Still Searching more land........

[CRUSADER]

Drove some distance to the 3 small fields that have yet to be planted. Started on the 2nd of the 3 & didn't have a great deal after 1.5 hours. So Dad got bored & his mind wondered to the massive field across the road with the Bronze Age Burial in it. I said we should stick at this field but decided to give it ago. Big mistake the land is so roughly ploughed you could break a leg. Wondered for ages to find what was left of the ploughed out mound. Found very little in 1.5 hours (photo 2). We both agreed not to do this field again until it was flatter & to stick with the other 3.

Best finds were a Livery Button & Clog Clasp.

One of our worst day in awhile, but to be expected when doing new land.

Some of you may know what one of the coins are

 

[dfx willy]

thanx man your soil is sooo much older. willy.

 

[Bavaria Mike]

Crus, do you clean your finds that are displayed in the museum? I mean clean as in clean off patinas and crud? Our museum wants me to put up a display and I am playing with ideas. HH, Mike

 

[johnreb1980]

Nice finds.

 

[phantomfinder]

WTG , on the great finds

 

[allen]

i see you found one of our junky pennies over there....

 

[woody50]

looks like you did do better yesterday! sounds like you had an uncomfortable day.

WHY are you guys changing your names?

 

[woody50]

looks like you did do better yesterday! sounds like you had an uncomfortable day.

Not even the powers of the XP could pull anything from these fields. But with some hard work we will find the odd one or two things. There was a least some lead in the first field.

i managed three coins in my back garden with the Lobo! is it right that the more high pitched signals are more shallow?

Hard to remember now, but yes it sounds higher the closer it is to the coil. But that's depends on the type of object (metal type) & size.
It will take loads of time but this will improve your hit rate
(do as Woody says - Ses. Max & disc 1.5, he knows)

Well Cru and Shaun, its been years (I would estimate 4 to 5) since I used the Lobo. That is because the XP has almost never broken down I don't need my reserve. Sure different than 15 or 20 years ago...

Anyway just ran out to my garage and looked at my Lobo. Its been a long time since I have even seen the switches and dials! I do test it once in a while to insure its working, and only put batteries in when I think I might use it. Remember this EVERYONE, if you are not using your detector for a long time, REMOVE the batteries. The only ones that I leave in are those from Duracell, but I don't really use them much anymore because they are so expensive and good alkalines don't cost much at Litl or Aldi.

I always used the switch position Normal, only once that I can remember using blacksand, because the interference of the soil was bad, although it was not black sand. The uppermost position I did try several times but never really used it.

All metal or discr. Depends on the field and what you are finding. If you are finding TOP finds and very very old, then only ALL METAL, dig everything including iron signals (old keys are nice too). Otherwise I see that I was wrong with the discrimination (sorry Shaun), I remember now when I saw the dial, I used about 2.5 to 2.9, or just on the tip of being 3. There is on my machine a spot near three where it will only discr. against small iron. Badly rusted iron always is more of a problem, but that is normal.

The sensitivity, yes full out, but that is only if you can do that. Not on all fields for sure, and turn it down if there are too much junk. Sometimes when I was searching in the mountains in Serbia, where the Romans/Byzantines had forts there was NO ONE had been there after the Romans left, except metal detectorists and maybe hunters, but only hunters using military bullets, and did not find too many shells and even no shotgun shells.

So I used FULL OUT sensitivity there, I even modified one of the Lobos to get about 20% more. I believe that setting the discr. to full should make a detector unstable. So if setting it there does not make it unstable you can increase it a bit. At least that is my opinion. I had good luck with the modified Lobo with ALL METAL, at that time I was really looking for good iron objects and I found a large amount of them.

With the XP, sometimes (very few times) I can increase the sensitivity to full, but anyway I almost always use it in the red, where in the red depends upon the ground. The ground balance on the XP I have almost never changed, just a few times if there were too many minerals in the ground....

 

[Silver Searcher]

looks like you did do better yesterday! sounds like you had an uncomfortable day.

Not even the powers of the XP could pull anything from these fields. But with some hard work we will find the odd one or two things. There was a least some lead in the first field.

i managed three coins in my back garden with the Lobo! is it right that the more high pitched signals are more shallow?

Hard to remember now, but yes it sounds higher the closer it is to the coil. But that's depends on the type of object (metal type) & size.
It will take loads of time but this will improve your hit rate
(do as Woody says - Ses. Max & disc 1.5, he knows)

Well Cru and Shaun, its been years (I would estimate 4 to 5) since I used the Lobo. That is because the XP has almost never broken down I don't need my reserve. Sure different than 15 or 20 years ago...

Anyway just ran out to my garage and looked at my Lobo. Its been a long time since I have even seen the switches and dials! I do test it once in a while to insure its working, and only put batteries in when I think I might use it. Remember this EVERYONE, if you are not using your detector for a long time, REMOVE the batteries. The only ones that I leave in are those from Duracell, but I don't really use them much anymore because they are so expensive and good alkalines don't cost much at Litl or Aldi.

I always used the switch position Normal, only once that I can remember using blacksand, because the interference of the soil was bad, although it was not black sand. The uppermost position I did try several times but never really used it.

All metal or discr. Depends on the field and what you are finding. If you are finding TOP finds and very very old, then only ALL METAL, dig everything including iron signals (old keys are nice too). Otherwise I see that I was wrong with the discrimination (sorry Shaun), I remember now when I saw the dial, I used about 2.5 to 2.9, or just on the tip of being 3. There is on my machine a spot near three where it will only discr. against small iron. Badly rusted iron always is more of a problem, but that is normal.

The sensitivity, yes full out, but that is only if you can do that. Not on all fields for sure, and turn it down if there are too much junk. Sometimes when I was searching in the mountains in Serbia, where the Romans/Byzantines had forts there was NO ONE had been there after the Romans left, except metal detectorists and maybe hunters, but only hunters using military bullets, and did not find too many shells and even no shotgun shells.

So I used FULL OUT sensitivity there, I even modified one of the Lobos to get about 20% more. I believe that setting the discr. to full should make a detector unstable. So if setting it there does not make it unstable you can increase it a bit. At least that is my opinion. I had good luck with the modified Lobo with ALL METAL, at that time I was really looking for good iron objects and I found a large amount of them.

With the XP, sometimes (very few times) I can increase the sensitivity to full, but anyway I almost always use it in the red, where in the red depends upon the ground. The ground balance on the XP I have almost never changed, just a few times if there were too many minerals in the ground....

Very interesting Woody, would agree with you mostly on what you say, especially the lobo settings . Not to sure about the running in the red with the XP, but I am still on the learning curve with it so I couldn't say you are wrong,(not that I would) i will have to experiment a bit more, would to have loved to have done some detecting in the Mountains of serbia, to just be able to detectect were Romans once were and nobody else had been.....Wow

 

[woody50]

Very interesting Woody, would agree with you mostly on what you say, especially the lobo settings . Not to sure about the running in the red with the XP, but I am still on the learning curve with it so I couldn't say you are wrong,(not that I would) i will have to experiment a bit more, would to have loved to have done some detecting in the Mountains of serbia, to just be able to detectect were Romans once were and nobody else had been.....Wow

Thanks Silver, I hope this helps Shaun. I had said discr. on 1 or 1 1/2 but was mixed up with another previous detector. It should work for him now. About running in the red, as I said it cannot be used on every field. All the land that I search is also quite damp or wet, so that could make a difference, and be the reason that I can do that. Also I really don't think that increasing the sensitivity increases the depth, have never made a test to see if that is correct. I think it does increase the search envelope of the coil however. Depth has never been an issue with me.

Yes Serbia was great, also in the rain and even in powder snow about 8" deep, just keep swinging! But don't think that you just can easily climb a mountain and search, first you need to know where. Then climb the mountain and that ain't so easy, most of them very steep (the Romans wanted that) and with a back pack on with all your stuff it was hard. I didn't say anything yet either about the throrns on all the bushes and trees (also planted by the Romans to keep people away). Sometimes even with heavy coats on we could not get through the thorn bushes and had to walk quite a distance to get to where we wanted to go. Most searching was done on the sides of the steep mountain sides also, so you try (with your pack on, metal detector right hand, shovel left hand, digging a hole and getting the thing out) not to loose you balance and slide down onto a tree! Ouch!

I used every detector I had at all metal and full sensitivity if possible. I dug EVERY signal that I though was even iron but larger than a small nail (I guess about 95% or so of all sounds). About 1 out of 15 was a keeper. But it was hard work, the mountain tops were covered with stones, the stones coming from the forts which were broken apart by the Ottoman, who took over the area after the Romans. They just threw the tile roof shingles and stones over the side(s) of the mountains. Those and all the tree roots growing between the stones made digging very very hard, sometimes spent more than a half hour getting a find out and having to saw through many roots. The finds of course were below these rocks and roots which were sometimes very thick. Gave up only on one find, it was under a few very thick roots and after about a hour and a half gave up and wanted to come back the next year with another tool to do the job, but not been back now for four years. I am sure its a good find, and itching to get back to it.

I was searching for iron there (yea some of us are crazy I guess), and found enough of that. Very little silver or bronze but that didn't matter to me, it was the adventure of it all that gave the kick.

Searched there 4x with my Serbia friend , a doctor. But he moved to Rotterdam a few years back and is now praticing medicine there, so we don't have time to go back there and search. Made a DVD from my experiences, it always brings back good memories to watch it.

 

[ModernMiner]

Nice digs Cru.
I would be very happy with all those finds, except for that darn US coin.
Congrats,
MM

 

[CRUSADER]

Nice digs Cru.
I would be very happy with all those finds, except for that darn US coin.
Congrats,
MM

1997, so nearly.