A Day of Learning

[Bucket Lister]

The 1850 farmhouse that is my current permission just may be the trashiest piece of real estate in NYS.

Going on something I read here (TN), I was going to redo the ground balance on my machine to try some experiments. Directions said to find a square yard of clean ground (that didn't have any targets or RFI). BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! There isn't a square FOOT of ground on this permission that isn't noisy AF! 😲 Moving on...

Working in back of the house (I've previously detected front & side yards), I find there's an ash layer a few inches under the surface. Swell. I recently learned about hot & cold rocks that can affect detectors.

Rocks that set off metal detectors/pinpointers

Is there a list of rocks & minerals that will set off metal detectors? I found such a stone today--it was infuriating!!!! 🤬 After several minutes of sifting through substrate with my pinpointer expecting to find another rusty square nail, all that was left was one stone. It doesn't set off...

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What I should have extrapolated is that there can be "hot" soil as well. I guess that's what's meant by "mineralized," though that part was never clear to me until now. There I am sitting next to the 12" dia. x 12" deep hole I dug, and as soon as I put my pinpointer into the hole, it went nuts. Location didn't matter; 6" from the sides & bottom and the thing is buzzing like it was in direct contact with a WF beam. So I guess that's ONE kind of false target, no?

I've located a couple of depressions I believe may have been privy sites. I've told the owners about it, but neither of us is gung-ho about going down that rabbit hole... Near those depressions, I've found some stuff you might expect to find in/near a privy hole--a canning lid, pottery (crock) shards, molded glass shards...

My plan was to mark out an area, then try different programs to get a better feel for them, and see what different results I get over the same piece of ground. I started--arbitrarily--with Prg. 6: DEEP HC, then I was going to try Prgs. 2, 3, & 5 (already did Prg. 1) in no particular order (unless anyone has suggestions). Unfortunately, I dug more holes than I thought, and the coil ran out of juice. 😟 (Prg. 6 really sucks power!)

Got my first TID of 99 (Non-Ferrous) today... I figured I was in for a piece of foil or ring-top, but NOOOOO!!!

At least it was the biggest square nail I've found yet--4½". I think it may be a rose head, but it's pretty rusty.

 

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[robertk]

The 1850 farmhouse that is my current permission just may be the trashiest piece of real estate in NYS.

I feel your pain. Homesteaders of the 1800's must have planted iron instead of grass.

Got my first TID of 99 (Non-Ferrous) today... I figured I was in for a piece of foil or ring-top, but NOOOOO!!!

Sure looks ferrous to me. I feel your pain on that one too. I've dug plenty of signals of what really should have been a dime or penny or something, but turned out to be just bent nails. Sigh. Gotta dig 'em all, right?

 

[bigscoop]

As you're discovering, there exist "a lot" of learning curves in this hobby, and if not with the machine then with the various outside factors that are every changing. This is why the machine has so many filter options and selections and why they make various coil sizes, etc., etc.

 

[pepperj]

I never ground balanced a machine yet.

 

[robertk]

I never ground balanced a machine yet.

I have, but I can't say that it made any difference. I guess the ground must not be very mineralized where I hunt.

 

[Bucket Lister]

I feel your pain. Homesteaders of the 1800's must have planted iron instead of grass.

Yup, it's unbelievable unless/until you've detected one.

When we lived in MA for a year, we were told one of the colonials' main crops was stone walls. 😁

It's so bad, I can't even detect within 10-20 feet of the house--174 years of rusty nails, screws, and what-have-you. Again, as part of this experiment I'll come back and redo around the house once I decide how I want to filter out the iron (I have a few things to try 😉).

Sure looks ferrous to me. I feel your pain on that one too. I've dug plenty of signals of what really should have been a dime or penny or something, but turned out to be just bent nails. Sigh. Gotta dig 'em all, right?

I'll admit I'm passing on a few after picking up on a pattern, but yeah... If I had a dime for every signal that should have been a dime but was just a rusty nail (or 7)... I'd have a whole lotta dimes! 🤑 🤣

But seriously, that's part of why I want to go back and re-detect with the other programs.

 

[Bucket Lister]

I never ground balanced a machine yet.

Hey, I don't know from my elbow; I'm just following the directions. On this machine it's no big deal.

I can see in some places, it may make little/no difference; I think it does here, we have some varied soil types.

 

[pepperj]

Hey, I don't know from my elbow; I'm just following the directions. On this machine it's no big deal.

I can see in some places, it may make little/no difference; I think it does here, we have some varied soil types.

When there's lots of iron, don't ground balance.
Just leave what the auto feature figures out.

 

[bigscoop]

I never ground balanced a machine yet.

Generally, today's auto ground balance technologies do pretty well but it's always good to know how to it when facing those really difficult conditions.

My suggestion to would be to use a 6" coil whenever you've encountered really trashy conditions. Regardless how fast you set your recovery speed the larger coils (search field) still struggles and the loss of VDI accuracy, depth, returns, and "true" target separation just isn't worth it.

 

[pepperj]

Generally, today's auto ground balance technologies do pretty well but it's always good to know how to it when facing those really difficult conditions.

My suggestion to would be to use a 6" coil whenever you've encountered really trashy conditions. Regardless how fast you set your recovery speed the larger coils (search field) still struggles and the loss of VDI accuracy, depth, returns, and "true" target separation just isn't worth it.

They don't make a 6" for the Deus ll.

 

[robertk]

They don't make a 6" for the Deus ll.

True. I really wish they had a 6x9 elliptical.

 

[bigscoop]

They don't make a 6" for the Deus ll.

I don't know what coil size you're using now but even something in the 8 or 9" range would be better.

The subject of search coil size and how they relate to the size of the search field can get rather complicated to explain but I'll try to do my best here.

So as soon as you turn your machine on a search field bubble is created “around your coil, both above and below and also extending sideways out around the coil radius. So just for example sake let's say that a 12” coil produces a 24” search field bubble, whereas a 6” coil produces a 12” search field bubble. (These are just examples and not meant to be completely accurate in regards to actual search field bubbles VS coil sizes.)

Now when you turn your machine sensitivity up or down these search fields don't get larger or smaller, but rather, you are either increasing of decreasing the amount of fainter or weaker returns that reach your headphones, or machine speaker. (A lot of detectorist think that they are making the search field either larger or smaller when they turn the sensitivity up or down but that isn't what's really happening.)


Now then, because the larger coil creates a much larger search field this then allows for more contaminants to be in the larger search field at one time, whereas the smaller coil allows for less contaminants to be in the smaller search field at any one time. (And by “contaminants” I'm refereeing to both ferrous and non-ferrous objects, even those really tiny-tiny participles that our machine ground balance has to deal with. Do you see where all of this is heading now heading?
Given that we are now fully aware that faster recovery speeds come at the loss of depth, the loss of weaker and fainter returns, and decreased accuracy in our VDI, which would you rather hunt a trashy property with, a 12” coil with a faster recovery speed, or, a smaller coil with a slower recovery speed? The answer should be obvious.

To offer you an example of just how much difference all of this can make, I recently hunted a small area of my old trashy park with the Equinox 11” coil and I only recovered 3 quarters, 2 dimes, 2 nickels, and I opted to pass on the penny returns. Yet, returning to that same area the next day with the 6” coil I managed 15 quarters, 8 dimes, 5 nickels, and I passed up a butt load of penny returns. (Most of these targets were anywhere from 2” to 9” deep.) This is how much difference our understanding of coil sizes and how our machine is actually working can make.

Anyway, I hope I explained all of the above in an easy to follow and understand manner and I hope the information helps.

 

[Bucket Lister]

Going through the findings from this day, I found something I didn't realize I'd found... Another lesson!

I remember pulling these pieces out of the ground and thinking, "junk" because I didn't know what I was looking at--just some rusty fragments falling apart in my hand as I examined them. Then last night as I was gathering the rusty nails for discard, I saw it...

A pocket knife. Actually, parts from (at least) TWO pocket knives (the pieces don't add up/fit). They were very small knives ~2". Again, there would have been less damage had I put them in a separate container. 🤦🏼‍♂️

To make matters worse, because I thought it was trash, I didn't record the find. 😠

 

[pepperj]

Going through the findings from this day, I found something I didn't realize I'd found... Another lesson!

I remember pulling these pieces out of the ground and thinking, "junk" because I didn't know what I was looking at--just some rusty fragments falling apart in my hand as I examined them. Then last night as I was gathering the rusty nails for discard, I saw it...

View attachment 2152370
A pocket knife. Actually, parts from (at least) TWO pocket knives (the pieces don't add up/fit). They were very small knives ~2". Again, there would have been less damage had I put them in a separate container. 🤦🏼‍♂️

To make matters worse, because I thought it was trash, I didn't record the find. 😠

The old pocket knife just don't hold up well in the dirt.
Though it does show the ability of the detector picking up the small brass end of the rusty knife. (At least I think it's brass)

 

[Bucket Lister]

The old pocket knife just don't hold up well in the dirt.
Though it does show the ability of the detector picking up the small brass end of the rusty knife. (At least I think it's brass)

There are both magnetic and non-magnetic parts. The little pieces that look like a split snake tongue are non-magnetic, so yeah, probably brass. Brass also holds up a little better in this soil than some other NF metals.

IDK, which part(s) it picked up--probably both.