Something I have noticed (need confirmation)

[Raptor]

Being fairly new to this hobby, I am of course questioning my own observations so I can get some better understanding. I am currently spending some time at a neigbors house that as I understand was the first home on the block and looks like turn of the century. It isn't a big place and was probably owned by a fairly low income family, but I am hoping it will produce at least one worthwhile find. It is educational if anything. My question for you all is about the depth indicated by both my XLT and pinpointer. In this environment where all the soil is really hard packed for some reason, it seems to read much shallower than the normal parks etc I search. Anywhere else, I see it indicating the object is at 1 inch and it usually is very close, at this place it seems that it is reading only about 25% of the true depth. If it displays a half inch, I know I will be digging at least 2 or more inches. It has been very consistant like that there only and consistanly fine everywhere else. Is that a normal thing for hard compressed ground or is it something else possibly?

Thanks in advance!
-Mike

 

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[vwayne1]

I have used xlt for years and have not noticed this in tight soil. Its usually pretty accurate.

 

[JW]

I had the XLPro and occasionally it had the same issue, depended on soil, coil size, target size and orientation. drove me nuts when it happened. I found that objects that were close, like you said, did it more often than deeper ones, I found that if I raised the coil and swung again until I couldn't hear the target, then I could aproximate that it was really close to the surface.

It was one of a few things that I didn't like about the model I had, I am really, really suprised your XLT does it, some ground balance setting or something like that is off. Hopefully someone here can help you get it worked out.

JW

 

[Raptor]

I actually don't think it is the machine malfunctioning. Likely I could adjust it for the soil condition at that particular place if I new the correct method. Not sure if it is the soil compostion or how dense it is or what, but it definately isn't my imagination. I went out today for 6 hours at a local park, hunted in the water up to about 1.5 fee and on dry ground and had very accurate depth indications. Got back to the house and decided to make sure I wasn't just dreaming it up and sure enough, exact same issue.

 

[Detecting Fool]

Have you checked the charge on your battery? I went out for about an hour one night last week, and everything that I dug was way off. Both depth wise, and what the target actually was. After about an hour of digging pull tabs that were ringing up as quarters, I decided to shut my machine off, and then start it again, and noticed the battery was low. Charged it up, and have not had any problems since.

Anthony

 

[Raptor]

Not the battery, I always keep it charged, have never had it below 10V. Good idea though, that is something I will keep in the back of my head for future troubleshooting. I have checked this place on a fresh charge and got the same results. Thanks for the idea though!

 

[JakePhelps]

If the house is from the 1800's then you are almost guaranteed to find something good and old, well thats what I have discovered.

 

[Raptor]

Thats what I am hoping. So far nothing more than square nails, a broken 70s timex and a few newer pennies. There seems to be a lot of trash type stuff in the ground, old chunks of china, jar lids, pill boxes etc. All of it is in really rough shape and fairly deep. The neighbors have found indian heads etc under their stairs and in the gardens etc so I have am definately going to persist as long as I have the opportunity! Hopefully something good will show1


-Mike

 

[Monty]

I don't own an XLT, but in general it sounds like manually ground balancing you machine would help. Nearly all detector manuals will have a sentence to the effect that although the machine has an auto ground balance feature it cannot adjust to all conditions. Sometimes you have to eliminate the shallow junk to be able to get a good reading on the deeper good stuff or so I have read on the forum. I am just now getting into the deeper hunting aspects of MDing but I have learned a lot just from reading this forum! JIM

 

[mvSWAT]

My XLT does the same thing. I just thought it was the mineralization, also if it's not a coin that makes a big difference. Most detectors are designed to give depth readings on coin sized targets. Also the angle the target is lying at will effect depth reading. I've always been content that when I hear that beep I know something is there. Happy Hunting. Dan

 

[JakePhelps]

The Jar lids are old, i have alot, what are some of the marks on the porcelain lining inside? Could you have come across a bottle dump? Cause all that stuff isnt usually just randomly there, but if its in the yard i doubt it. Keep us posted on your finds!

 

[Raptor]

There may actually be an area beside the house they were dumping bottles and or burning trash. I found a cigar box at about 7" and for just a second thought about what could be inside so quickly we dug it out and it ended up being full of dirt and rotted out and around it in the soil was a log of burnt wood etc. Still going to do some more work there until they recover it all. I am still hopefull something of value will turn up.

Also, I will try the manual ground balancing thing, I want to understand all the things this machine can do and how to fine tune it, that seems like a good place to start.

Thanks!

-Mike

 

[JakePhelps]

Yea, it was common to burn trash before the time of landfills and weekly pick-up. Try digging around and you may find a whole bottle or two