taking it slow while detecting

[funkman]

Okay this is going to sound stupid to most of you probably but I want to use my detector to its fullest ability. I read a post from TNT2000 who found some nice coins by hitting a small section (15X30) real slow for a few hours. Now I am an impatient person like most of us are I'm sure, but what is meant by hitting it slowly. Does that mean just moving slowly along as you swing, swinging slowly, or something else. I have the Ace 250 and hit an area that I had detected before with my previous detector and only walked away with 2 clad pennies and a bag of trash (pull tabs, can slaw, you know the junk). I had gotten a couple of signals that did not produce anything when digging so I am not sure if I should have kept digging or I hit one of those phantom areas. It could also be that maybe I already got the coins out of that area and I should just go to a new area. I have a couple of sections by my house that I plan on hitting but would like to perfect my technique if possible.
Any suggestions on what I should do to slow down or make my detecting more methodical (big word) so that I get the most out of my detector and hopefully find some great things to post with my fellow detectorists.

Thanks

Funkman

 

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[SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS]

Funk,

Slow down, you move too fast.
You got to make the morning last.
Just kicking down the cobble stones.
Looking for fun and feelin' groovy.

Ba da, Ba da, Ba da, Ba da...Feelin' Groovy.

Hello lamp-post,
What cha knowin'?
I've come to watch your flowers growin'.
Ain't cha got no rhymes for me?
Doot-in' doo-doo,
Feelin' groovy.

I've got no deeds to do,
No promises to keep.
I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep.
Let the morning time drop all its petals on me.
Life, I love you,
All is groovy.

have a good un.............

 

[bk]

I tried that once in a very old park where many old coins were found in the past. I picked a small section and dug just about every signal that repeated. After finding numerous small pieces of rusty tin cans, I got a very faint but repeatable signal. I cut a fairly deep plug and went over the hole. The signal started sounding better after cutting the plug so I started pulling dirt out of the hole and soon saw the distinct reeded edge of a silver coin. It turned out to be an 1877 Seated Liberty half dollar.
Sometimes it does pay to work an area slowly.

 

[ringding]

Imagine walking down the beach in a straight line swinging your coil. When you go slow your coil overlaps with the previous swing. But as you walk faster your coil swing does not overlap with your previous swing and the faster you walk the larger the distance between swings.

 

[ClonedSIM]

Do it just like RingDing said, making sure your sweeps overlap, but then go beyond that and hit the patch of ground from each direction. Don't just go North to South, also go South to North, and East to West and vise versa. Every pass you make gives you that much more of an opportunity to hit that deep coin on edge, the one that you can just barely pick up from that one direction. And you're doing right by getting the trash out of the way. The one piece of can slaw that you dig may be sitting on top of that old silver Morgan that you haven't dug. Happy hunting!

 

[Mighty AP]

Hey Sherm, those words would make a great song! You should think about writing music..............you are damn good! lol You guys give great advice, I especialy like af1733's take on it. Take a 10'x10' area & hit it from all directions, get all trash out of the way then turn up your sensitivity a bit & go for the deep coins! You are right about not getting a good signal in one direction but getting a repeatable signal from another, Ive seen it & done it.

 

[ClonedSIM]

You are right about not getting a good signal in one direction but getting a repeatable signal from another, Ive seen it & done it.

Ain't it the truth! Those are the ones you dig just "in case."

 

[PostFatal]

I've been watching these guys http://www.justiceent.com/tha.htm . Do you all swing that fast? Some of them look like they're swinging a grass sling. lol

 

[OutBack Duo]

Someone told me that each make of detector is different but with the Whites the faster you swing the better the chance of picking up the deeper targets. The detector measures the difference between the dirt and the target and it can see and measure these differences better if it is moving over the target fast. You still want to walk slow and make sure you overlap every swing but don't be afraid to swing fast and keep it as low to the ground the entire swing.

 

[brickeace250]

with the ace250 the faster you swing the more you pick up swing fast and walk slow

 

[LadyDigger]

I can't tell if swinging fast or swinging slow..which ones give me better finds. But I find going backwards helps me with my swing and I keep a more steady swing. If moving forward, I can't overlap my swing and have a tendancy of walking to fast and prob missing alot of good finds. But when I started walking backwards and have my detector follow me...I overlap my swings and have had better finds.

My hubby, however, goes real slow, but I have gone after him and hit pockets of change he missed. It could be the detector's, it could be us or a combination of both. He uses my MineLab Explorer II and I use my son's Garrett Ace 150. The sounds are so different, I can't get use to the MineLab ones (and it's too heavy for me).

HH all

 

[Jeffro]

I usually hit an area real slow on about the 3rd or 4th visit. By that time I've pulled a lot of junk, got alot of the surface coins, and found out where people congregated.

By the way, i don't know about other detectors, but my CZ gets real erratic if I sweep TOO slow. Is it just me? We have a buttload of minerals in the ground where I'm at, mostly river bed all over the valley floor. Black sand everywhere. Anyways, slow to me is more of a medium pace to most, just barely slow enough to still catch the faint signals.

 

[funkman]

thanks for the replies people. I was out yesterday afternoon and today for a total of about 2 1/2 hours. I just went down the block where the grass meets the road and yesterday I managed a nickel and 5 pennies 9all clad) and today was just one penny. I was making sure that I overlapped my swings but now that I am reading these posts I wonder if I was swingin too slow. How can you tell if you are going too slow or too fast? This is the Ace 250 I am using. Today I was getting funny signals that would beep once then disappear. I tried all over the same area that i got the beep but it would not come back, Then when I would start to go again, I would get the same one beep and not find it. Sometime like some of you said I would swing it back and forth one when then turn my body and swing from another direction. SOme of these signals I dug up but could not find anything. I would swing over the hole and get the signal to appear and sometimes it wouldn;t. I was down a good 6 inches or so and running out of time so I had to give up.
I did manage a nice find that I posted in the "what is it" section. It was a button that I had on one of those funny signal. I had the detector in coin mode and I guess the signal was borderline between trash and coin so sometimes it beeped and sometimes it didn't. Anyway after digging a bit and putting the dirt on handkerchief, my daughter spotted a funny looking rokc that was actually a button. It was made by the Waterbury Button Co. and is 5/8 inch diameter. It still has a piece of the wool thread attached to it. According to PBK on that post, it could have been made by that company in the 1850-1860 range. Just a plain cuff button but the company produced buttons for the military in the civil war and other times. I sent an email to the company to see if I can send them the scan I made and they could tell me when it was produced. Haven't heard yet since it was last night that I emailed them.

Anyway does anybody else have the problem with those phantom signals that beep once and then don't come back? or I have noticed that it would beep once in coin range then would show up in trash that was discriminated out then beep in a different coin range and be in different depths also. ANy idea what I am detecting and should I really dig these things up or would I be wasting my time since it could be minerilization in the soil?

Thanks all for the help and more would be appreciated.

Funkman

 

[hollowpointred]

thanks for the replies people. I was out yesterday afternoon and today for a total of about 2 1/2 hours. I just went down the block where the grass meets the road and yesterday I managed a nickel and 5 pennies 9all clad) and today was just one penny. I was making sure that I overlapped my swings but now that I am reading these posts I wonder if I was swingin too slow. How can you tell if you are going too slow or too fast? This is the Ace 250 I am using. Today I was getting funny signals that would beep once then disappear. I tried all over the same area that i got the beep but it would not come back, Then when I would start to go again, I would get the same one beep and not find it. Sometime like some of you said I would swing it back and forth one when then turn my body and swing from another direction. SOme of these signals I dug up but could not find anything. I would swing over the hole and get the signal to appear and sometimes it wouldn;t. I was down a good 6 inches or so and running out of time so I had to give up.
I did manage a nice find that I posted in the "what is it" section. It was a button that I had on one of those funny signal. I had the detector in coin mode and I guess the signal was borderline between trash and coin so sometimes it beeped and sometimes it didn't. Anyway after digging a bit and putting the dirt on handkerchief, my daughter spotted a funny looking rokc that was actually a button. It was made by the Waterbury Button Co. and is 5/8 inch diameter. It still has a piece of the wool thread attached to it. According to PBK on that post, it could have been made by that company in the 1850-1860 range. Just a plain cuff button but the company produced buttons for the military in the civil war and other times. I sent an email to the company to see if I can send them the scan I made and they could tell me when it was produced. Haven't heard yet since it was last night that I emailed them.

Anyway does anybody else have the problem with those phantom signals that beep once and then don't come back? or I have noticed that it would beep once in coin range then would show up in trash that was discriminated out then beep in a different coin range and be in different depths also. ANy idea what I am detecting and should I really dig these things up or would I be wasting my time since it could be minerilization in the soil?

Thanks all for the help and more would be appreciated.

Funkman

there can be several reasons for those one way iffy signals. it could be that your sensativity is set a smidge too high and the machine is chattering and falsing a little bit.it could be ground minerilization messing with your machine. in some cases an iffy broken signal can be a deep target almost out of your detectors range. if i can get a repeatable beep at least say.........70% of the time, i will usually dig these targets. most of the time they are trash but you never know,just today one of those iffy targets was a silver dime!

 

[Stainless Steet Rat]

Funkman if I get signals that I only pick up on some swings or that the readings bounce way up and down on the target ID, I do 2 things I try turning up or down the senitivitiy or switching to all metal and see if there is a bunch of iron or trash targets around. I am still working out my swing speed but I will tell you I have found some of the deepest stuff when I turning my body to go a different direction and swinging the detector around in an even faster arc than I do normally.

 

[slow sweeper]

One more thing to keep in mind is that different detectors have different recovery speeds. Two filter vs four filter I believe is the reason. With the two filter detector having a faster recovery speed. I am not a techie so I'm not sure if this is a complete picture of recovery speed or not. If you swing too fast with some detectors you will miss some targets because the detector hasn't enough time to "reset" itself after going over a target. Especially if you're in an area with a lot of trash.
But sweep speed is important. It doesn't hurt to find a clean spot of ground and place various targets on it and see how your detector reacts to different targets using different sweep speeds.

 

[silverswede]

funkman:
I like to travel and swing at about the same pace I've used for years. Here's a system, though that has worked when in an area that I want to do more intensively. Carry a large handful of popsicle sticks or like improvised from the site. Work the area in one direction marking each hit with a stick laid over it in the direction your traveling. Then work the area the same speed but from a 90 degree angle. when you cross your hits from this angle you will be pin-pointing and verifying the good ones. Dig these and if it isn't dark by then dig all the ones that were iffy. This seems to work well with the minelab coil which can be somewhat difficult to pin-point with. MD'n is about experimenting isn't it. Sure like your posts Funkman.

 

[funkman]

Thanks Slowsweeper and Silverswede. I will try both suggestions since both are great ones. Was also thinking about using golf tees which I'm sure some have used already, but I like the stick laying in the direction you are traveling. This way you can see if only getting a hit in one direction which could be a coin on edge or something entirely different.
Now I'm somewhat of a technical person so I made myself a chart of some kind to see if it can help me determine what my detector is trying to tell me from a historical account of my travels. In otherwords what I detected in the past might help me determine what it is I am detecting in the future. The chart I will try to use when detecting I have 2 sections: Searching and Recovery. In Searching section I have a space for which detector I was using; the search mode it was in; the target id symbols that appeared (check whichever ones lit up, if more than one possible trash); the sensitivity setting; the consistency of the target (did it beep with all swings or just some or just once); and was the target detected in multiple swing directions.
In Recovery section I have: hole dpeth in inches; hole diameter in inches; the condition the ground was (wet or dry); and the item that was recovered.
Perhaps I am going overboard with this chart but I think it might help me down the road know what the machine is detecting before I even start digging.

Anyway thanks for the replies.

Funkman

 

[LadyDigger]

Funkman....I was running into that problem on the beach this morning. I would get a coin signal, just a DING...not the typical DING DING DING sound. I would turn in different directions...but could not find the signal again. I have my Ace 150 set on just coin as well, for on the beach...helps keep all the junk sounds out.

When I hit a signal like that...I put it back in all mode....and I pick up Iron, sometimes Nickel or pulltab...so I just by pass those holes. I know, I should prob dig them up...but it's too hot out there LOL

Some quarters I got up....they did not give me that strong DING DING DING coin sound, it was more muffled. The dimes give a very strong signal and the nickels, when I get a strong nickel sound, I always find a nickel.

Sometimes, when time and weather permits, I will try for those one DING sounds. Infact, today, I did not have a very strong coin sound, but enough to warrant me to investigate and it gave me a dime....several times.

I don't know if it's due to the age of the coin, how long it's been in the ground, the distance from the surface to the coin....so trying to learn all these sounds. I notice some pennies that are crusted with sand...don't give that coin sound...it sounds more like an iron sound, but rings up coin...weird!!!

Tomorrow morning, I am hitting EVERY SOUND...I will be out there at 6 am (that's when parking opens )

 

[Jeffro]

I have found that when I get a coin signal one sweep only and it doesn't repeat that it is usually a piece of trash. If I get a lot of these types of signals turning down the sensitivity a bit usually decreases the amount of these types of signals.