Fantastic day! After 8 years vacation, Im out of it!

[Silver Fox]

Fantastic day! After 8 years vacation, I'm out of it!

Signs were coming together! Yesterday the weather channel announced high 50s for today so I girded for a visit to the park. When I got up and turned on the TV, a documentary titled "THE PARK" was coming on and I wondered if they were going to show any MDers. Sure enough, the 4th or 5th interviewee was a woman detectorist with a Garrett but they didn't show if she had found anything. I left for the park and the 20-25mph wind added a little coolness I didn't desire. But on I went.

Got to Riverside Park overlooking the Hudson River. Turned on the Discovery 3300 and let me tell you, ground balancing this puppie is mystery! So I just put it on Discriminate and moved listening to the constant beep-boop, beep-boop. Give me a break!

I did wind up with a JFK Centennial half, a clad quarter and dime. I'm sure I left a ton of goodies in the ground because this detector has one hell of a learning curve and I wasn't in the mood. That's because I'm a Teknetics Mark I Ltd kind of guy and that machine was BEAUTIFUL! Ground balancing was never a problem and it found coins and everything under the earth without the constant noises, just beautiful sounds.

Also, to be fair to the machine, NYC parks are a haven for everything we hate to dig. So, after one trip I'm retiring again from detecting in city parks. I'll keep the detector for beach trips and out of city hunting in smaller town parks that are not laden with junk.

So for your viewing pleasure here are the three coins I found today.

Silver Fox

 

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[JC dig's]

Re: Fantastic day! After 8 years vacation, I'm out of it!

I wouldn't give of parks with coins like that. I would love to be able to hunt parks here in Va they give you the "hairy eyeball" if they see you with a MD in the park.

 

[Nana40]

Re: Fantastic day! After 8 years vacation, I'm out of it!

Eight years vacation! That's a lonnnng time! You'll get back into the swing of things, it won't take ya long. Those are some good keepers! Congrats!

Nana

 

[TreasurdiggrNY]

Re: Fantastic day! After 8 years vacation, I'm out of it!

Nice finds Silver Fox,
My hunting partner who is coming to the get-together has the 3300, he can surely help you out in person but I will also see him today and discuss the GB issue you're having and PM you the details
Glenn

 

[Silver Fox]

Re: Fantastic day! After 8 years vacation, I'm out of it!

Nice finds Silver Fox,
My hunting partner who is coming to the get-together has the 3300, he can surely help you out in person but I will also see him today and discuss the GB issue you're having and PM you the details
Glenn

Thanks for the consideration, Glenn, I appreciate it. But I have to be honest and it seems that my problems yesterday stemmed from operator error. Although I had a reduced copy of the manual with me I didn't consult it and so did not adjust the detector properly as far as GB and Sensitivity. Add to this that Riverside Park has produced some nice coins, nothing older than Standing Libs, a lot of the sections that have barren soil were fenced off for the season and the areas that were not fenced off had gratings showing that there are pipes galore, etc. So it was just a little frustration based on ignorance and too early for the park. If I had been able to detect in Central Park it would have been a different story and I would have wound up with a lot more goodies. But that's water under the bridge.

However, this detector (and I'm sure others) has a feature I wasn't used to and that's the Pinpoint feature. I was used to 2 features on my Teknetics Mark I Ltd and that was Discriminate and All Metals. This Discovery 3300 has Discriminate, All Metals, and Pinpoint. I was used to switching from Disc to AM and being able to diminish the signal right to the center of the coil. The detector was so accurate sometimes diminishing or pinpointing was not necessary (for shallow targets).

When I switched the 3300 from Disc to AM, the detector doesn't really go into AM! In Pinpoint it goes into a real AM. I tested the normal AM over a grating and I was surprised when I started to bring the coil near the grating the detector would not go off! It would register the grating but not from a distance. Then when I switched to Pinpoint that's when the detector would go into real AM. It's an extra mode that is not necessary. All one needs is Disc and AM and learn to diminish the signal in AM.

Additionally, when it comes to GB, my Teknetics had a Threshold sound and when one pumped the coil up and down to balance it, either the sound grew louder or it diminished as the coil approached the ground. When there was no change in the sound, you were Ground Balanced. But with this 3300, there is no threshold, you have silence!
When I was trying to balance it yesterday I didn't realize that the silence has be matched with silence from the ground and adjust the knob until there is silence.

Now that I realized this aided by another reading of the manual last night, I'm going to be okay with the machine as it is nice 'n' light which allows me to finally detect using both arms which I couldn't do with a bulky, side-mounted hip mount. I used to swing the coil with my right arm, put the rod down to retrieve the target with my right hand, and start all over. Now I can start right off with my left arm and when it gets tired I switch to my right arm. I still dig with my right hand but life's easier now. I'm even going to hip-mount the control box so all I'll have will be the weight of the rod and it'll tire my arms less.

I'll still welcome any help or hints from your experienced friend, it'll be a pleasure. Be seeing you.

Silver Fox

 

[allen]

Re: Fantastic day! After 8 years vacation, I'm out of it!

way to go on the nice finds...

 

[thompy]

Re: Fantastic day! After 8 years vacation, I'm out of it!

the 3300 is not a bad machine but slow on recovery speed, do you have the 4in. coil for it, it drove me nuts in iron infestated sites with the 8in coil, and the gb is a pain at times.