I'm going to try an experiment...

[Bucket Lister]

The permission I'm working is a previously undetected 1850 farmhouse. While I'm finding some things, there is so much iron & other trash that I know a lot is being blocked/masked.

For example, using prg 6 (DEEP HC), I've found about $1.50 in clad and zincolns, but only one Merc and one V nickel.

I gotta think that in 170 years, there's got to be more older coins than that--I just gotta find 'em!

So today, I'm going to try a little experiment. I'm going to re-detect an area I've already done with the straight prg 6, except that I'm going to notch out everything below 90 (for starters). Depending on the results, I'll lower the notch to everything below 80 and sweep again. Again, depending on the results, continue lowering the notch by 10 until only the iron is left (in theory).

I'll report back in a few hours (I'm only good for 2-3 hrs at a time).

 

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[Bucket Lister]

OK, I'm back, and declaring this a qualified success! I only had time to try notching everything below 90, but got some interesting results.

In 2 hours, I dug 8 holes; 6 paid off; 2 (first & last) were spills.
First Row:
1970 P Roosevelt dime
1974 P Lincoln cent
2007 Montana state quota
1981 P Lincoln cent

Second Row:
1970 D Roosevelt dime
1974 P Lincoln cent
1977 P Roosevelt dime
1979 P Lincoln cent

Notes:
No silver
No zinc cents
No nickels
Nothing before 1970

I thought I would have found at least ONE silver above 90. Notching lower (80, 70, etc.) may find those nickels, and there've gotta be some IHPs down there, as well as more silver; I've just got to figure out how to find them.

Judging from the depths I found these today, the older stuff may be DEEP.

 

[pepperj]

OK, I'm back, and declaring this a qualified success! I only had time to try notching everything below 90, but got some interesting results.
View attachment 2153905
In 2 hours, I dug 8 holes; 6 paid off; 2 (first & last) were spills.
First Row:
1970 P Roosevelt dime
1974 P Lincoln cent
2007 Montana state quota
1981 P Lincoln cent

Second Row:
1970 D Roosevelt dime
1974 P Lincoln cent
1977 P Roosevelt dime
1979 P Lincoln cent

Notes:
No silver
No zinc cents
No nickels
Nothing before 1970

I thought I would have found at least ONE silver above 90. Notching lower (80, 70, etc.) may find those nickels, and there've gotta be some IHPs down there, as well as more silver; I've just got to figure out how to find them.

Judging from the depths I found these today, the older stuff may be DEEP.

Nickels are mid 50s
Deep conductor isn't the program for iron sites.
Your just enhancing the amount of iron that's there.
You'd probably do better in the General program.
Most of my sites are heavy iron.
Done alot of testing and tweaks.
Deep conductor is the last option.

 

[Bucket Lister]

Nickels are mid 50s
Deep conductor isn't the program for iron sites.
Your just enhancing the amount of iron that's there.
You'd probably do better in the General program.
Most of my sites are heavy iron.
Done alot of testing and tweaks.
Deep conductor is the last option.

Thanks. I'm using Deep conductor because I was specifically looking for coins this time.

Designed to better locate good conductivity targets, it is ideal for clusters of coins whilst maintaining excellent sensitivity to isolated coins using its 14 kHz frequency.

It's hard to argue with results. It seems to have done what they said it would.

There's also a note in the manual about messing with the ground stability to "reject all the soils, ferrites, and shocks." I haven't tried that yet.

IME, it's best to play with just one variable at a time (vs. the "shotgun approach").

I started out using the General program back around the eclipse, but the results were horrible. That's when I started experimenting with the other programs (2,3,4,5,6) over the same ground, and--sorry, but 6 worked the best for me in this soil and under these conditions. I only wish it didn't tear through the battery so fast.

 

[cudamark]

If you figure the same area where you're finding the clad has deeper old coins, I'd go back over that same area and dig every signal in all metal. That will at least tell you if there are older/deeper targets or not before you expand out to the rest of the site. Even digging up and sifting a test area might be in order to help determine that.

 

[Bucket Lister]

If you figure the same area where you're finding the clad has deeper old coins, I'd go back over that same area and dig every signal in all metal.

I already did that the first couple times through.
Like I said,

I started out using the General program back around the eclipse, but the results were horrible. That's when I started experimenting with the other programs (2,3,4,5,6) over the same ground, and--sorry, but 6 worked the best for me in this soil and under these conditions.

 

[Iron Buzz]

Nickels are mid 50s
Deep conductor isn't the program for iron sites.
Your just enhancing the amount of iron that's there.
You'd probably do better in the General program.
Most of my sites are heavy iron.
Done alot of testing and tweaks.
Deep conductor is the last option.

> Nickels are mid 50s

Really? I find them to be consistently 61-62 (mostly 62)

 

[pepperj]

> Nickels are mid 50s

Really? I find them to be consistently 61-62 (mostly 62)

Probably should of thought about this before I posted.
US Nickel is a Cupro-Nickel 75/25%
Canadian is different.

 

[sibbley]

I already did that the first couple times through.
Like I said,

Food for thought. I've found clad quarters at 5 inches deep that sounded like iron. I've found wheat pennies at 10 inches deep that sounded like iron. I've also found nails at 2 inches deep that had great loud crisp high tones. I don't have enough experience to explain this.

I've been working the Manticore in my yard using all terrain fast and depth audio which so far seems to be pretty deep. I've found two square nails at 9-11 inches that gave me all the dig me info. High tone, 90-95 VDI, and great looking dot on the center non-ferrous line. Nails! Nice old relics though...

I think you're on the right track though. Just keep experimenting with different settings / detectors. If I've learned one thing in the past year and a half, no detector or program will find everything.

I've been spending more time reading and watching videos on analog detectors recently. They seem to simply work better because they're not loaded with features and filters. I have a Deeptech Vista X on the way so I can see for myself if they really work better. Seems promising.

 

[Bucket Lister]

Food for thought. I've found clad quarters at 5 inches deep that sounded like iron. I've found wheat pennies at 10 inches deep that sounded like iron. I've also found nails at 2 inches deep that had great loud crisp high tones. I don't have enough experience to explain this.

I'm finding similar. I've been trying to hunt more by sound, which works much better with full tones, but they only use them on a couple of programs unless you adjust the equalizer. I'm not there yet.

I think you're on the right track though. Just keep experimenting with different settings / detectors. If I've learned one thing in the past year and a half, no detector or program will find everything.

Thank you. This is/will be my only detector by design. I chose it (partly) knowing it's going to take me years to learn & appreciate the hobby and the technology--one step at a time.

I didn't and don't expect to find everything, but tweaking a setting here or there, and then finding signals that weren't there before makes up for a lot of that. It feels more thorough, and helps maintain my interest & enthusiasm. 🤓

 

[Bucket Lister]

Probably should of thought about this before I posted.
US Nickel is a Cupro-Nickel 75/25%
Canadian is different.
View attachment 2154324

Now I gotta go through all my Canadian nickels again! 🤦🏼‍♂️

Maybe I'll try notching everything but a window of 50-70 and cover both ranges. I'll get a ton of iron, but that's not new; I ALWAYS get a ton of iron there. 😉

 

[Bucket Lister]

I had trouble creating a window (I need to re-watch some videos) so I just notched everything below 50.
I got a few signals (still a lot of clipped chirps & chatter) but aside from rusty iron tidbits, all I found was a couple more Lincoln cents--1983 (zinc) and 1921 in decent shape.

[EDIT:] TIDs for the pennies were still in the 90s. From that, I'm deducing that the notching kept the iron from masking the pennies as it did in previous sweeps. [/EDIT]

Some days I feel like I could keep pounding this property for years and still find stuff, but the reality is, the decent signals are petering out.

 

[pepperj]

Here is a iron site and the program results.

I have used 4 different detectors, many 100s of hours of detecting over a 10 yr period.
Now its a heavy iron site, former blacksmithing location.
(Though the owner claims it was 1100ft west on the other hill.)
I got to the point where on this -1 acre site I hadn't recovered a single non-ferrous target in 4 trips.
Just deep iron (bent Rose head nails, cast iron pot pieces, iron with holes)
I returned using this program.

Reactivity is the only thing I have adjusted. Lower is site dependent.
2 hours of detecting 2 months ago at the site.
Approximately 20 targets.
(Lots of old sheet, large pieces, missed by the 3 other machines and the Deus ll in other programs.)
It seems that the sheet copper/brass sheet, pewter and lead seem to be in the higher percentage of recoveries. (Higher mid tones)
Not just this one hunt but at 8 other iron sites that I have been testing this program out.

This isn't a big site, I know if a recovery is made out of the main area. These were all made in the zone of heavy iron.
I thought I would share this with you as anything is possible in the field of detecting.

The program will produce high tone signals on iron.
Though one can 90% of the time see the VDI drop, or the slight iron grunt on the edge of the high tone.
The good targets ring high and very clear (isolated).

 

[Bucket Lister]

Thanks (again). I'll try it, along with the other things I want to try--I just can't say when. Missus is making me take some time off for my health (been pushing pretty hard).

 

[Iron Buzz]

The permission I'm working is a previously undetected 1850 farmhouse. While I'm finding some things, there is so much iron & other trash that I know a lot is being blocked/masked.

For example, using prg 6 (DEEP HC), I've found about $1.50 in clad and zincolns, but only one Merc and one V nickel.

I gotta think that in 170 years, there's got to be more older coins than that--I just gotta find 'em!

So today, I'm going to try a little experiment. I'm going to re-detect an area I've already done with the straight prg 6, except that I'm going to notch out everything below 90 (for starters). Depending on the results, I'll lower the notch to everything below 80 and sweep again. Again, depending on the results, continue lowering the notch by 10 until only the iron is left (in theory).

I'll report back in a few hours (I'm only good for 2-3 hrs at a time).

I do that fairly frequently. It doesn't do anything to help me separate older coins from new ones, of course, and I'm not going to find any gold with it, but it does get rid of all of the junk and lets me concentrate on possible silver. I use the relic program as my base, since the manual says it goes deeper (I haven't tested that for myself, tho).

 

[Ism]

I use the relic program as my base, since the manual says it goes deeper (I haven't tested that for myself, tho).

Is the Relic program still limited in its modification options? I didn't like it because of that, but I haven't tried it since updating to the latest version.

Have you tried setting your reactivity to .5? That gets you some crazy depth. However, it can be very annoying in trashy areas with all the falsing.

 

[Bucket Lister]

Is the Relic program still limited in its modification options? I didn't like it because of that, but I haven't tried it since updating to the latest version.

You guys are talking about the Dēus (I) right?
I'm running a Dēus II; IDK of any mod limitations on any of the program options, but I'm just beginning to explore them.

 

[Ism]

You guys are talking about the Dēus (I) right?
I'm running a Dēus II; IDK of any mod limitations on any of the program options, but I'm just beginning to explore them.

D2.
If I remember, Relic didn't allow a change from full audio to tones. I don't really care for full audio. I thought there were a couple other fixed settings but it's been over a year since I played with Relic program so I don't remember.

 

[Iron Buzz]

Is the Relic program still limited in its modification options? I didn't like it because of that, but I haven't tried it since updating to the latest version.

Have you tried setting your reactivity to .5? That gets you some crazy depth. However, it can be very annoying in trashy areas with all the falsing.

I often set my reactivity to 0 with that program if I'm in an area that allows it.

They haven't changed Relic. I find it unusable without that notching, but with it, you're only looking at the very high non-ferrous signals. The only issue I have with it is some annoying falsing.

 

[Iron Buzz]

D2.
If I remember, Relic didn't allow a change from full audio to tones. I don't really care for full audio. I thought there were a couple other fixed settings but it's been over a year since I played with Relic program so I don't remember.

Relic and Gold both use pitch mode*, not full tones, and that can't be changed. And they run in "full metal" mode. Because of that, I find them difficult to use without the extreme notching. But by notching up to around 85 or so, all I'm getting signals on is copper or silver (which, of course, does include clad coins).
----
* Pitch mode does not take into account the target’s conductivity: The strength of
the signal generates an audio sound that varies both in volume and height (audio
frequency)