Thumbing disc and losing depth because of doing so... confusion.

[Gary66]

Okay...hear me out on this little bit of confusion I have.

First I have a Vaquero, Bandido and have owned a Conquistador so I know a bit about Tesoro detectors.

I was sitting here thinking about deep coins or just deep good targets in general and since I do thumb
the disc when deciding what targets to dig this partial thought hit me.

If lets say a coin was at the edge of detecting depth but giving a so-so beep and you thumb the disc...on that deep coin would the
signal break up as you lost depth due to the disc being higher and in effect ether have the signal break up early or
lose it altogether which would lead many to ignore it as something not worth putting digger to soil to retrieve?

Thinking it may actually work this way I sit and wonder how many good targets I've passed up and not dug.

Now I know some of you may say (when in doubt...dig) and yes I understand that the ultimate disc is the person
swinging the detector and not the detector itself but it is something to think about.

Sorry as it seems I'm rambling on about this but looking out the window at the snow has me detecting in the head
and not outside...lol

I would like to hear some feedback on this subject.....I'm sure most of you know alot more about how disc-depth signals
and how things work along this subject than me and I welcome all thoughts.

I've posted this on two forums to catch the attention of everyone I can and hear all views.

Thanks and HH
Gary

 

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[sandtrout]

Good question!

Can't help you...too much of a newbie myself but can't wait to hear any responses. If now one responds you may want to try "Sandman"! He's answered some questions for me and explained it in a way I could understand. I'm heading to a park for some clad. Did I mention I'm in southern California and the weather here is beautiful and around 62 degrees? Has been raining lately so the ground is still soft and I've been working on that technique called COIN POPPING where you use a screwdriver to "pop" the coin out of the ground...you don't leave so much of a mess to clean up. My wife is better at it than I am (of course!). dan in so cal

 

[Adrian SS]

With just about every vlf metal detector on the planet with the exception of certain multifrequency machines you will loose detection depth as you increace discrimination.
Easy to demonstrate by doing simple air testing with different targets.

 

[Sandman]

Gary, when you hunt in disc you only use disc to ignore signals set below the disc setting. A target close to the max depth will be weaker and can break up. Add to that that the detection field is is nearly only about 2" round down there and if you aren't over lapping a lot you are going to miss lots more targets because of that.

It is difficult to dig every target with low disc settings or in All Metal. Best to lay down a nail, foil, pull tab and nickel on clean ground and wave the coil over them while adjusting the disc setting at every location AFTER you Ground Balance. This way you can tell for sure how your disc is set. Some times I even check the pull tab setting with a gold wedding ring to remind me not to disc out pull tabs if I am at a place where I could find gold rings. They are most anywhere too.

However the deeper the target is the more inaccurate the disc setting is. When we dig every beep, we can do a lot of damage to a lawn. The screw driver is the tool for me in the grass. The boonies of course you can use other tools, but you still need to cover your holes so the damage doesn't show.

 

[Gary66]

Quote

"However the deeper the target is the more inaccurate the disc setting is."

This is kinda what I was talking my way around....

The real thought and point I was trying to talk out was that

IF your detector signals a coin....lets say it's a quarter....and its on the edge of the detectors range and giving an IFFY signal. Yet you know by going to AM or PP that it is a deeper target and are used to getting all the info you can before digging...you thumb the disc

Even though it's a higher conductive target you (in my understanding) end up losing even a tiny bit of depth by using the disc ...would you possibly due to the depth begin to disc out at a much lower setting..say penny or tab?

I do know that when using an older Compass XP Pro that if the needle ever jumped off of Iron and it hardly made a sound yet showed deep. Cutting a plug and removing a few inches of soil then passing the coil back over the hole... the needle would usually jump to the correct ID (or at least closer to).
I never thought to turn the Disc up to see what the conductivity was since I relied more on the visual ID than sound.

As to my way of thinking now.....if I had turned up the disc then...as on a Tesoro now...to see where the signal went away and it was iffy signal at best to begin with then went away due to depth AND the higher disc...I would have walked away from a TON of targets thinking it was trash or iron.

I hope someone can follow my scatterbrained train of thought....

Appreciate your input

 

[Ism]

Gary, if you use a brisk sweep of the coil "over the object", your high disc setting won't reduce depth as much. Try it in air testing. Use a slow sweep of a coin on max disc and then a brisk sweep, you will see your depth increase. So you can thumb and still maintain a reasonable ability to discern the deep object using this method. The other thing to consider is nearby low conductivity objects will interfere with your coin signal and thereby reduce detection depth in high disc. Hope this helps

 

[Fleeker]

Looks like the short answer to your question is YES

 

[Sandman]

Gary, me thinks you are analyzing things to much. The higher the disc setting the less depth you get and target break up or worse they are on edge so they are iffy anyway. Besides from it making some kind of sound and us trying to decide if we should dig it, we are missing out on the fun by thinking to much. Leave that for the women when they decide which shoes to buy.

I am out there to relax and not think. I save the thinking for when I have to explain where the heck I have been all day.

 

[George (MN)]

I had a Tesoro Bandido II u/max w/10x12 coil. It got a loud signal on a nickel I buried 6" deep. But I turned up the disc at a park to minimze junk digging and 3" deep dimes gave a broken sound. Unfortuneately, I ignored slight tics that were probably the deepest coins at high disc, think it was false signals from ground minerals or rejected trash.

I guess on the deeper high conductors the detector thinks they are something lower in conductity or conductivity becomes unknown so doesn't know it should beep. I have bad ground which probably makes this happen.

You might try experimenting with detector set to low disc, and thumb up the disc only on strong signals & dig the weak beeps on low disc as the weak beeps should not be pulltabs. But strong signls at low disc that disappear when disc is turned up can be trash, nickels or gold. HH, George (MN)

 

[Terry Soloman]

...lets say a coin was at the edge of detecting depth but giving a so-so beep and you thumb the disc...on that deep coin would the
signal break up as you lost depth due to the disc being higher and in effect ether have the signal break up early or
lose it altogether which would lead many to ignore it as something not worth putting digger to soil to retrieve?...

Possibly, but.. what if it is not a coin, but a gold ring? Silver necklace? Most of the coolest crap I have dug has been a complete surprise Gary. It takes less than a minute to dig it. You discriminator's are my best friend. - Terry

 

[U.K. Brian]

Way to go Terry ! I quite agree.

The suggestion that the sweep speed should be increased to improve depth (and discrimination come to that), is totally dependant on the detector design, especially the filtering.

With a four filter detector the faster the sweep the better (within reason). With two filter designs many lose depth as you increase the sweep rate, the same applies to Minelab multifrequency models.

I've yet to see a detector that has its depth improved as discrimination is increased whether single, dual or multifrequency with the exception of a fractional improvement at low settings where the discrimination can be used in effect as a ground balance and take out some ground noise.

 

[TC-NM]

No one has mentioned your detectors sensitivity settings. Do you set the knob to 10? I would start at a setting at 8. This may and I mean MAY settle the detector down a bit. . . this gets the detector to see better in the ground with high to moderate mineralization in your area.

As far as conductivity of targets, the top three are: 1) Silver, 2) Copper and 3) Gold (in pure natural state).

The conductivity of targets that are alloyed or natural are: 1) Aluminum, 2) Brass and 3) Nickel (not the coin).

Hope this helps,

TC-NM