PIs in hunted out parks- YES- A New frontier with New Technology-Update

[bakergeol]

A good friend of mine Reg Sniff recently took his modified PI out to the local park. The park was typical of a "hunted out" park. These parks have been hunted for decades by hundreds of detectorists. You can still find recent clad drops there but silver is quite rare. From the reports of Newbies here on the forum there are newbies who have not found silver in many months of detecting.

Well Reg made 3 trips to the park detecting with his PI in a small barren area and his total time was less than 2 hours.

Trip #1 Dug 8 holes. Trash dug -screwcap and copper fitting
4 recent coins, 2 Mercs 1916 and 1944
Trip #2 A few newer pennies, a cheap ear ring and a 1914D Barber dime
Trip #3 His longest time detecting- less than one hour. Dug or (picked up surface finds) 23 times
Trash- 4 items- small wire, screwcap, button, one dart
Coins- 18 total. Most coins found were recent coinage except for a few wheatbacks,
2 IHs and 2 Mercs.
Massive 44.5 gram Gold ring
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?34,702970,705882#msg-705882

Some of you are asking " What the heck is going on here?". Finding silver everyday in a "hunted out" park? Once maybe but every trip? Why no iron dug as PIs are supposed to lack discrimination and you have to dig everything?

Ah- Grasshopper come closer and I will tell you the secret.

Reg is using a GS5 which he has personally modified. At present the GS5 is the best PI out there for iron ID. He modified (reversed the tone)it so that iron(also low conductors) will not produce a tone. In other word a PI coin shooting setting. The only tone produced are from coins (high conductors) and from large low conductors such as screw caps. He doesn't detect pull tabs, foil or iron. You can see his good to trash ratio is excellent.

Still why his success? Why was he successfull whereas hundreds of VLF users passed over all these old coins? Did his PI go deeper for the goodies? After all PIs go quite a bit deeper than VLFs. I don't think so. The maximum coin depth reported was only 8" which is well in the range of high end VLFs. I feel the answer is an old one. Iron masking. This PI was just able to ferret out old coins which has been missed by the VLFs. Reg I feel has added a new way to go for coin hunters. Needles to say I am having Reg modify my GS5 to his method.

The future? Well perhaps the key is not more depth from PIs but better coin ID. Well the White's new TDI pulsecan(has not been released yet) is based on the GS5 by Eric. Will we be able to do this with the TDI? Time will tell.

2008 will be an interesting year for PIs.
George

 

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[EZrider]

Re: PIs in hunted out parks- YES- A New frontier with New Technology

Its an interesting read. Looking forward to hearing more. I will say that my F75 "VLH" machine has been doing the same as you discribed. Putting finds in my pouch from a "hunted out" park. I aggre to the masking also as most of my finds have something next to them be it iron,tabs or hot rocks. What we have today compared to what was a few years ago is makeing quite a diffrence.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Re: PIs in hunted out parks- YES- A New frontier with New Technology

thanx for this report. The only thing I have to add/ask, is "how deep was the silver?" (barber and mercs). Because, of course, your "hunted out" designation is sort of "nebulous". I mean, a lot of places, parks, schools, can be handed that label, but of course, if you took a good deep-turf-guy with an Explorer (or whatever) he can always "eak out a few more". So the real test would have been to have traded off flagged signals with a standard VLF discriminator. Only in this way can it be determined if the VLF discriminator would simply "not have heard" it.

As for the general principle: I am totally in agreement with the goals of this setup: Ie.: favoring high conductors in certain search environments. There will naturally be someone come on, alarmed, that you have chosen to pass tabs and foil for this experiment. Afterall they will reason "you might miss rings or gold". While that is true (gold and low conductors share TIDs), it is also true that there is no shortage of inner-city-urban junky parks where a person does not need more depth on low conductors, to find them. That is to say, you can FILL YOUR APRON with low conductors till your arms fall off at a lot of blighted parks, right now, no problem, even with a cheap machine. On the other hand, at those same parks there is also deeper silver *just* out of reach of VLF discriminators too. And some of that deep silver can have value as much as gold. So there is definately a relic/coin market for a machine that gets a bit deeper on silver in the turf!

 

[bakergeol]

Re: PIs in hunted out parks- YES- A New frontier with New Technology

thanx for this report. The only thing I have to add/ask, is "how deep was the silver?" (barber and mercs). Because, of course, your "hunted out" designation is sort of "nebulous". I mean, a lot of places, parks, schools, can be handed that label, but of course, if you took a good deep-turf-guy with an Explorer (or whatever) he can always "eak out a few more". So the real test would have been to have traded off flagged signals with a standard VLF discriminator. Only in this way can it be determined if the VLF discriminator would simply "not have heard" it.

As for the general principle: I am totally in agreement with the goals of this setup: Ie.: favoring high conductors in certain search environments. There will naturally be someone come on, alarmed, that you have chosen to pass tabs and foil for this experiment. Afterall they will reason "you might miss rings or gold". While that is true (gold and low conductors share TIDs), it is also true that there is no shortage of inner-city-urban junky parks where a person does not need more depth on low conductors, to find them. That is to say, you can FILL YOUR APRON with low conductors till your arms fall off at a lot of blighted parks, right now, no problem, even with a cheap machine. On the other hand, at those same parks there is also deeper silver *just* out of reach of VLF discriminators too. And some of that deep silver can have value as much as gold. So there is definately a relic/coin market for a machine that gets a bit deeper on silver in the turf!

How deep was the silver? That is a question only Reg can answer. The 2 mercs he found on the first day were 6" and 8". The older 1916 Merc was the shallowest at 6". He really has not got serious yet as he is still cherry picking the signals. He also almost did not dig the 8" signal as he was afraid of making too big of a hole. Whether a good recent high end VLF could have detected the signals is unknown. Perhaps not as the soil contains a lot of black sand. Still recovering 4 Mercs, 1 Barber dime, and 2 IH's in less than 2 hrs time at a typical park makes one wonder if a lot more is at play here?

I agree that a VLF detector to check the signals would be interesting. Is it iron masking or ground conditions?

Regarding using this setup in trashy parks- Well it depends on the trash. Loaded with iron and pull tabs - No problem. The cut off point for gold for this setup is about 1/4 ounce. In other words rings and gold coins weighting less than this will not be detected. That is why the 44.5 gram gold ring was detected. This huge gold ring had obviously been detected before but as it probably ranked between a pull tab and a screw cap it was not dug. For AL- slightly above pull tabs you will receive a positive response. Screwcaps will give a positive response. So if the park is littered with wino screw caps- you are screwed.

George

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Re: PIs in hunted out parks- YES- A New frontier with New Technology

Thanx for the feedback George. 8" is not an unreasonable depth for many VLF discriminators today. On an Explorer for instance, that type depth is almost expected on silver dimes. I've even gone up to 9" on silver coins (but that's grasping ) So when you say his depth was 8", I'm not sure if that's impressive or not. The real question would be is to flag his deeper signals (that he's "calling" as potential deep silver or wheaties, etc..) and check them with other machines.

I hunted side by side with a guy using an un-modified GS5. I marked a few deep silver or wheatie type turf signals, in a heavily pounded park in San Francisco. The GS5 went over them. We both agreed that ... while it may have heard them, they certainly weren't coming in with "room to spare". The issue of whether his GS5 could make a reasonable guess as to high vs low vs iron, is another issue. Just signal strength, for this discussion, didn't seem to indicate it was a deep seeker. Maybe on nickels and low conductors, yes, it would go deeper. But for penny/dime type signals, it appeared that a person was better served with an Explorer.

If I understand you correctly, Reg's mods are simply an improvement of the ability to distinguish better between highs, lows, and iron, right? Or does he feel his mod's have made it deeper on high conductor coins? I've seen some beach pulse machines that can certainly go a foot or more deep on a penny, dime, quarter, etc... It'd be great if the day ever came where a person could do that, and have some sort of disc at the same time!

 

[bakergeol]

Re: PIs in hunted out parks- YES- A New frontier with New Technology

Thanx for the feedback George. 8" is not an unreasonable depth for many VLF discriminators today. On an Explorer for instance, that type depth is almost expected on silver dimes. I've even gone up to 9" on silver coins (but that's grasping ) So when you say his depth was 8", I'm not sure if that's impressive or not. The real question would be is to flag his deeper signals (that he's "calling" as potential deep silver or wheaties, etc..) and check them with other machines.

I hunted side by side with a guy using an un-modified GS5. I marked a few deep silver or wheatie type turf signals, in a heavily pounded park in San Francisco. The GS5 went over them. We both agreed that ... while it may have heard them, they certainly weren't coming in with "room to spare". The issue of whether his GS5 could make a reasonable guess as to high vs low vs iron, is another issue. Just signal strength, for this discussion, didn't seem to indicate it was a deep seeker. Maybe on nickels and low conductors, yes, it would go deeper. But for penny/dime type signals, it appeared that a person was better served with an Explorer.

If I understand you correctly, Reg's mods are simply an improvement of the ability to distinguish better between highs, lows, and iron, right? Or does he feel his mod's have made it deeper on high conductor coins? I've seen some beach pulse machines that can certainly go a foot or more deep on a penny, dime, quarter, etc... It'd be great if the day ever came where a person could do that, and have some sort of disc at the same time!

Tom
I was not really impressed with the GS5 depths in which the Mercs were found as you readily agreed that a good VLF could find Mercs 6" to 8". The issue is if most of these silver coins were above the 8 inch mark why were not the countless high end VLFs able to detect them? I am still leaning to the idea that it is iron masking not depth which is at play here. You can place several nails over a dime with the GS5 and still readily receive a high conductor coin tone. A silver dime touching a bottle cap will also produce the same response.

Perhaps other issues would be.
1.His approach is to reverse the tones and simply have the iron and low conductors run silent. The only positive responses are for coins and larger low conductors. You are not checking every hit for an ID and concentrating just on coins.
2. With VLFs ID of deep coins becomes iffy with depth as iron ground mineralization makes these read toward the iron end. In highly mineralized soil at this park- This could be a major factor. Metered detectors are probably more of a curse than a blessing as they influence what you should be digging.
3. A coin only mode has the advantage of only concentating on coin signals. To achieve this on a VLF usually means cranking up the discrimination and thereby reducing sensitivity. Please no Explorer users telling me that one can just dial in the coin setting as deep coins occur all over the screen on an Explorer.
My opinions has changed with the GS5 as an effective coin hunter. Before I agreed with you- now I don't. Before I thought it's depth on high conductor coins was at best(or less) equal than a good high end VLF. My earlier views were simply that a high end VLF was still the best way to go. However, that was before his mods. Since his ongoing modification of my GS5 his depth test for a buried penny at 11 inches with a 8" coil was impressive in my book. Can an Explorer detect a buried penny at 11+ inches with an 8" coil? I did not even air test that depth on the original model. Originally the mods were performed with the intention of producing a better gold detector and then the coin hunter approach fell into place. I doubt if he even knows that the depth for high conductor coins of the modified GS5 was superior to my original model as we were shooting for better gold detection. Reg is using two GS5's one his and one mine- both are slightly different as Eric had an ongoing mod program for his machines. I don't know what he did or which machine he was using(I will certainly ask him what 8 inch coil he was using for the test) but the above depth test was impressive.

You might remember the issues we had with the GS5 beachcomber who had trouble IDing iron. I told you an experienced user can easily distinguish all iron from high conductors. Finally Reg has confirmed what I have been saying for a few years now.

I can not answer if one can effectively ID coins at that depth -11 inches. More tests by Reg is needed. Right now he is having a lot of fun park hunting for silver.

What is interesting is that Steve H. has offered to give Reg a new White's Pulsescan to test/modify if need be to obtain the above results. It was gracious of Steve to do this and it illustrates his passion(like Reg's and mine) for improvements in PI technology.

Reg's work in this area is indeed exciting for me as he is indeed pushing the envelope for PI technology.


Happy Hunting
George

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Re: PIs in hunted out parks- YES- A New frontier with New Technology

You say: "The issue is if most of these silver coins were above the 8 inch mark why were not the countless high end VLFs able to detect them? " That makes the assumption that VLFs couldn't have found them I mean, there are countless parks that would be considered "worked out", yet we all know that a good hunter with a standard VLF can "have a good day" and still "eak out a few more". The only way to know would be to compare side-by-side flagged signals.

 

[bakergeol]

Re: PIs in hunted out parks- YES- A New frontier with New Technology

Hi George,

Interesting scenario. Sounds like the question is whether or not Reg's good results are due to better depth in mineralized soils, or is the unit unmasking the silver coins more ably than VLF's. Similar to Tom, I lean to trading off flagged signals, and documenting any adjacent trash signals, plus ground phase and Fe3O4 readings if at all possible. When it comes down to advancing an opinion as to why Reg's modified unit has enjoyed good success, supporting evidence by way of documenting soil and trash conditions is also pretty much required. At the very least, it provides background perspective. Regardless, I agree with you insofar as these results do not appear to be random or coincidental, therefore let's document and arrive at a substantiated explanation.
Any news lately regarding the White's release date? Thanks..Jim.

Hi Jim

Yes I have to concede that yours and Tom's realistic approach about what is happening is the correct one. Implying anything else without exhaustive testing is the correct approach.

I had hoped that a more controversial approach would gain more responses and debate. However, with the exception of EZrider, you and Tom are usually the only ones who response to my PI threads. Contrary to the lively debate on other forums about new technology, there is little interest (with a few notable exceptions) here at TN. Sometimes I wonder if I should stop posting information about new detectors and technology here.

With regards to the new Whites's TDI Pulsescan- It is already in production and should be here soon. According to George K there is a recent addition to the TDI in the production phase. I hope it will be Reg's tone reversal system.

Happy Hunting
George

 

[Rick K]

Re: PIs in hunted out parks- YES- A New frontier with New Technology

I suspect that Reg's experience in the park involves at least two factors.

The first is the depth advantage which PI's have over VLF's in bad ground. In another forum Reg has stated that in his area 6" - 7" is max depth for id on a silver dime with a VLF due to heavy mineralization. Here, the PI will give more depth with ID. How much? Well, I don't recall any statement from Reg on in ground testing with a dime, but he did state that he was getting in excess of 10" - 11" in air testing. PI's typically do as well or better in the ground as they do in air tests (unlike VLF's). Advantage PI with hi conductor discrimination to full detection depth.

The second factor is based on the statement Reg made in another post that VLF's react more strongly to ferrous targets than to non ferrous ones. I am guessing that this is frequency related but I honestly don't know. The significance of this is not only that VLF's are often fooled into ID'ing deep iron as good targets but that they are subject to more masking effect from iron near or over deeper good targets. One way of dealing with this is to "dig it all" but besides the amount of time and work involved, many sites will not tolerate this amount of disturbance. In addition, this may not even be possible due to a phenomenon described in an article by Tom Dankowski called "Beneath the Mask" (you can google this and read the original - not sure if this forum will like it if I post the link).

Here is the relevant passage:

"In a professional test garden, I buried a tiny staple (slightly rusted) from a standard household stapler. This nearly weightless staple could be detected to a depth of 1.5". ((It is important to understand that the United States dime has become the national test standard for testing and comparing most general purpose detectors)). Now, having the knowledge of the detector's capabilities on this small staple, I decided to bury the staple 1" deep and directly over the top of a dime that was buried at 8.5" deep. (Keep in mind that Florida soil conditions are virtually mineral-free. Other States may have slightly varying results). As expected, the detector signaled 'iron'. The dime was 'masked' from detection, due to the staple. Removing the staple (leaving the dime), the detector then signaled "coin" with a fairly strong and consistent signal, even with the coil as high as 6" above the ground. Then I re-buried the staple 3" deep, over the same dime. Here is where the startling results begin. The detector was silent! The staple was too deep to give an audio response and the dime was completely masked (hidden) because of the staple. A case of "SILENT" masking. Then I buried the staple at 4", then 5", and then 6" deep (over the dime) and achieved identical results."

Reg's GS5 - and hopefully the new TDI (modded or otherwise) seems to be capable of regularly AND EASILY finding previously missed items perhaps including these shallow masked ones. WOW. This will shake things up.

Rick K.

 

[bakergeol]

Re: PIs in hunted out parks- YES- A New frontier with New Technology

I suspect that Reg's experience in the park involves at least two factors.

The first is the depth advantage which PI's have over VLF's in bad ground. In another forum Reg has stated that in his area 6" - 7" is max depth for id on a silver dime with a VLF due to heavy mineralization. Here, the PI will give more depth with ID. How much? Well, I don't recall any statement from Reg on in ground testing with a dime, but he did state that he was getting in excess of 10" - 11" in air testing. PI's typically do as well or better in the ground as they do in air tests (unlike VLF's). Advantage PI with hi conductor discrimination to full detection depth.

The second factor is based on the statement Reg made in another post that VLF's react more strongly to ferrous targets than to non ferrous ones. I am guessing that this is frequency related but I honestly don't know. The significance of this is not only that VLF's are often fooled into ID'ing deep iron as good targets but that they are subject to more masking effect from iron near or over deeper good targets. One way of dealing with this is to "dig it all" but besides the amount of time and work involved, many sites will not tolerate this amount of disturbance. In addition, this may not even be possible due to a phenomenon described in an article by Tom Dankowski called "Beneath the Mask" (you can google this and read the original - not sure if this forum will like it if I post the link).

Here is the relevant passage:

"In a professional test garden, I buried a tiny staple (slightly rusted) from a standard household stapler. This nearly weightless staple could be detected to a depth of 1.5". ((It is important to understand that the United States dime has become the national test standard for testing and comparing most general purpose detectors)). Now, having the knowledge of the detector's capabilities on this small staple, I decided to bury the staple 1" deep and directly over the top of a dime that was buried at 8.5" deep. (Keep in mind that Florida soil conditions are virtually mineral-free. Other States may have slightly varying results). As expected, the detector signaled 'iron'. The dime was 'masked' from detection, due to the staple. Removing the staple (leaving the dime), the detector then signaled "coin" with a fairly strong and consistent signal, even with the coil as high as 6" above the ground. Then I re-buried the staple 3" deep, over the same dime. Here is where the startling results begin. The detector was silent! The staple was too deep to give an audio response and the dime was completely masked (hidden) because of the staple. A case of "SILENT" masking. Then I buried the staple at 4", then 5", and then 6" deep (over the dime) and achieved identical results."

Reg's GS5 - and hopefully the new TDI (modded or otherwise) seems to be capable of regularly AND EASILY finding previously missed items perhaps including these shallow masked ones. WOW. This will shake things up.

Rick K.

Good post Rick. Sometimes we forget what a handicap iron masking really is.

Jim- Thanks for the kind words. Reg was supposed to receive the Nemesis in April to test and that did not happen. He menitioned perhaps in May he would get one. However, considering past delays- who knows?

George

 

[johnnycat]

Re: PIs in hunted out parks- YES- A New frontier with New Technology

I don't have anything to add to this post except, Gee, that was interesting reading. Every once in a while a post comes along that gets the old brain to working, this is one of them.

 

[bakergeol]

Hi Folks

Since this thread started, White's TDI(new PI) has been released to a few dealers such as Steve Herschbach.
He has confirmed that the TDI does indeed have the total iron rejection ability as the GS5. This would make it an excellent coin hunter in "hunted out" sites. The discussion about the TDI can be viewed at

http://members5.boardhost.com/MetalDetecting/index.html

Steve has also posted here at TN and his results are essentially the same as Reg's in parks. No ferrous items, no pull tabs, no bottlecaps were detected. I am reposting his post which was here at TN and other sites.


"The following is a “Power User Tip” from Steve Herschbach. It is not in the White’s Electronics TDI Owner’s Manual, and White’s Electronics` cannot be held responsible for any claims made in this post.

From Steve H – I’m passing this along in good faith as information I have discovered, but which others have discovered first. Many thanks to George, Reg, and of course Eric. But please understand my findings are preliminary, and can certainly be improved on by those of you willing to take on the challenge.

5/19/2008 posted by Steve Herschbach:
“But an experienced ground balancing pulse induction (GBPI) user can use the tones in some circumstances to dramatically reduce the amount of iron and steel. Reduce, not eliminate. Repeat that several times - reduce, not eliminate iron and steel compared to a dig it all PI approach.”

I was wrong, totally wrong. I first learned with a PI that you just dig it all. Then I learned to separate tones with ground balancing pulse induction (GBPI) detectors.

Since 5/19/2008 I have learned how to use a GBPI unit and not dig ferrous targets! Tonight I spent two hours in the turf, and dug 18 coins and three pieces of aluminum. And frankly, the aluminum was iffy. The coins were no doubt. Not one ferrous item.

What about depth? I’m digging silver and older coppers from areas long since deemed worked out. How deep? Deep enough a 1000 other detectorists with the best VLF detectors left them behind. I am not exaggerating and actually understating this. If you do not believe this I can understand and frankly I’m not out to convince you. I do believe depth is relative and so do not look to me for inches. With VLF versus PI units it is all about ground mineralization. Results will vary by location, and so quoting figures is an exercise in futility. All that matters to me is I am making good finds with ease, and in the end the only person I need to convince is me.

Rick K said it best “What interested me was the obvious speed and ease of the whole process. Silver from a "hunted to death" site at good depth and with no mumbo-jumbo about faint or ambiguous sounds.”

Yeah Rick, you got it right. Others reported it, and I’m just confirming it.

I have a Pulse Induction detector that allows me to pass 99% of the iron targets. But there are a lot of tricks involved. My “WOW” moment took a couple hours to hit but now I’m taking to the TDI like a duck to water. You have to hunt by ear, and for me that is a good thing, as that is how I learned to hunt years ago. I’m glad the meter is gone because it gets between me and the detector. This is a detector for those who are willing to forget all they learned with VLF detectors and more for those who have been detecting a long time. Frankly, nobody knows all about what the TDI can do yet. It is a new frontier.

If you think this is hype, I can understand. I was not really able to believe what George and Reg were telling me. Eric Foster and White’s Electronics have produced the first pulse induction metal detector that can reject iron if the user knows what they are doing. This is a real advance in metal detector technology.

I am 90% sure I know what I’m doing. But just tonight I learned how to separate shallow coins from deep. Every time I go out I learn something. The TDI is the most fun I have had from a detector in ages. It has me detecting until late in the evening and up early the next morning.

So here it is 1:37 AM in the morning Anchorage time – this unit has me really jacked up! More later.

Steve Herschbach



Happy Hunting
George

 

[Rick K]

The latest quote from Steve Herschbach is pretty telling:

"At this point I can pretty much dig coins and nothing else. Since I'm still learning I try an iffy target now and then and a few of those tricked me. I see no reason to use a VLF detector for coins anymore."

This from a multi line dealer and a man with 35 years metal detecting experience.