MXT in Iron laden ground - useless?

[Gen. Breckinridge]

I have hunted several old yards that have a lot of iron (probably rusted nails long since gone) and can't find squat. The iron (rust) is masking the deeper objects. I've tried backing way off on the sensitivity, cranked up the discriminator and everything I can think of with no luck. The display just keeps jumping around iron VDI numbers constantly. I have tried hunting with very slow swings but still I find nothing. Two yards in particular of where houses were in the mid 1700s gave me a fit and all I found were a few recent pennies and a Hopalong Cassidy aluminum token... nothing else. In the early days with an old Fisher 555 I hunted these types of yard and found colonials, early silver and the Fisher didn't mind the iron at all. Any ideas will be appreciated.

 

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[deepskyal]

Two questions....

Have you tried the tone ID? I personally don't like it because of all the noise...but you'll get that high pitch squeal for silver...if it's there.

What size coil are you using? Maybe a small DD coil would be benificial for those places. I had a 5" with my DFX and it helped in real trashy areas.

Al

 

[Tin Nugget]

Which coil are you using. A DD coil in alternate relic mode (trigger forward) may help. With that many iron targets the stock coil would be very though to use. Even though your old Fisher did not go nuts in an iron infested area, the iron still masked targets. Sometimes you just have to dig some iron to uncover the good stuff.

 

[mlhudson]

" PROSPECTING MODE WILL DISCERN OUT THE IRON YOU SEEM TO ENCOUNTER, SEE IT ON THE SCREEN, LOW TONE =IRON
HIGH TONE= OTHER THAN IRON

TRY THAT, THERE ARE A FEW MORE TRICKS TO TRY

MLHUDSON

 

[TXDIRTFISHER]

I had a DFX and I always ran into the same thing. I'm not bashing Whites products, but they will not see past scattered rusty iron (rusty nails or small rusty pieces of nails). I got permission to hunt a 20 acre field that used to be part of a small town. One half of the field is completely covered by small bits of rusty nails. I normally ran my DFX to accept down to -20 or -30 in an attempt to reduce the masking of good items below the nails. I used the 6X10 DD, Super 12, and 10X14 DD coils to no avail. I covered practically every square inch of that field and found little to nothing of value. The entire time my DFX went nuts due to all the small iron nails. My friend brought his machine (not a Whites product) and he had no problem and in fact found some nice items.

Three weeks ago my same friend was in an old RR camp in NM that is covered in old rusty nails and rusty can slaw. Again he started pulling very nice targets out of the ground while my DFX was locking onto nail after nail, or iron falsing like a mad man.

This is just my opinion, but after all the hours I used my DFX I've found that it could not or would not get past the scattered pieces of iron and find the good targets below that zone.

What's the remedy? I sold it and bought the same brand my friend uses and since then I've had no problems with the iron.

 

[Gary in Pennsylvania]

What's the remedy? I sold it and bought the same brand my friend uses and since then I've had no problems with the iron.

Please PM me that competing brand/model. The areas I'll be hunting have a high iron content. That concerns me.

I need to do some more comparative shopping.

THANKS!

 

[Tin Nugget]

All detectors have an issue with iron. Some detectors make less noise about it but iron masks targets no matter what detector you use.

http://www.dankowskidetectors.com/behindthemask.htm

 

[U.K. Brian]

Do all detectors suffer from iron masking ?

Europe has 3000 years of iron in its fields, the U.S. around 400. All European coins are either deeper/smaller or thinner or all three.

The problem here is that a motion machine has been used. Use non motion like the mentioned Fisher and things get easier, use a non motion meter discriminator and it gets easier again.

Masking is the problem of the often smaller non ferrous item not being able to drag the audio up from the silent zone where its ended up due to the iron you have swept by or over a second before. Accept all targets, as the primary search mode of the non motion discriminators does, and the problem doesn't occur to the same extent as both good and bad targets sound off seperately then its just a case of sitting the coil on each target, as there's no need to sweep, and check the ferrous/non ferrous reading off the meter. No meter movement as the targets to deep ? Take off an inch or two of soil and check again.

 

[redlined]

1. Are you ground balancing the machine when you turn it on? Afterwards are you setting to it "Lock" position?

2. If you run in Relic Mode with the trigger forward, you should get a high tone for positive VDI numbers, and a low tone for iron, then you can bypass the iron.

3. A small coil will really make a huge difference in the iron-infested places. I use a small DD coil where old sites are covered with nails and the difference is night and day. Back in the spring I hit an old building that had burned with the standard coil and found three coins amid all the nails. Changed the coils and went back two days later and found almost two dozen I had detected right over the trip before--hidden by iron.

Hope this helps some.......