Looking for some pointers in searching old sites that just stopped producing. I have pounded two locations and pulled many wheats and some silver coins, and now it looks like there is nothing left. Would it be worth trying to go over in other programs/settings? I have used Deus Fast program set in silencer -1, reactivity 3, sensitivity 90, TX 2. Or Does it mean that I have pulled all the goods from these sites.
It is practically impossible to pull all the goods from any site. Soil conditions change with moisture and mineral content. Targets are actually continually physically moving up (yes up) and down in the soil due to many factors such as gravity (obvious), water, frost heave, yard work (tilling, mowing, planting, plowing, digging, mulching, scraping), burrowing animals, and root action. Targets are masked and unmasked when trash is recovered. And of course, there can always be fresh drops. There is a metal detecting adage that states that folks have only recovered 5 to 10% of all the metallic items that mankind has lost since antiquity. Who knows if that is true, but if you have recovered more than 50% of the keepers from a site, I'd say you are doing incredibly well.
Here are some suggestions on maximizing coverage and recovery:
By "pounded" do you mean you randomly went over the sites again and again or did you carefully grid them? By (slowly) gridding it you make sure your coil has passed over nearly every square inch in
at least two directions. Sometimes a target will not sound off in one direction but will at a 90 degree angle or 45 degree angle.
Did you pull every speck of trash and iron out of the ground? If not, then keeper targets can still be masked. You will need to do all of the same things I am mentioning to scour the site to also find and remove all of the trash that may be masking the keepers.
Try lowering reactivity to 2 or even 1 for increased depth. Deeper targets with weaker signatures may just barely blip or not sound off at all at Rx 3, so if you want to max depth, slowly grid and swing at Rx 1 if you can afford the time to do so. When you lower reactivity, make sure you also check that silencer remains at -1.
You did not mention disc or notch or tones. Minimal discrimination and full tones give you the best "view" of what is in the ground. After you have cherry picked, you need to open up the aperture of your machine and find anything left in the ground. If you want to go "All Metal" than try a pitch program like Gold Field which will sound off on everything metal and you will have to use visual target ID to get a handle on the target because the pitch intensity and frequency only clue you in to the size or depth of the target, not its composition.
Grid the site with at least two different frequencies. Not much difference between 8 and 12 khz, I treat them the same. Get some separation between the frequencies if you do this (e.g., 8 and 18, 4 and 12). If you want max depth for high conductors try 4 khz (unless the site is highly mineralized because 4 khz locks Tx power at 3 which is not good for highly mineralized sites) and 8 khz. If you want to max on smaller targets and/or mid-conductors like gold and nickels try 12 and 18 khz. By gridding for each type of target you stand a better chance at sweeping the site. Your detector has four frequencies, use them and its like going over the site with 2 to 4 different detectors. I would also do it with the e-trac just to make sure.
If you have the time to use combinations of the above, you can continue to hit the site for weeks or months and still eek targets out of the ground.
Hope this helps get you thinking about ways you can wring everything out of your sites.
HH
