Tips please

mdNashland

Tenderfoot
Apr 26, 2011
6
0
Hi! I'm new to Mding... I'm from Ky and have a Whites Prism III that I'm really not sure what to do with LOL!
I only got to use it last summer for a few times and found a couple of coins that were around the 70's and up, and a pitted rock that made my detector go off. Should I just dig everything and leave off the sensitivity and discrimination at first? And I also read somewhere that if you get a signal and raise it above the ground a few inches that will tell you weather it's worth digging for or not... how does that work? I'd appreciate any help :) THANKS!!
 

Upvote 0
Leave the disc. off for a couple of hours and dig everything. This will get you used to some of the different sounds you will get on iron, steel, lead etc. The coil should be almost touching the ground. The higher it is from the ground the less penetration into the ground you will get. Say if the detector and coil you are using can "see" 6" into the ground and you lift the coil up 4" into the air, then your coil will only see 2" into the ground. So scrape the ground or real close to it to get your max. depth. Also your swing should be slow to moderate in speed and the coil should be the exact same distance from the ground from the far left to center to far right of you swing. Don't let your coil go up in the air at the ends of your swing. When you get used to some of the sounds then turn your discrimination on until you notice you are rejecting iron. Don't go too high on disc. because you could disc. out nickles and gold rings. Go to the website of the manufacturer for your detector and download a copy of the manual for you detector, read,read and reread it until you understand it. Hope this helps.
 

leatherneck said:
Leave the disc. off for a couple of hours and dig everything. This will get you used to some of the different sounds you will get on iron, steel, lead etc. The coil should be almost touching the ground. The higher it is from the ground the less penetration into the ground you will get. Say if the detector and coil you are using can "see" 6" into the ground and you lift the coil up 4" into the air, then your coil will only see 2" into the ground. So scrape the ground or real close to it to get your max. depth. Also your swing should be slow to moderate in speed and the coil should be the exact same distance from the ground from the far left to center to far right of you swing. Don't let your coil go up in the air at the ends of your swing. When you get used to some of the sounds then turn your discrimination on until you notice you are rejecting iron. Don't go too high on disc. because you could disc. out nickles and gold rings. Go to the website of the manufacturer for your detector and download a copy of the manual for you detector, read,read and reread it until you understand it. Hope this helps.
I wonder how I would find out how far my detector can see? Again, thank you for the reply!
 

I am going to suggest you use a little bit of discrimination, at least in the beginning. If you don't you are going to dig too much trash and get frustrated.

Try to at least notch out iron and foil. You will still dig plenty of trash, but you'll hit better targets more frequently.

As to sensitivity, I would set it at least in the middle, but set it higher if you feel like it. Max sensitivity may be too much, it just depends on your soil. Practice with it.

Most detectors, depending on soil conditions and the size of your target, are going to hit their limit around the 6"-8" mark, where 95% of all your targets are going to be found no matter what detector you use.

Good luck to you! :icon_thumleft:
 

mdNashland said:
And I also read somewhere that if you get a signal and raise it above the ground a few inches that will tell you weather it's worth digging for or not... how does that work? I'd appreciate any help :) THANKS!!

What your referring to is large targets like beer/soda cans. For example when I'm at the beach and get a large signal that I think might be a beer can, I lift the coil higher to see if the signal stays or goes.

Beer cans will still signal with the coil 6~12 inches off the ground where a smaller target will loose signal very quickly.
This can useful in areas that have large targets in them, but you will not know if it was worth diggin unless you dig it up.
For example in an area with CW relics the large taget may very well be worth diggin, but at the beach it could be a beer can or large bit of beach chair frame.

Hope it answers your ? :hello:




~~Happy Hunting~~
 

Smudge said:
Try to at least notch out iron and foil. ......

I'm certainly no expert... but my understanding was gold can sometimes maks as foil on detectors. Is this true or not?

Nothing would make me happier than to mask out foil and never see the stuff again! :icon_scratch: but that goes against what I've read several times here on TNet.

Can an expert (or someone with more experiance than me) pls clear this up? :help:
 

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