono will be deeper, but the area of penetration at the deepest is very small compared to the area your covering on the surface, while with the DD the area your covering at the deepest is the same as the area your covering at the surface.

With mono coils you need to overlap at least 50% as you sweep to get good coverage, while with the DD you only need to overlap a tiny bit. A larger coil goes deeper then smaller coils so imagine the coverage and depth you get from the 15 inch WOT coil which is a DD coil and deeper because it is bigger compared to a 10 inch mono coil....

They say the DD is not as sensitive to gold as the mono, but I found a tiny gold lobster clasp with mine, and some tiny ladies gold rings and earrings with it at amazing depths so I am very happy with my DD coils and I have several (2 Coiltec WOT 15", 1 15"x18" SEF Butterfly, and one Sunray Intruder 12.5" coil)

I do not own an ACE, I sold one I won at a Seeded hunt as I did not need it, already owning 6 then......The only DD coil I know for the Ace 250 is the 10 x 14 DD EXcelerator coil sold by Kellyco, but members who own one will have to tell you about it's qualities.

I do own a 15"X18" SEF Butterfly coil for one of my Sovereign GTs that I bought at the end of last season and for the little amount of time I have used it, it appears to be a great coil. First trip out with it I found a gold wedding band and silver wedding band with it at the beach. The biggest advantage to using a big DD coil is the amount of area you can cover with one, and that is a big advantage in large areas like beaches and fields. The disadvantage is if your in a trashy area you have several targets under your coil at the same time. With practice you can still learn to pinpoint them individually when that happens, I have, but I have been hunting with at least a 15" DD coil for 2 years now, so I have had a lot of practice. I have hunted playgrounds with it where there were pocket spills and lots of targets and I am able to get them up....

Good luck, hope that helps some............

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

I have another question.

Where can I find out about MD'ng laws for the state of Minnesota?

You can check here on TN and see what other members from Minnesota say....http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/board,164.0.html

You can also check here.....http://www.fmdac.org/website/index.html

Good luck.........

 

[Sandman]

Great replies Treasure Hunter.

 

[Michigan Badger]

Yesterday I went on my first hunt and made my first tnet post and I have some questions I'd like to ask.

4) What does a $700 machine do that a $200-$300 machine doesnt?

Thanks a Bunch in advance. Any responses will be appreciated.

The higher the price tag, usually the more features. More money buys you more control over your machine and sometimes more depth.

Detector makers have always played this game and it works well for them. That is, add $30 worth of electronics to a base entry machine and charge $300+ more for it. We always fall for this business strategy hook, line, and sinker.

But more features may not always be best. Sometimes more features means more confusion and discouragement.

Personally to me the whole point is finds.

A good Teosor Silver uMax with a stock coil for high trash sites and a 12x10 concentric coil for more open areas will find anything the others will. And it will do it easily and not break your arm off in the process.

 

[Minrelica]

That's great to know about the coil cover! I put a lot of unnecessary scratches on the coil yesterday. I know this isn't "good" but is it bad?

What does "DD" stand for and do you have any reccomendations on a DD coil for my Ace 250?


Thanks a Bunch!

Scratches will not hurt it, cracks will.

DD stands for double D, basically the coil is shaped like 2 capital D's back to back. On a mono coil the area it covers shrinks as it penetrates like an icecream cone, while a DD coil has the same coverage as it penetrates down.

On a 10 inch DD and a 10 inch mono coil the mono will be deeper, but the area of penetration at the deepest is very small compared to the area your covering on the surface, while with the DD the area your covering at the deepest is the same as the area your covering at the surface.

With mono coils you need to overlap at least 50% as you sweep to get good coverage, while with the DD you only need to overlap a tiny bit. A larger coil goes deeper then smaller coils so imagine the coverage and depth you get from the 15 inch WOT coil which is a DD coil and deeper because it is bigger compared to a 10 inch mono coil....

They say the DD is not as sensitive to gold as the mono, but I found a tiny gold lobster clasp with mine, and some tiny ladies gold rings and earrings with it at amazing depths so I am very happy with my DD coils and I have several (2 Coiltec WOT 15", 1 15"x18" SEF Butterfly, and one Sunray Intruder 12.5" coil)

I do not own an ACE, I sold one I won at a Seeded hunt as I did not need it, already owning 6 then......The only DD coil I know for the Ace 250 is the 10 x 14 DD EXcelerator coil sold by Kellyco, but members who own one will have to tell you about it's qualities.

I do own a 15"X18" SEF Butterfly coil for one of my Sovereign GTs that I bought at the end of last season and for the little amount of time I have used it, it appears to be a great coil. First trip out with it I found a gold wedding band and silver wedding band with it at the beach. The biggest advantage to using a big DD coil is the amount of area you can cover with one, and that is a big advantage in large areas like beaches and fields. The disadvantage is if your in a trashy area you have several targets under your coil at the same time. With practice you can still learn to pinpoint them individually when that happens, I have, but I have been hunting with at least a 15" DD coil for 2 years now, so I have had a lot of practice. I have hunted playgrounds with it where there were pocket spills and lots of targets and I am able to get them up....

Good luck, hope that helps some............

Treasure_Hunter, Thanks a bunch for the very infomative replies! You've been a big help already and I can only hope to learn more from posts such as yours. Great info on the coils, that answers pretty much all of my questions in that area (so far).

Thank you for the links as well. It's nice to see a little section for Minnesota hunters. I'm sure it will be a good resource in the future. - WIT

 

[Minrelica]

Okay, I went out for about an hour today to an old train yard that I went to for a little while over the weekend. Knowing that it was a train yard at one time I also knew that there would be beyond mega junk targets but this is only my second time out and I wanted the practice.

My next question is about depth readings. First of all, I still have my detector on factory settings if that should matter with answering. Anyway, I was hunting in coin mode today and got a reading for 10c at 4". I stopped, pinpointed the target and dug out about a 4" plug. I dug a couple inces deeper repeatedly because the signal was still there and I wasn't about to give up! By the time I was done I had finally reached my target, it was what appears to be a snapped off bolt and I found it at approx 10-12" down. Is it common to get readings on a target that's 12" down but registers at 4"? I'm wondering if it's because I was in coin mode and my target was not a coin?

 

[GopherDaGold]

Is it common to get readings on a target that's 12" down but registers at 4"? I'm wondering if it's because I was in coin mode and my target was not a coin?

Yes it's common. That's why I would much rather detect instead of looking at plexiglass screens.

 

[sniffer]

when you get a good repeatable signal, continue to swing your coil over it if it seems like it's big, if you have the coil more than about 10 inches off the dirt, your target is large
did you sweep the hole after you pulled the bolt, because it shouldn't ring up as a dime if it's a bolt, you have 2 different types of metal between a dime and a bolt, unless it's a brass bolt

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

My next question is about depth readings. First of all, I still have my detector on factory settings if that should matter with answering. Anyway, I was hunting in coin mode today and got a reading for 10c at 4". I stopped, pinpointed the target and dug out about a 4" plug. I dug a couple inces deeper repeatedly because the signal was still there and I wasn't about to give up! By the time I was done I had finally reached my target, it was what appears to be a snapped off bolt and I found it at approx 10-12" down. Is it common to get readings on a target that's 12" down but registers at 4"? I'm wondering if it's because I was in coin mode and my target was not a coin?

Now you begin to understand what a $700 or more $ machine might help you with. The chunk of iron at 12" probably fooled your machine into thinking it was a dime at 4". The few icons and symbols a machine has can't possibly indicate the millions of things that are buried in shallow soil. Iron can be singled out by a detector (ferrous/magnetic/resistive vs. conductive). A machine with good iron discrimination wouldn't have bothered with the iron (if set to ignore iron) and a truly good machine would still tell you if there was a coin near, or even beside and below, that iron. You want to get to know some of the discrimination settings and methods of your particular detector.

A machine with multiple readouts on the display allows you to interpret the target. Yes, some of the data under the plexiglass is very helpful. On mine the video circuits are independant of the audio so it's like sweeping two detectors at once. If the Fe3O4 scale hops up and the audio isn't steady or the VDI jumps around the chances are it's a rusty bit of iron. If the VDI reads in the quarter range and the confidence bars are up while the FE3O4 bars are low . . . it's probably a quarter. And in either case the sounds as it is swept from varting approaches or while slowly lifting the coil can tell you a lot about the object's size and depth.

Practice, practice, practice.

 

[Minrelica]

when you get a good repeatable signal, continue to swing your coil over it if it seems like it's big, if you have the coil more than about 10 inches off the dirt, your target is large
did you sweep the hole after you pulled the bolt, because it shouldn't ring up as a dime if it's a bolt, you have 2 different types of metal between a dime and a bolt, unless it's a brass bolt

I never thought of lifting the coil that far off the ground to see if I still get a reading. I’ll remember that next time.

The bolt is heavy for it’ size, close to 4oz, but I scraped into it and it’s not brass.

 

[Minrelica]

My next question is about depth readings. First of all, I still have my detector on factory settings if that should matter with answering. Anyway, I was hunting in coin mode today and got a reading for 10c at 4". I stopped, pinpointed the target and dug out about a 4" plug. I dug a couple inces deeper repeatedly because the signal was still there and I wasn't about to give up! By the time I was done I had finally reached my target, it was what appears to be a snapped off bolt and I found it at approx 10-12" down. Is it common to get readings on a target that's 12" down but registers at 4"? I'm wondering if it's because I was in coin mode and my target was not a coin?

Now you begin to understand what a $700 or more $ machine might help you with. The chunk of iron at 12" probably fooled your machine into thinking it was a dime at 4". The few icons and symbols a machine has can't possibly indicate the millions of things that are buried in shallow soil. Iron can be singled out by a detector (ferrous/magnetic/resistive vs. conductive). A machine with good iron discrimination wouldn't have bothered with the iron (if set to ignore iron) and a truly good machine would still tell you if there was a coin near, or even beside and below, that iron. You want to get to know some of the discrimination settings and methods of your particular detector.

A machine with multiple readouts on the display allows you to interpret the target. Yes, some of the data under the plexiglass is very helpful. On mine the video circuits are independant of the audio so it's like sweeping two detectors at once. If the Fe3O4 scale hops up and the audio isn't steady or the VDI jumps around the chances are it's a rusty bit of iron. If the VDI reads in the quarter range and the confidence bars are up while the FE3O4 bars are low . . . it's probably a quarter. And in either case the sounds as it is swept from varting approaches or while slowly lifting the coil can tell you a lot about the object's size and depth.

Practice, practice, practice.

I'm not really experienced enough to start messing around with descrimination and such but I will learn soon.

SO, if I were to set the descimination to accept/reject various objects, what's the best way to do that? Would it work to sweep the junk target after digging it, look at the reading and set the descrimination that way? I'm guessing it would depend on which mode I'm in since the bolt was reading as a dime. It wouldn't make sense to eliminate dimes in coin mode.

 

[spartacus53]

I use the same machine and also have the larger coil. The 2 biggest differences with the large coil is what was previously stated, you will go deeper, by maybe 2-3 inches. The other advantage is that you can cover a larger area in a quicker time than with the stock coil.

 

[sniffer]

try using on coin mode only until you get used to it