Help me understand: "Iron Mask"

[billjustbill]

Help me understand: "Iron Mask"

I'm running a SE. An old tale around my folks place is that my great grandfather buried a can of coins near an old chicken pen. My grandfather looked for it but never found it. The ground in that area is full of something that keeps the tone null-ed about 90% of the time.

I'm running it in advanced mode with iron, bottle caps, and basically the whole left screen is black. What does the Iron Mask do that the programed side can't?

Is there a way to set the detector so it looks around all the ferrous metal. I can run the standard coil or an Excelerator 5" coil. Can the Iron Mask mode work better in this steel seeded area?

Thanks, Bill

 

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[Yeasty]

Re: Help me understand: "Iron Mask"

From the manual:
Iron Mask allows you to change the
Discrimination Pattern by adjusting
the level of ferrous rejection. Iron Mask
can be turned on or off (switching back
to Smartfind or Digital). The Iron Mask
screen displays the Discrimination
Pattern (similar to the Smartfind) and
a slider control to adjust the level of
ferrous discrimination. The level of
ferrous discrimination can be adjusted
using the shift buttons next to the slider
control.
You'll notice that when you press IRON MASK you get a screen with a slider where you can adjust the amount of masking. By pressing the IRON MASK again you can see, on the Smartfind screen, a vertical bar whose width is determined by where you put the slider. The wider the vertical bar the more ferrous rejection. While in IRON MASK you cannot select to additionally reject foil, bottle caps etc. To get out of IRON MASK just press the IRON MASK button to return to the previous discrimination pattern. The little bar below the Smartfind screen will indicate if IRON MASK is off or on.

Read up on page 34 of the manual.
Hope this helped.

Pete

 

[Iron Patch]

Re: Help me understand: "Iron Mask"

Ironmask is just a fancy name for discrimination and as far as I know if you see the same pattern on your screen the detector operates the same way regardless of whether you're in ironmask or a program.

You say you want to look around all the ferrous metal but what was the can made of? Probably something that would have rusted? Also, how deep it is makes a difference because large items override your discrimination to a point and can be used in your favor if you know the depth. If you can answer those questions I'd probably have a better idea, it will probably be the same way I cherry pick old homesites through the nails in search of big iron.

 

[Ant]

Re: Help me understand: "Iron Mask"

This is how I set up my SE to find silver in iron infested areas.
I hunt using the Smart Screen (SC) and Digital Screen (DS). I hunt slowly, setting up in Iron Mask AM mode (All Metal), Ferrous Tones, Recovery at Fast, Gains at 5/6 (adjust up or down as needed, I lower the gains if I get false high pitch signals), Threshold just above silent (adjust as needed to compensate for ambient noise), Manual Sensitivity and noise cancle as needed.

When I get an iffy signal (a quick and short high pitched signal that bounces around on the SC, mainly placing the corsshairs towards the top right hand cornor) I use the Iron Mask button to toggle back to the stock Discrimination Mode (DM). This way I can make a better judgment as to dig or not using the stock discrimination screen. This will set everything back to the stock settings, except that the machine will still be in Ferrous Tones and not the stock conduct mode.

 

[Sandman]

Re: Help me understand: "Iron Mask"

The others answered your questions on the Iron Mask.

Your great grandfather did good buring money near the chicken coop as they would set off an alarm if someone poked around at night. More than likely he placed a large sheet of metal over the container so he could find it again as they didn't use metal detectors back then. It could even be inside the coop where nobody could see him digging. Very smart these old dudes...........

 

[billjustbill]

Re: Help me understand: "Iron Mask"

Gentlemen,

Thank you for your insight and time. I'll try every one when I get back home on Labor Day.

Thanks again, Bill