First time in a club hunt - question on falsing from similar devices

[DaytonaRacer]

Last summer I joined an MD club and then helped them run their annual fall Open Hunt fundraiser (non-members pay to search a seeded beach area for coins and compete for prizes). I had never experienced an Open Hunt before so it was very interesting. Yesterday we had our annual members-only picnic & beach hunt. It was my first time "competing" in one of these so I was learning as I went as I didn't watch the non-members in the field last time.

Found some pretty need things - 1 oz. Copper round, .925 silver ring, 1960-D BU penny in cardboard holder, Buff nickels, 1880's dime, marked coins for raffles, etc. - and I won a 1 oz. Silver round in one of the raffles.

But one thing became an issue and I was wondering how others here have dealt with it...

I was using a Fisher F22 and there was another guy competing with a F44. If we were even remotely near each other (I'm talking 15-20 feet) my detector would start falsing and jumping all over the place. It was totally unusable. At first I thought it was my detector screwing up maybe because of the batteries so I lost valuable time during the hunt trying to fix my detector. It was only when he identified himself as having another Fisher and that they were interfering with each other that I stopped fussing with my machine and we moved apart.

My question to the group here... if any of you have had similar experiences with interference from others' same make or model machines, especially in a contained field, how do you deal with it? Does dropping the sensitivity do any good and still allow you to hit buried coins? Or do you just have to be aware of who has a similar machine and try to avoid them as best you can, knowing that you'll likely still be chasing a lot of false signals? (Okay, that's 3 questions)

Thanks.

 

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[enamel7]

I have an At Gold and no problems. I just change frequencies. Lower sensitivity could help.

 

[RobRieman]

Like enamel said, if you don't have the option to change frequencies all you can do is separate the machines far enough apart. A cell phone or pin pointer will cause problems with some machines also.

 

[WhiteTornado]

I have an At Gold and no problems. I just change frequencies. Lower sensitivity could help.

My local club just had their members-only annual hunt this past weekend as well. I have been using an AT Pro for about a month, and this was my first time using it for a competition style hunt. I was able to change frequencies every now and then, which was good since about half of our club uses an AT Pro. In the past, I have used a Tesoro Ciboloa, which almost no one uses, and it's not been a problem (that model does come with 3 different frequencies, but I never had to change them in competition hunts).

Agree with enamel7, lowering your sensitivity could help. Far as I know, the sensitivity is how far of a radius out from your coil the signal is travelling. If you lower it, there is a lower chance of picking up another hunter's machine. But it shouldn't affect the depth. And of course, depth is not usually an issue with a competition hunt, most items are often on the surface (such as our hunt, in grass) or just below (such as yours, in sand).

 

[DaytonaRacer]

My local club just had their members-only annual hunt this past weekend as well. I have been using an AT Pro for about a month, and this was my first time using it for a competition style hunt. I was able to change frequencies every now and then, which was good since about half of our club uses an AT Pro. In the past, I have used a Tesoro Ciboloa, which almost no one uses, and it's not been a problem (that model does come with 3 different frequencies, but I never had to change them in competition hunts).

Agree with enamel7, lowering your sensitivity could help. Far as I know, the sensitivity is how far of a radius out from your coil the signal is travelling. If you lower it, there is a lower chance of picking up another hunter's machine. But it shouldn't affect the depth. And of course, depth is not usually an issue with a competition hunt, most items are often on the surface (such as our hunt, in grass) or just below (such as yours, in sand).

Thanks. I thought sensitivity affected depth, not width, but I'll try anything to avoid that situation again. Most of the stuff on the beach was relatively shallow, though there were a few special pieces that were at least 5" down.

 

[luvsdux]

Often happens in club hunts. The best solution for me has been using a detector that lets me change frequencies on the go or just moving away, if that's the only option.
luvsdux