Todays outing and a question for the more experienced

[Monty]

Getting monotonous I know but I went back to my old highschool this AM. Got up at daybreak and beat the heat. They screwed up and left the gate to the football field open (it's usually locked) this morning and I did some quick reconnoiter on the outskirts of the field. I picked up 6 quarters, 3 dimes and seven pennies in about an hour, all clad, all very shallow. Wanted to hurry in case someone came and ran me off! I also made a mental note of a couple of areas where I got some very loud hits on targets at or below 8". I didn't dig any of them due to time restraints but I plan to go back and see if silver lurks at those depths.

OK, now the question: I have a lot of trouble digging those deeper targets. It is not unusual to dig down to a target at 8" and not be able to find it. I use my pinpointer probe and still can't get a buzz. I also run my detector over the plug and nothing. Then I refill the hole and the signal is gone! But I may come back a few days later and the signal is back! Really weird! This has happened with two different detectors so I know it's not the equipment. Also, sometimes when I can't find the target I refill the hole and the signal remains! Can anyone tell me what's going on here? Deep targets just really give me a hard time and it's so discouraging to take the time and effort to dig that deep and come up empty handed. JIM

 

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[johny mc.]

"Leaching into halo effect"

"Leaching into the halo effect"
Metals in the ground when coming under contact with water,carbon,hydrogen,nitrogen,etc bleed out particles of metal into the surrounding ground creating what is called a halo effect. The area around the target now has metal properties. Your coil sends an electro-magnetic field down into the earth and when the two meet you get a beep. It's amazing what a small chunk of metal can do to the nearby dirt. Remember you may be discriminating out or trying to discriminate out certain targets. No detector is perfect. ....That's why you get a beep then lose a beep......Your detector is trying to discriminate......if its set on the fine line between two settings then it can seem even more unstable.....Jimmy-what I would suggest is run those deep spots in all metal mode and see what happens...you can switch back in forth from discrim. to all-metal in order to get a better read. It probably makes sense that the deeper the target the more leaching has occurred. Nails are tough because they cover a larger space for a solid target. The coils are designed to pick up a solid object.

 

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[rusty nails]

well said johnnymc - just look at all that light brown dirt around that nail ! - thats just whats visable -
lbp

 

[Monty]

I've rigged my own custom program that I do most of my coin shooting with instead of the factory preset mode. I discriminate out all iron, leave nickels and discriminate everything in between , even pennies, then pickup dimes quartes and halves. I set my sensitivity on about the third notch. On my 2500 I have several times found a nail in the hole, but also find the target I was going after. When I hit a penny it will still show up on the LCD but just won't ring up.....but, always a but, sometimes the penny will ring up, only as a dime. Since pennies deteriorate much quicker than dimes I suppose that is caused by the leaching effect? Also when I am operating in my custom mode I can hear and see other objects that are discriminated out, the just make a bit of static in my earphones and blip momentarily on my LCD. The gold plated ring I found was just a blip and a bit of static between the nickel and the pull tab but it was also shown as an "A" size which my manual says may be a ring. So I went to pinpoint mode and dug it and you know the rest. When operating in this custom mode and if I want to find anything besides coins I have to listen and watch the LCD really close. It takes a lot of concentration, but it is also deadly on coins and or silver. JIM