Cellar hole hunting: “sifting” vs “running hot”

[pa-dirt_nc-sand]

I’ve been having a blast hitting an 1800’s cellar hole near my office that appears to be virgin with my 600.

Typical remnants of a stone foundation, zero modern trash except bullets, 8’ deep in center, maybe 20’x20’. First couple of trips after the discovery scouting mission were Field2, iron on, mid recovery, power low 16. I was able to pull near surface hightone targets in the iron zone and a couple 6” targets. At the end of the second trip there “sifting”, things started slowing down.

So I have now gone back 2 more times (all within 20’ of celllar edge), but running hot, power at 25. Iron grunt is louder, but I was surprised to pop out some really cool deep 8-10” mid and hightone targets. Some holes had multiple nails, but the hightone was still there. (I am only digging the “clean” mid and hightones at this point, not the scratchy ones that tend to be iron falsing signals yet).

I have yet to feel comfortable cranking the recovery up to max speed. I sort of like the sounds the mid speed provide, but this may be a good site to experiment with super fast recovery. If I can get comfortable with the fast recovery I may venture into the holes some day...

 

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[charlives]

I'm no expert. At my sites I spend most of my time on 3 recovery...and when I'm 20 ft from the hole I'm always in 3 recovery...and I never go higher than 20 sens in my mild cellar hole dirt. Why do you have a problem with the fast recovery? I sometimes have a problem with 2 recovery bc I want to swing faster than I should.

 

[vferrari]

I'm no expert. At my sites I spend most of my time on 3 recovery...and when I'm 20 ft from the hole I'm always in 3 recovery...and I never go higher than 20 sens in my mild cellar hole dirt. Why do you have a problem with the fast recovery? I sometimes have a problem with 2 recovery bc I want to swing faster than I should.

Gentle reminder for folks posting in the Equinox forum, if you are going to talk about specific settings related to recovery speed or iron bias, you need to let the readers know which Equinox model you are talking about (600 or 800) for context if you don't have the detector listed in your profile. 3 recovery on the 600 means a completely different thing than 3 recovery on the 800 (and likewise for iron bias) since it is unrealistic to expect folks to otherwise remember what machine you have simply based on previous posts. Thanks.

 

[pa-dirt_nc-sand]

I'm no expert. At my sites I spend most of my time on 3 recovery...and when I'm 20 ft from the hole I'm always in 3 recovery...and I never go higher than 20 sens in my mild cellar hole dirt. Why do you have a problem with the fast recovery? I sometimes have a problem with 2 recovery bc I want to swing faster than I should.

The first 4 weeks I used my 600 I bounced around from slowest recovery to fastest. (And all of the other settings...) I ended up settling in the middle and establishing a Park1 mode and Field2 mode. Now 12 weeks in with the 600, maybe I’ll try adjusting some settings as I feel that I have a good baseline with this detector now.

I normally run power no more than 20 at a cellar and usually start with 18, but did a bit of an experiment with 25 this week.

Does the 600 and it’s multi frequency have the ability to run much hotter and still give a good repeatable deep 4 way signal in iron vs a single frequency detector that would potentially lock on to a nail and not allow the high tone target to chirp through?

 

[charlives]

I apologize for not saying I'm using a 600.
I'm not certain it needs to go hotter than 21 in my soil. I've dug two coppers at a foot using 19 sens. I've found any hotter and I can't hear the deep ones...the noise starts to get in the way...but its super deep at those settings.

 

[vferrari]

I apologize for not saying I'm using a 600.
I'm not certain it needs to go hotter than 21 in my soil. I've dug two coppers at a foot using 19 sens. I've found any hotter and I can't hear the deep ones...the noise starts to get in the way...but its super deep at those settings.

That sounds about right because in mild to mineralized soil you don't want to overwhelm with sense too high causing a lot of noise. Though in dry sand I was very surprised at how much detection depth was affected when lowering sensitivity below 20.

 

[HighVDI]

I agree. Last hunt I found an 8" wheat laying next to a nail with sens. at 15 due to some Emi. A little faint but definitely there and said dig me.