Question on Safari operation

Bigdob

Full Member
Aug 1, 2016
145
185
IL
Detector(s) used
CTX 3030
Minelab Safari
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I have a Safari and was out the other day .
The spot I was at had two opertunitys and both seemed very different in operation.
One spot had a lot of new coins at various depths and the Safari did a great job in picking out the coins over trash.
The other area was a old house that had burnt down and had a lot of trash metal.
The detector seemed to null out most of the time , and no threshold noise could be heard.
The new coin spot was cleaner and the threshold could be heard most of the time.
I understand this is due to all the trash and maybe different ground mineralization.
Is this a situation that a small coil would allow better operation ?
All I have is the stock coil and I've been thinking about a small coil and was courious if this would have been a place the small coil would shine.
Thanks for the thoughts
BD
 

Upvote 0
When you say that the burned-down-house site had a "lot of nulling" (and a "lot of trash), then I'm assuming you've set your preferences to be "null" over rejected targets. Versus tone ID where you accept all, yet use your ears to choose or reject what to dig. Right ?

If so, then it's to be expected that you're going to get a lot of nulling, if the site you're at has scores of items (molten iron, junk, etc...) versus a cleaner stretch of ground. In the cleaner stretch of ground, you'll obviously hear the threshold, in stetches of passes where no such objects are present. But in a "burned down house" site, it's possible that the entire ground matrix is an entire un-ending stretch of iron spread.

To combat this, if you suspect coins are being masked, then yes, you can try smaller coils. Or try machines that are fabled for iron-see through ability (various 2-filter Tesoros).
 

I do not think one can set a Safari preference to be null over rejected objects, it just does so. I use a Sun Ray 8" coil on my Safari in more trashy areas and I also turn my sensitivity way down. Even with the sensitivity down to 11 or 12 I have no problem with dimes at 8" and I get a lot less chatter from the junk. Burned out house sites can be the hardest of sites to hunt since as Tom says there can be so much iron spread into the ground that your machine mostly just sees the iron. Many old houses had thousands of nails and a lot of other metal fixtures which get spread all over when the remains of the house get bulldozed down.
 

I think I'll get a Sunray X5 coil , they seem to come highly recommended.
Thanks for the commits
BD
 

I use the 11 inch coil, all metal and go really slow in high trash mode. The nulling in coin/ jewelry mode will make you miss coins. Drop your sens to 12-13. If theres a coin it will give you a nice ish sort of repeatable tone even if the numbers don't reflect it. If you go to pinpoint and find you are between two big pieces of iron for some reason the machine will give you that sweet tone but its usually a false response. I pulled a half dime and several Indian heads out of a site like you are describing. Its not easy but its possible. A smaller coil may help but I hate changing coils on the safari.
 

Go to all metal or relic mode( both ferrous audio) you will hear all the nails and trash which should help you pick out targets that otherwise would be masked out by nulling. A smaller coil would also help in this type of hunting
 

Hi Bob, you are right about the iron around a old burned out house, I went to a old log cabin house built in the late 30's and had the same thing happen to me, way too much iron around the house to find anything a small coil might help, but it will still iron out too I would think, cause of all the iron it picks out in the soil. All metal might help for the high sweet tones for silver, GOOD LUCK with your site.
 

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