got my beginner gear!

[spisswgt]

I'm so excited... I got my newbie gear yesterday. lol Radio shack Discovery 2000 and Cen-tech hand held metal detector. I am already confused with the RS 2000 and its gonna take getting used to all the crazy (maybe false or trash) signals going off anywhere and everywhere. I absolutely love the Cen-tech pinpointer, it works so well for such a little cheapy pinpointer and its got a light on it too! Hope I can start finding some treasure worth mentioning soon...

 

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[Sandman]

Good luck with the new equipment. Your going to have a ton of fun.

 

[thompy]

good luck and make sure your sensitivity is not turned up over half way till you get use to your machine

 

[spisswgt]

i thought you wanted your sensitivity turned up all the way so you get the best readings, depth, all of that? Or will it just go crazy and chirp like a bird if i go to the park with it set on max sensitivity?

 

[Montana Jim]

i thought you wanted your sensitivity turned up all the way so you get the best readings, depth, all of that? Or will it just go crazy and chirp like a bird if i go to the park with it set on max sensitivity?

Right... it will be going nuts on max sensitivity.

Roll the sensitivity back and get a feel for it... you'll stop reading everything and focus on more substantial targets.

Go slow, dig everything. This will frustrate you at first but will teach you the most about what the machine is telling you.

 

[spisswgt]

[size=11pt][size=10pt]Ok... well I think the pawn shop I bought it from ripped me off. Its gotta be broken. I tried it at the park today and found 1 penny and a bottlecap. It read both of them as a nickel, in fact this broken pile of crap reads EVERYTHING as a nickel. A quarter, silver, half dollar, nickel, dime, pennies (old and new) my gold wedding ring, my wifes gold wedding ring, and a piece of iron in my garage. Its all nickel to this machine. No matter what setting I put it on it reads gold and silver dollars and quarters as nickel. Occasionally it will read something as Iron/foil but very rarely. No matter how i set the sensitivity/disc/auto notch/all metal i have tried almost infinite combinations and still everything is a nickel and once in a great while its iron. If i set the sensitivity to max then it jumps from iron to nickel to quarter and just bounces really fast and goes crazy on all of them just like Montana Jim said it would go crazy. I dont know if I should keep it or not, unless I want to just dig every nickel signal that this thing gives and guess what it is. Bah, this thing doesn't even have a depth finder either... I knew I'd be frustrated at first but I was hoping I'd be frustrated from a lack of treasure in the ground, not from bunk garbage gear. [/size] [/size]

 

[thompy]

they are pretty sensitive to begin with, i dont really use the depth indicator on mine, rusted iron came in at 199 on my 3300's quite a bit. detectors see items in the ground as coins sized objects, but it depends on size, shape, depth, rust and material its made of where it comes in on the # scale, there are a lot of variables, all machines get fooled but experiance with you machine helps cut more junk out. one of the things i didnt like was the audio on the 3300, i have a f4 that i havent used to much yet but has better audio modulation than the 3300, and a faster prossesor

 

[spisswgt]

i really dont think its possible for this radio shack 2000 to pick up anything but iron or nickel though... I have tried on so many things I am thinking it may just have something wrong with it...

 

[Roadquest]

There are a lot of good dealers that have low cost detectors, that work very well.
Check out Kellyco Detectors. There are some members on here, that are metal detector dealers.
I'm sure you could find a good detector from one of them, that is within your budget.
Some times we have to pay to learn, I hate that, but, thats life.

Roadquest

 

[Montana Jim]

i really dont think its possible for this radio shack 2000 to pick up anything but iron or nickel though... I have tried on so many things I am thinking it may just have something wrong with it...

What did you expect when you bought a piece of crap?

Well - that was helpfull!

Maybe that's what he could afford? Maybe he can't buy the garage full of detectors you seem to have?

No matter what happened he probebly has a lemon that is defective... even the "less expensive" detecters should work as advertised. His obviously dosn't and that's a risk taken from buying at a pawn shop.

I just don't think additional discouragement was needed.

 

[spisswgt]

Thanks Jim and Nick, yea I just don't have the money to go out and buy a DFX or anything especially since i'm a total newbie and a week ago I had never even swung a detector. That would be silly for me to go spend 500 or a grand on something I later realize I'm not into and then have to sell it. Gotta start out with something for a beginner. I just figured that if the detector actually has a setting to find 1 cent, 5 cent, 25 cent, 50 cent, then I figured when I run it over those things that everything wouldn't come up as nickel. But oh well, I can still practice by digging up all these strong nickel signals I get. There is ALWAYS something there when I dig up a signal so I can't really complain for 40 dollars. Yesterday at the park I dug an iron tent spike or railroad spike (whatever it was), a ton of nails and pull tabs, crushed pop cans and then about 6 inches down I dug out a little hotwheels car that said 1981 on the bottom. I was pretty happy after finding that hotwheel because even though it read as nickel like everything else, at least I can find SOMETHING with this cheap used detector. Its helping me learn.

 

[Montana Jim]

Thats a great attitude... I think if you get away from areas that are bound to hold trash, maybe yards, or church yards your "trash to treasure" ratio might improve a little bit. Parks will always be loaded with trash.

And frankly, a more expensive machine will help you filter through all that easily... trust me, the fact is you DO get what you pay for. Your detector might be screwed up, and I know you download the instructions, and that's prolly why you found it at the pawn shop in the first palce.

Also... more VERY BASIC food for thought. On my machines, and on ALL mashines that indicate cents, nickles, dimes, quarters... they are just basic indicators of metal types or sizes, so there is a learning curve with the junque you'll detect. And, remember, if there are no coins where you are looking, you're not going to find coins - ever, period. But you will find the trash.

Give the thing with instructions (on a loan basis) to a buddy and see if they have any better luck... let them do some practice time and seeif they come up withy the same results...

 

[spisswgt]

thanks guys, I'm gonna try to go out again and hunt. (This will be my 3rd time now) I'm havin a hard time thinking of where to go... (somewhere thats legal I suppose lol) Havin a hard time finding a place. Parks are so ridiculously filled with garbage. They should call them landfills instead of parks. I haven't tried any schoolyards yet but I'm thinking they will probably be dumpsters as well.

 

[flyinguy]

did the pawn guy give you any time to see if it worked? maybe you should talk to him. the meters don't mean crap to me. if it sounds good i dig it. we all dig a ton of trash. to me it's making the earth cleaner. don't make it a job to hunt. enjoy. i still get amazed even when i pull a nail. you can find stuff in the dirt! Bill