Silver uMax questions after a full day in the field

[Kookiemonsta]

I was able to get out for like 4 hours with my Silver uMax today and it was my first real session out being out detecting. I have a few questions that hopefully someone can help with!

Does anyone have experience finding silver with the uMax? I dig a hole, some 4 inches deep, and dont even cover up a silver dime... I just toss it in. I then try everything from all metal all the way up to cranking the distribution, but I can never really get a good signal on the thing. It does give a muffled beep here and there, but its far from consistent. Normal? This is my main concern =/

I found a few clad pennies but most everything I found was nails, bolts, and a TON of shredded cans. Which im realizing are from when a can is on the ground and the big ol' lawnmower comes through and just shreds them... minefield of junk! The question I have here is this... The nails were found a little deeper around 4 to 6 inches, but all of the cans were basically in the top roots. Is there some sort of discrim anyone knows of or a trick to not waste time on those signals? They just give such loud clear signals just like a penny does. Even side by side I have a hard time distinguishing the difference.

I was in the park today and a pack of kids from the neighborhood (age 3 to 12) came over to me... of course... At first I thought OH JEEEEZEEEE... mind you these kids know NOTHING of a coin, but they immediately all told me the story of the guy there last summer (who they thought I was at first). I was shocked that someone had been here so recent... and also shocked to hear the kids say the names "Silver" dimes... and the "Weed" penny (which they believe is worth THOUSANDS) which the guy found while there and let them keep. I was like waittttt WHERE WAS HE LOOKING? So I guess a guy was here last year and let the kids help him and he gave them the coins... nice guy! It was a little crazy too because the older boy was familiar already with how to dig the plug. Before long I had a crew working for me in the park! lmao I let them keep all the clad (about 8 cents). They loved it!

SO THE QUESTIONS ARE:

Experience with the uMax and finding silver? Depth? Setting?

Experience with the uMax and finding gold? Depth Setting? Mine doesnt seem to make much noise on gold ring I own..?

Tricks for avoiding aluminum?

Detecting a penny on bare ground how high above the penny do you get a signal? Mine seems to only be a few inches... but in the ground I have found them 6 inches....?

Truly, thank you everyone for your time! I really would like to improve with this thing! I now KNOW its out there O.O

-Kookie

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Upgraded Night Vision Monocular Digital Infrared Monocular Telescope for 100% Darkness with 8X Zoom - Grab it through Amazon!

[Kookiemonsta]

No one?

 

[Sandman]

I'm here Kookie, Your detector is up to the task of finding coins and rings up to near 8" but a lot depends on the minerals in the ground. The difference between Alum and gold rings is very close and wrinkled alum cans give off a LOUD signal because they are more conductive. Gold rings are alloyed with various metals to make them harder and all that makes for different conductivity. White gold rings are usually alloyed with nickel an this puts them in the foil range. Coins on edge or tilted in the ground can give off funny sounds depending which way you sweep at them. Your in luck with Silver as it is very conductive and that made them easy to find with the older detectors from years ago. Now you have to hunt smarter to find them. All them bushes you see might not have been there years ago. Check them out.

 

[TallTom]

Give us a little more info.

For example:
What do you have Sensitivity set to?
When you use Disc, where is it set?
Are you using the standard 8" concentric coil?
What part of the country are you in? What kind of mineralization is in the ground?
Were you working in an area that's clear of power lines, wifi routers, etc.?
Are you using headphones? Cheap ones or ones with pretty good fidelity?

But even without those answers, I'll offer a few tips, based on using
a Silver uMax for the past 14 months.

1. Pay attention to Sandman's feedback. He knows his stuff.

2. I usually set my Disc to just below the "5c" mark. That is, just a hair
to the left of the 12 o'clock position. And I set Sensitivity to about
the 3 o'clock position. Together, these give good signals for gold rings,
silver items, and all coins. However, it also gives good signals for pull tabs,
bottle caps, and large metallic objects of almost ANY kind. But it should
exclude a lot of SMALL junk items. Be sure you don't accidentally push
the Disc/All Metal switch to All Metal without realizing it, or you'll get
signals for everything.

3. When I'm in a park with a lot of junk and I don't want to spend all my
time digging pull tabs and bottle caps, I set my Disc up near Max, maybe
just a hair below it. That will largely limit me to detecting quarters, and maybe
dimes and copper (not zinc) pennies, depending on how low under Max
I'm set. But I'll still get signals for large objects and some (not all) bottle
caps. HOWEVER, they will usually be more ragged signals, not as pure as
a coin will give. This is especially true if you swing the coil slowly back and
forth over the target, moving slightly to the edges of where you hear the
signal. A bottle cap is (usually) ragged near the edge; a coin is not.
It takes time to hear the difference, and sometimes there's
little or no difference. But usually there is.

4. Consistent, repeatable signals are the most likely to be good targets.
But sometimes an erratic signal means you're over a good target with
trash right next to it, so it can be worth digging, too.

5. I always use over-the-ear headphones with pretty good fidelity,
although not super expensive. This has two main benefits:
a. I can hear the subtleties of the signal better. I can hear the difference
between a "pure" signal and a "ragged" signal, even if there's a lot of
noise from nearby traffic, airplanes, people, or the surf.
b. People who want to come up and talk to me think that I can't hear
them. I usually can, but if I choose to, I can ignore them and continue
metal detecting instead of spending most of my time explaining what
I'm doing. When I don't answer them, most of these people conclude
I can't hear them and they go away.

6. Don't expect to find a lot of gold rings. In fact, plan to find at least
500 bottle caps and pull tabs for every gold ring. Maybe a thousand.
If finding gold was easy, everybody would be doing it.

I'm sure there are a hundred other tips, but these are the first that
came to mind after reading your message. Good luck!

--Tom

 

[mojotrout]

Hi Kookie,

I am not anywhere close to being an expert, but in my limited experience and in my mild soil, I set my Silver with the Sensitivity at maximum (or as close to max as possible) and my Disc to just over Zn. I use this machine strictly for coin hunting so I am not concerned about missing gold or relics. This set-up lets me detect all clad, silver coins and rings, and copper pennies while avoiding a whole bunch of trash--including almost all foil, small iron, modern pull tabs, and zinc pennies. Ive been told that this Discrimination setting might make me miss out on older Indian Head pennies because of their higher Zn content, but I have found one in these settings, along with lots of wheat pennies. The deepest Ive dug a coin with these settings is about 6.5", but Ive dug other stuff at 7.5-8"--that other stuff being jar lids, big scraps of iron, and beaver-tail tabs. I don't think any settings will allow you to avoid all trash--you're just gonna have to dig some. Let me stress again that i have very little mineralization in my soil so these numbers might not be achievable in your neck of the woods.

There are also tricks to sizing a target that will help you decide if it is a coin or something larger (can slaw for instance) but i better let someone with more experience describe that to you. Good luck with the Silver, its a fun and effective machine in my opinion. It shouldn't take you too long to start figuring it out.

 

[Kookiemonsta]

Thank you all for your words! This all helps a TON!

One thing I have noticed after 2 days of this... I WILL NEVER LITTER AGAIN. JEEZE! I cannot STAND seeing someone throw a little piece of metal on the ground anymore LMFAO!

Its good, and bad, to hear that wrinkled/folded cans will give a good signal very similar to a coin... Good because it means I was doing the right thing digging most of the signals, but bad because there is a lot of work ahead before I get it all clear out (ohhh and I will!).

I honestly dont intend to find a ring at all.. its just I would be sick to know I scanned over one without having a clue. The piece I was testing on is white gold, so it helps to know why that was getting disc out so easily.

Does anyone have a pointer for finding the depth of an object with the silver? If I can figure out how to differentiate the depth I can cut many of the cans out. All of the can pieces are found only like 2 inches deep, and my couple older (60 n 70) pennies were more like 4 inches down. The ground here is very loamy and soft with a few small rocks for about 5-6 inches, but then there is a clay layer at that point. Not a solid hard layer, but a pretty easily to dig through mix of tan clay and dirt.

I talked to my mother today about the park... and after listening to her "your doing what? Isnt there anything better to do?", she told me where a puppet show used to perform in the park, so my next target is the area where everyone sat during that.

How much could interference affect the detector? In my yard I do have a powerline overhead/to the side. As well as wireless internet. I can see it possibly being effected there. In the park its more of an open field. How far away could you have it effect your beeps? I will search later.. Im sure theres plenty of into on this part out there.

Do you need a specific type of headphone to plug into the Silver?

Im going to buy a few items in a line and mark the holes/depth/item and see if I cant work on figuring out which ones im at with my eyes closed.

LAST QUESTION! Will your battery just DIE, or when it starts to go low on juice will you machine slowly perform worse until it dies.

THANK YOU AGAIN! Some practice today and I will go back out there tomorrow.

-Kookie

 

[rainyday101]

I have a Silver and have about 20 hours on it now. I started out with the disc. low digging everything. Very time consuming and frustrating. I am mostly interested in coins while land hunting. Now I set the disc. just past pulltab and cherry pick the coins. You will loose no depth with this disc. setting. Starting this way will give you a positive experience right off the bat and you will know what a good sound for a coin is much quicker. See this link for test results with different disc. settings verses depth of objects: 3 Tesoros/1 Fisher: a fresh coin garden comparison

Don't waste time fretting over freshly buried coins. You disturbed the ground matrix and the results will be bad.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING: Cut nice clean plugs. Place removed soil on a drop cloth. After target is recovered fill the hole in with the soil from the drop cloth. Flip the grass plug back over and press it down so that you leave no traces of your digging!

 

[Kookiemonsta]

I quickly improved my plugs haha The first 15-20 were all dig a hole, then dig more, rip more grass apart, annddddd they turned into a mess. But it was all in my yard, and I watered later on in the night(hard to get a plug. It all just crumbled instead) so it should be fine. Some turned out a little rugged in the park where the grass was all brown, but I quickly realized the damage I was doing digging in the dead grass , so I just avoided that area and went to the flush green stuff. And of course I did demolish 3 or 4 when getting those pieces of tin from barely 2 inches deep in the plug. I live right on the park (walk outside my door and I am in the park) so I will be monitoring my holes, and if I do see any get sucked up by the lawnmower or just dying I will dig a plug from my yard n stick it in there =P

Whoever thought of bringing a cloth with to put the dirt on was a genius! I will do that from now on.

Anyone know the answer to the battery question? When the battery dies will the machine suddenly stop, or will performance slowly dissipate until it finally dies?

Thanks everyone! This site sure makes me want to leave work and get outside haha!

-Kookie

 

[rainyday101]

Hey kookiemonsta also invest in a Garrett Pro Pointer to locate your targets quicker. This pointer will also keep your digging to a minimum as you will know where the target is in your pile of dirt on the drop cloth or where it is still in the hole. If it is in the plug you can locate it easier without tearing the plug apart. The Pro Pointer was easily the best investment I ever made as it saved me tons of time and kept my holes smaller and neater.

You can also judge depth with your detector by lifting the coil up over the target and sweeping. The higher you can lift the coil while sweeping the shallower the target is. Big metal can fool ya though.

 

[Fletch88]

My Vaqero battery just died suddenly! Maybe had 8-10 hours on battery and about 1/2 way through a 3 hour hunt running mostly super tuned, she died. Of course my spare battery was 1/2 mile away in truck, so I robbed the 9V battery from pro pointer and continued hunting.

Sent from my iPhone using TreasureNet

 

[jamiekeefer]

If I am at a park I usually have sensitivity as high as it will go without making noise, usually max. I will run with disc right above foil or just under nickel. If I get a target I crank up disc and and see if it gets discriminated out. If it's a coin there is no mistaken as the signal is clear, and that includes silver dimes at least 6 inches. Tone will be solid and you will be able to easily pinpoint.

It it's a strong signal that is easy to pinpoint, but fades out when discrimination is turned over nickel, it's either nickel or a pull tab or like object (shaving of aluminum siding, arrgghh )- you have to dig though, because it might be gold too.

If it's a signal that is strong-ish but covers a larger area harder to pinpoint...likely aluminum can -- Especially if you start digging deeper than usual.

In the end you never know "for sure", so dig what you want and what time allows for.

 

[fella]

See this link for test results with different disc. settings verses depth of objects: 3 Tesoros/1 Fisher: a fresh coin garden comparison

Wow! Never seen these gold dimes. I gotta find me one!