Trouble finding old deep stuff! HELP Minelab users advice needed!

[MDnoob]

I have a Minelab Explorer II.?

This last weekends failure to find ANYthing at a 100-150 year old homestead has brought up disturbing questions.

Let me backtrack.

I have detected MANY hours over the last several months at my parents house which is over 200 years old.? I found tons of coins from the 60's and on, but nothing older, and nothing deeper than 3-4".? I have found one or two junk objects deeper than that.? Then, this weekend my friend and I hit this old homestead.? It turns to to probably have been hit pretty hard by other detectorists over the years, and sure enough, all we found were coins from the 90's, and two aluminum play coins which were at about 5".? Later I looked around for about 20 minutes at a house which is 100 years old.? I found two quarters from the 70's at 3" and a 48 wheat at 4".? Yippee.? This house has never been hunted.?

Awhile back I did send in my MD for testing under warranty.? The nice Minelab folks claim nothing is wrong with it.? So, I guess it must be me not knowing how to interpret deep signals.

I go slow, use fresh batteries, listen for faint sounds etc.? I have read plenty on the subject...
At the old homestead, I would get unreliable signals that jumped around, but read consistently deep.? We dug several trenches trying to track these down and only came up with big rusty nails.? Are deep coins consistent signals?? Any Minelab users reading this?? What do deep coins sound/look like?

HELP!? What am I doing wrong?

 

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[Monty]

Re: Trouble finding old deep stuff! HELP

I am fairly new to detecting but I do know a bit about archeology. Each generation of inhabitants tend to leave remnants of thier existance in layers. Naturally your first and shallowest finds will be from the latest generation which would be those late dated coins and/or artifacts. I have read several posts advisiing to divide the parcel into grids and go in and dig the shallow things off the top first. Once that is done, go back over the same place and you should be getting signals at say 6" instead of 4". From what I understand the shallow targets may be sheilding the deeper ones. Oh yes, and "they" say, dig everything. Also it might be a good idea to turn our sensitivity setting way down. This will tend to stabilize your machine if you are digging false or erratic signals. My detector sometimes goes nuts for no apparent reason and starts false signaling. I don't know why for sure but it seems to occur mostly after a hard rain. I have to manually ground balance often and turn my sensitivity and discrimination way down and eventually it will seem to fix itself. I think each machine is unique that way and you just have to work with it. I get really frustrated at times myself but just have to work through it. This advice is based solely on my personal experience and observations and from reading this and other forums for about the last six months. I'm sure that someone with more experience will have something to add, so for what it's worth..........

 

[rvbvetter]

Re: Trouble finding old deep stuff! HELP

? ? I've been dying to try to help. But i'm just not qualified. Being that i've only had my expII six weeks or so and still learning. But i'll throw out a couple of things to check that greatly affect depth. Check to see what level your sensitivity bar and gain bar are at. On mine i find that many times i'm able to run both at their max. But when i do encounter interference and detector gets unstable. I keep the sensitivity on max and bring the gain down a little at a time. At the half way point of the gain bar it hasn't stopped it entirely. Then i'll bring down the sensitivity till stable.
? I run as much sensitivity and gain as conditions will allow. One thing that i do know is that unless you unfortunatly got a bad machine, 6 inches depth is nothing to these machines. I've dug coins to 10 in. here with a loud solid signal. No whispers. Not because there so old but some areas here have a sandy soil and sink more rapidly.?If it's a good target you should get a signal sweeping both ways. If in doubt hit the iron mask button twice and pass over it and see if still sounds. I set my iron mask all the way up sometimes to swtch to and double check some signals. ?Good luck on yours? ? ? HH

 

[bakergeol]

Well I used to own an EX11 and well it simply is the best coin locater in my opinion. I assume your detector is working correctly. The points would be.

1. Just because you own a $1200 detector does not guarantee you greater success in the field. A lot of people after plunking down that kind of money expect to have an edge or do better than a BH user. Life is tough and reality may not equal inital expectations. Perhaps you do not have deep coins or they have been detected before.
2. Operator inexperience- The EX 11 requires a long learning curve, Stories like yours are typical for new users until they figure out their detectors.You will find that tone? ID is more accurate with depth than the screen. DO NOT RELY ON THE SCREEN for deep coins. Deep coins will be all over the screen- again TONE ID. Those iffy signals with a good tone and bad screen ID have to be dug. Like most detectors the deeper you go the more ground mineralization your detector reads and good items will read toward iron on your screen.
3. Ground conditions. You may have severe mineralization in your area which is affecting your depth. In some areas certain detectors excel in and in others they do not. You will find advanced users have numerous detectors because each work better in certain areas. So again test your coins in your dirt to see if you have bad ground.
4.Unstable soil- In some areas unstable soil conditions exist and old coins are deep. Some EX 11 users are going to WOT coils. Here is a link for the WOT coils
http://groups.msn.com/MinelabExplorerXSusers/wotcoiltips.msnw

Just my two cents worth
George

 

[Floater]

Whatever Michigan Badger Said and Bakergeol, As far as that goes everyone . I will add one small item and that is EMI . Power lines. Radio antennas, satellite TV antennas can all wreak havoc on the detector and especially a minelab. Turning the sensitivity to the 12 -3 O'Clock position is the only way i can hunt the sandy soil here in Florida because there are no minerals. I have found plenty of deep coins and artifacts ( toy soldier and plane) LOL but you get the drift. I have also been on sites where the machine just would not balance period. I left. If I had another machine with me I would have hunted with it. Maybe it would work maybe not. I would definitely go back and really observe your enviorment and then determine your course of action. Remember your only getting smarter here and if your not then have another drink and dream of treasures you will never have.

 

[MDnoob]

Thanks for the advice people!

You all have brought up good point which I will keep in mind. I guess I will dig everything for the time being, which is more or less what I have been doing. I can now almost always guess what type of coin it is going to be before I dig it silver dime vs. silver quarter, old pennies vs. zinc pennies....at least with the new shallow ones...which are the only ones I find!! I missed the age of a wheat by 4 years the other night before digging!

I am going to have ample opportunity to practice, I have plenty of old cabins etc. to check out this summer.

If any more of you have any advice, especially advice specific to the EXII, let me have it!