Coil height above the ground?

[UnEarthed72]

I was talking with some people yesterday at work,and we discussed MD'ing and coil height.....have most of your finds been while the coil was scraping the surface? or have the better finds been while the coil was raised up from the surface a few inches?

 

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[Jeffro]

I couldn't tell ya.... I run with my coil scraping the grass, everything else I run it just barely above ground.

As close as ya can, all the time. The only time I lift up is sometimes to help identify an object that gives off the bell tone, a large target. Sometimes these are quarters just barely under the grass.

 

[DaChief]

I have been hunting for nearly 20 years now. I can tell you that there is a reason that they make coil covers for the bottom of the coil and that is because it is best to keep the coil as low to the ground as possible. You don't want to bang it into the ground but I slide it along the grass and vegetation when there is some available and when there are rocks or gravel involved, I try to stay just above them but tick them every now and then because it is clearly crucial to keep the detector as close to the ground as you can.

The higher your coil from the ground the lesser the depth. There are some instances where you may want to do that. For example, if you were hunting a field with lots of trash and you didn't have a small coil, you can make your larger coil work as a smaller coil by lifting it off the ground. This brings the tip of the cone of your transmitted signal into play thus giving you the same effect of a smaller coil. It is harder to control that way but you can do it. The remedy of course is to make sure you have a small coil for trashy areas.

Another reason that you would want to lift your coil is to make a determination of the possible size of a target. Lets say you get a large bang in the headphones. That could be a coin near the surface or a larger can further down. If you lift your coil about 6 to 8 inches and the signal goes away or becomes very faint, you are probably dealing with a coin sized object. If it is still relatively strong, you are probably looking at a bigger target like a can, (Civil War Buckle), or something larger. It works most of the time but the good rule to go by is to always dig when there is any doubt. You will find that most of your really good MD'rs dig lots of trash and that is why they find so much good stuff!

Take care and I hope this helps!

 

[erikk]

Scrub it

 

[U.K. Brian]

On bad ground you can lose depth on small items by using the coil to low. The more you raise the coil the less effect of ground minerals. Discrimination improves as the negative effect of the ground reduces.
High mineralisation should be tackled by reducing the coil size and/or ground balancing an inch or two up to improve the chance of hearing the smaller targets.

Brian