What's new

Fun afternoon hunt with Mirage-some silver to boot.

Danimal

Bronze Member
Joined
Aug 16, 2006
Messages
1,142
Reaction score
165
Golden Thread
0
Location
Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
Detector(s) used
duh...duh... DFX
Last Saturday Bob and I met in the early afternoon (Nate had a track meet in the AM) and hunted a few different athletic fields near some older inner city schools. The first area we hunted has produced quite a bit of silver in the past year and sure enough, I popped a deep Merc out after a while. I also found a Canadian pocket spill with an older nickle and a handful of Canadian cents. (not TOO old though). I also pulled out an old Iodine linament tin.

I continue to experiment with using my DFX much like I did the ACE250 by hunting primarily in pinpoint (DC-non-motion) mode and then going to discrim. ONLY after locating a target and centering the coil over it.
This does several things:

One, it lets me run the DFX REAL hot...so hot that using it in a "normal" fashion is totally annoying because of the amount of chatter. If an ant sneezes the thing will warble. Recently Nate (who also uses a DFX) tried my machine (albeit hunting "normally") and said it was "too noisy" and didn't feel stable. The things is though...if you use pinpoint to aquire and center over a target, all you are listening to is the threshold shift...and you are getting MUCH more depth than in AC. Then, when you switch off pinpoint, you are listening to the machine interpret the TARGET...not soil mineralization...EMI interferrence, etc. This also lets you pick apart trashy spots, even using the stock 9.5" coil. Just approach from different directions when you detune and can tell there's more than one target close together.
Two..and this has worked well lately. When in pinpoint the DFX's threshold tone can easily determine if a target is small...and if it's deep (ignoring the depth indication on the screen). Lately in areas like this I have almost been ignoring shallow targets that SCREAM in pinpoint (honestly...I still switch off and listen to the ID tone as it COULD be larger silver that didn't sink deep regardless of the coin's density because of something blocking it's progress deeper).

Well..back to the hunt...While trying to hear the REAL subtle tone shift in pinpoint...I got one...deep and small.
Switched back to discrim...decent high tone and a VDI around 80-82...but broken and slight wrap around on the VDI scale into ferrous..but the high tone was smooth so I dug. The initial plug was the depth of the Lesche (around 7") and the target was still in the hole. I carefully chunked out more dirt with the Lesche and it was STILL in the hole. (easily 9" now) and the tone and VDI now were shouting "silver dime" to me.
The Vibraprobe picked it up and when I pried that chunk up I saw the dime-sized round silver edge and part of a VERY clean bust and now I was thinking Barber. It ended up being a very nice silver Jesus pendant, perfectly round, cut-relived around Jesus' head.
To me, a more unique find than another silver dime (though a Barber would have been great too)

Then we went to a new location for us and proceded to pull a bunch of wheaties...all deep. Bob also yanked out a 1969 40% Kennedy half! That sucker looked just minted. No more silver showed up there but we are convinced it's not been hunted and there HAS to be some silver there...so we'll be back.

Here's a few pics

First few wheats and the Iodex tin
one.webp
Bob and my finds dumped out
two.webp
closeup of the silvers (also shown is a 1909 wheatie-no VDB)
three.webp

HH all!
 
Upvote 0
nice finds.... really nice...did I read it right, you went from an ace250 to a dfx holey moley ... talk about going from easy machine to super complicated... wtg on it...big time
 
bootybay said:
nice finds.... really nice...did I read it right, you went from an ace250 to a dfx holey moley ... talk about going from easy machine to super complicated... wtg on it...big time
There was another cheap machine there in the mix before the ACE, but basically...yeah.

It helped that during my time with the ACE my hunting partners used DFX's and ML Explorers.
I am not brand-enchanted. I even had Garrett offering to basically give me equipment to use due to my success with the ACE...just to keep me using a Garrett. Being made in the US helped with the DFX decision I will admit, but I'm already thinking about getting an Explorer SE to play around with. There isn't an adjustment on the DFX that I don't understand what it does and how it affects the other adjustments. I am not saying I cannot learn more on the DFX (for instance, I have not done much with running in mixed-mode or reverse discrimination) but rather I am saying that I want a new challenge.
 
Dan,
That hunt was very enjoyable. Nice weather, no prickers, no bushes that fight back, no poison ivy,.... ;D ;D

Bob
 
Mirage said:
Dan,
That hunt was very enjoyable. Nice weather, no prickers, no bushes that fight back, no poison ivy,.... ;D ;D

Bob

and no damn mosquitos...my GOD the mosquitos have been worse the past few weeks than I can remember for a LONG time. Tired of bathing in DEET to hunt the woods.
Fall is coming Bob!
 
nice finds. looked like a good day :)
 
congrats on the finds :)

HH
 
Congrats, Dan, on your finds, especially that silver Jesus pendant. Just by reading your posts, I know you are quite proficient with your machine, and it shows by the depth you're getting and the oldies you continually post. I think you, Bob, and Nate should pound that site where Bob pulled the Half out of. It should produce for you guys.

Good luck!!

HH,
CAPTN SE
Dan
 
Danimal said:
Mirage said:
Dan,
That hunt was very enjoyable. Nice weather, no prickers, no bushes that fight back, no poison ivy,.... ;D ;D

Bob

and no damn mosquitos...my GOD the mosquitos have been worse the past few weeks than I can remember for a LONG time. Tired of bathing in DEET to hunt the woods.
Fall is coming Bob!
Nice finds, and you're right about the mosquitos! Even with DEET, they attack; maybe their obsession over blood is more powerful than the repellant.
 
Captn_SE said:
Congrats, Dan, on your finds, especially that silver Jesus pendant. Just by reading your posts, I know you are quite proficient with your machine, and it shows by the depth you're getting and the oldies you continually post. I think you, Bob, and Nate should pound that site where Bob pulled the Half out of. It should produce for you guys.

Good luck!!

HH,
CAPTN SE
Dan

Thanks Cap. I have already been back to that spot for a very brief hunt with my son this past Tuesday and pulled another few wheatbacks (incl. another greenie dated 1911 that was right up against the clay layer deeep) and then kinda got moved off the spot by large groups of football players running laps through the spot. We wandered to another area (this whole field area is huge) but was frustrated by the amount of trash there. That coupled with the fact that I was doing it sans headphones so that my son and I could talk...and we were near a main street and the sounds of traffic made it impossible to hear the threashold shift.
blah blah blah dig dig dig clad clad clad...you know...confidence lowers and dinner looms closer and it gets to a point that your time is better spent elsewhere.
 
Ha ha. I found one of those silver cans the other week. Same stuff. Some kind of Iodine rub. Don't open yours! Trust me. P<U<. Nice coins by the way. Hey Dan, what happened with the earphone plug on your DFX. How'd you fix it. Mine is goofy too.

Ken
 
Kas said:
Ha ha. I found one of those silver cans the other week. Same stuff. Some kind of Iodine rub. Don't open yours! Trust me. P<U<. Nice coins by the way. Hey Dan, what happened with the earphone plug on your DFX. How'd you fix it. Mine is goofy too.

Ken

Too late on opening the Iodex tin (whew! :P) It had some weight and I wanted to make sure there wasn't some coinage hiding out in there. Nope...just some thickened reddish crap (I assume containing iodine)
I resoldered the broken trace on the DFX's jack. It's starting to act up again BTW....next step is to replace that pc. of junk jack with something more substantial. I'll PM you when I find a suitable replacement.
 
Nice finds, thanks for sharing your DFX techniques
 
Schrecky said:
Nice finds, thanks for sharing your DFX techniques

No problem Shrecky!

I actually DID try running in mixed mode a few times (on the DFX...that lets you hunt in AC discrim...with all 190 tones at the SAME TIME as DC pinpoint to listen to the threshold shift). The sheer amount of sounds hitting me was totally confusing. I think I would rather flick the trigger back and forth :D

I think our pal Don (from DFXOnly) has been playing around with reverse disrim. It's been said that better depth in discrim. can be had than with normal mode. That'll be what I play with this Winter (assuming I keep the DFX)
 
Great finds,you guys always seem to find some good stuff.

Hows the learning curve from the ACE250 to the DFX?
 
UnEarthed72 said:
Great finds,you guys always seem to find some good stuff.

Hows the learning curve from the ACE250 to the DFX?

honestly?...that depends on you and your ability to absorb. I'm a sponge. ;)

As I said, I had already played with one and read a LOT about them before buying one.

Most would say that the curve is steep. The available adjustments on the DFX's programming are mind boggling.

For example...here's the program I have been tweaking around with lately (basically change a few things depending upon the soil's stability as far as mineralization). It's a bit unstable and requires re-ground balancing often, but I have had great results with it. TNet member JerFX wrote it (I changed a few thing slightly)

TARGET VOLUME 48-63 63
AUDIO THRESHOLD 0-42 12
TONE 0-255 173
AUDIO DISC. ON/OFF ON
SILENT SEARCH ON/OFF OFF
MIXED-MODE ON/OFF OFF
AC SENSITIVITY 1-85 83
DC SENSITIVITY 1-60 47
BACKLITE 0-6 0
VIEWING ANGLE 1-50 25
RATCHET PINPOINT ON/OFF OFF
S.A.T. SPED 0-10 10
TONE ID ON/OFF ON
V.C.O. ON/OFF ON
MODULATION ON/OFF OFF
AUTOTRAC ON/OFF ON
TRACK VIEW ON/OFF OFF
AUTOTRAC SPEED 1-20 8
AUTOTRAC OFFSET -10 +20 0
TRACK INHIBIT ON/OFF ON
COARSE G.E.B. 0-255 Auto
FINE G.E.B. 0-255 Auto
DISC. EDIT -95-+95 Accept -40 to +95
BLOCK EDIT -95-+95 Reject -95 to -41
LEARN ACCEPT ON/OFF OFF
LEARN REJECT ON/OFF OFF
RECOVERY SPEED 1-40 28
BOTTLECAP REJECT 1-20 1
HOT ROCK REJECT 0-20 10
SWEEP SPEED 1-20 7
GROUND FILTERING 2-6 4
VISUAL DISC. ON/OFF OFF
ICONS ON/OFF ON
V.D.I.SENSITIVITY 0-99 85
DC PHASE ON/OFF OFF
GRAPH AVERAGING ON/OFF ON
GRAPH ACCUMULATE ON/OFF ON
FADE RATE 1-14 11
PREAMP GAIN 1-4 4
2 FREQUENCY (BEST DATA) ON/OFF-ON
2 FREQUENCY (CORRELATE) ON/OFF-OFF
VDI NORMALIZED ON/OFF ON
1 FREQUENCY (3kHz) ON/OFF OFF
1 FREQUENCY (15khz) ON/OFF OFF
 
It strikes me funny about running in DC.

Way back in the '70's that's the only kind of detector we had. VLF in DC. LOL.

Now, myself included, pay high dollars for a machine and run it in DC.

See, trends do come back around. That's why we found a lot of deep coins back then.

Ken
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom