Phantom/Moving Targets

[eathan]

I'm a novice with a detector, been out less than a dozen times so far, but I enjoy it and am starting to go more often. For the most part I'm able to quickly locate the target, fill in my hole and move on, even when it's just a tiny fleck of foil with a sporadic signal, but there are always a few targets that ghost in and out of existence, move around the hole or flat out vanish.

I dig half to China, carefully scan scoop after scoop of excavated soil on its way out and find that the target is still hovering 6" down in the center of an 8' x 8' x 8' hole. I abandon my search as the hole starts to flood and risk of drowning becomes too great to chance it, claw my way up the slippery sides and fill in the pit, carefully laying out sod plugs in a complex jigsaw puzzle over the top. <--- Hair raising treasure story

The phantom targets seem to congregate most frequently in wet (saltwater) sand, but I recently had a day with frequent phantoms that was just in really wet soil. I know saltwater plays heck with detectors not made for saltwater, but what are some other causes for the ghosts, and what can be done about them?

I generally detect at medium to lower sensitivity and am careful to switch to all metal when I dig.

 

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[ivan salis]

the problem is the "dissovled" minerals in the saltwater (or blacksand high mineral areas)-- the detector reads it as a wall of metal and thus freaks out -- up the disc and drop the sensitivity till the machine "calms down" use low power /sen and slowly up the disc -- till the machine is usible but bo more because the high you go on the disc the more thats cut out -- so as little as needed to stablize the machine but no more ---- it will not always work some areas / machines just don't mix -- but in many cases you can at least detect somewhat--- good luck --- Ivan

 

[eathan]

Thanks much, will give that a shot next time out.

 

[Ocean7]

some VLF detectors go crazy over black sand. If you see these areas in questions have black sand - then that is your answer. You may be able to lower sensitivity and still detect, but some detectors just cannot handle black sand at all.