DFX and soil problems.

[larrylwill]

I recently moved to Jackson County Alabama. I have a DFX. Today was the first time I really tried detecting for any length. I went to a park and a school. The school started as an elementary school in the 30s, then added Jr high then High and now belongs to the county.

So I would assume there would be at least a few silver coins there. I did most of my detecting in Florida and Cullman, Al. Any way here is in the Tennessee valley not far from the river. The soil survey map says Its supposed to be made up of limestone, sandstone and several types of clay. The clay starts from a couple of inches to 6-7" down. Every coin I found was erratic, my friend was using a Tesoro Umax, he had the same problem. Most of the coins we found were nickles, a couple of dimes and a couple of pennies, nothing old. nothing deeper than 2-1/2 " Lots of pull tabs and some pencil eraser metal., tinfoil and iron. Because I starting digging everything.
Most target read dime/penny/foil/ring/pulltab as you walked around the target.
I cut a slit and pushed one dime back in it about 2-1/2" on the surface it read good and solid, in the ground it was all over the place. I tried 3khz, 15khz and coins, coins jewelry, deep silver, and the published hi trash program. I also tyried prospecting mode but it sounded like the ground was full of metal which it was not.

So I'm looking for recommendations how to search this soil. I assume a smaller coil would help. I have the standard DFX and my friend the standard Tesoro.
What program is recommend or what should I change, I'm not really proficient with the DFX programming, but I know the settings and how to change them pretty good including the discrimination and notch settings.
I also have an Eagle II and Garrett GTA 1000, I didn't try.

Any help appreciated. Any programs?

[Sandman]

I expect it isn't the programing that is at fault as much as target masking from all the extra targets. A smaller coil should help before you try to mess with setting new programs. You can also turn down the gain and AC sens and operate at both frequencies and Best Data.

[larrylwill]

here is some extra info:

The DFX didn't chatter when swinging but I could hear it changing (falsing) not like a target but like ground minerals. It was only erratic over a target, and the targets were never solid, possibly the gain was too high. So when I hit a target It would read maybe 1c-10c, then when I would walk around the target it would change to foil/pulltab/ring/ back to 1c-10c but was never a good solid signal., always sounded like a pull tab or foil. There was a creek on the grounds and on the creak side where the dirt rolled off I got a decent penny/dime signal at 2". The penny was green and badly corroded, Possibly from the creek. I think the halo gave it a better signal, the ones in the yard were normal ground condition.

I pulled some targets out of the ground and laid them on the surface and they were then solid and the VDI was correct. Every signal I dug was like that. I got 4 nickles, 3 pennies and 2 dimes. If I reburied any of them they again got erratic. The ground was wet as its been raining. I have only been 3 places in this town but have detected in several states. The ground there was about 1" then mostly clay but not heavy clay, first black, then brown, then yellow/red.

One thing I just remembered I was using VDO on for pinpointing and I had no trouble pinpointing. I might just have to search in all metal and try to discriminate out only iron and dig the rest. I never though of that. I clearley have a lot of things to try.

[Eu_citzen]

Try Correlate freq.

[sniffer]

turn your phase on, and watch the number in the upper right when you pinpoint. if it's over 70 it's clad
it's also a lot more precise over the regular VDI #'s

[texjim]

i have had the same problem with my Xlt in some areas. i have been think over the winter i might be running to hot of a program for the area. I'm going to cut back on my pre amp gain and ac sensitivity. we have over a foot of snow on the ground here so it's going to be awhile before i can get back out. good luck

[Jimm]

Larry, I live just north of you in Tennessee with the same soil. Been detecting since 1974 and have used most coils and detectors. First thing to do on your DFX is to go to a 6x10 coil, the 9.5 and Super 12 will not work in this soil. Second I run my DFX to accept -95 to +95 to get any depth out of it and run the Correlate mode.

[Deepdiger60]

When was the last time you took off your coil cover and washed it out i had the same problem there was a lot of mineralization on the coil once it was cleaned the problem was fine the faulting stopped if your using mixed mode turn off tone id the noises drive me crazy everytime i swing the coil with tone id off then i got a perfect threshold set at 15 with a low sens at 70 ,i use block edit reject -95 to +09 - accept +10 to +93 great for coins and rings ,you might want to try this program scroll down on the link Good luck Jim
http://www.dfxonly.com/forum/viewtop...002c7fc9eba000