Signal Ambiguity...to be expected?

[gossunc]

Folks, just in my second week of MD'ing...got a Garrett ACE 250 for Father's Day and have had a blast...tons of clad along with a few interesting trinkets, '46 quarter and a '42 Merc and about 5 wheaties. Question...when I found the Merc, I had notched out everything but quarters on the 250. Had what seemed to be a fairly unambigous "quarter" signal...about 6" down found the Merc. Once I had it up, ACE no longer recognized it as a quarter...de-notched the dime setting and the ACE said it was a dime. Just to make sure there wasn't anything else in the hole, put the ACE back over it and...nothing.

Is this signal ambiguity to be expected in certain types of soil, certain depths, or with certain material composition (i.e. does silver differ from clad), or a combination of all three? Would love to learn the ambiguities better--I know it will come with experience, but I'd also appreciate some tips from you experts! Thanks!

Goose

 

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[Jeffro]

Possibly the halo effect on this one? The merc had been in the ground long enough to leach out some silver, making the target bigger than it really was?

Target ID is still aways from being 100 percent accurate all the time, but it's getting closer every generation of new detectors.

 

[neilo]

Hi goose most target visual I D units are usually only accurate at very shallow depths. Then ground mineralisation, moisture,salt and sensitivity settings all come into play at depth which affects your visual target ID.At depth one of your most accurate indication is your detectors tone ID, if it sounds good dig it. Dont rely too much on the screen display it is only an estimate.Good hunting seeya Neilo

 

[Farmercal]

What everybody else said but personally, I would not notch out dimes. Look what you could have missed! HH Cal

 

[stoney56]

I agree with Jeffro and neilo also I think 2 that silver has a bit higher conductivity than clad and thus a silver dime will read a touch higher on the scale than a clad one. Thus your merc would be at the lower end of the clad quarter, more or less kind of overlapping. JMO
Congrats on the silver. Sounds like you're doing pretty good starting out. Keep it up and HH!