xlt discrimination

[texjim]

How sensitive is the bottle cap discrimination on the xlt? I'm new to owning my own machine. I have been MD some very trashy area's lately without finding coins/jewelry. If I do adjust it how much should I adjust? Thanks Tex

 

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[UncleVinnys]

This is the oldest problem in the book, and is faced by pretty much every detectorist.

You will notice that nickels on the XLT come in anywhere from 18 to 22 on the VDI readings.
Bottle caps and pull tabs can range anywhere from 12 to 48 on the readout.
This means if you set the discrimination too high, say above nickels, you will be missing a lot of nickels and some valuable jewelry.

If you are just starting out, most people will recommend you dig up everything, so you get a feeling for which signals are valuable and which are not. Sounds like you've already learned that lesson.

Couple thoughts - and you can decide for yourself.
If you get a target at say 38 you know it's too high to be a nickel and too low to be a penny, dime or quarter. Try scanning from a different angle. In other words, if your coil is first swinging
North-South, try scanning it East-West instead. Does the reading change? If yes, it's most likely asymetrical, like a pull tab. The bad targets are usually jumping all over the place anyway in their VDI numbers. Is it a solid signal or broken, like "bibb-ib-dit-dit-dit?" If broken, that's another clue that it's junk. If the area is full of trash, most experienced operator will skip it.

That in my experience was the hardest lesson to learn - to just give up when you have several indications it's trash.
What I do is: If it's a slow day with few coins found, I dig up everything.
If it's a trashy area, and I've already dug up a dozen or so pull-tabs and bottle caps, then I start skipping the dig for bad readings. Once you are familiar with that oh-so-wonderful sound of the solid coin signal, and the meter reads 79 or 81, you are pretty danged sure you have a good coin, and it's easy to start skipping the trashy (VDI-30 to 40) signals.

Hope that helps

 

[lalal09]

You may want to try running in the coin mode then start moving the bottle cap rejection only 1 or 2 but if you do move it you will lose depth or try a smaller coil. If it was me I'd go with the smaller coil if I didn't have the money I'd try playing with the AC sensitive and if that didn't work I'd put it back then try the pre gain but you will lose depth with both of these to. maybe someone else will have a better idea

 

[jeff741972]

Alot of junk signals? You must have been at that park on washington street in tamaqua, you would need a 2 inch coil to get between the garbage in that place I run my reject at 5, I just dug a V nickel @4 inches and it was a chattery signal, I usually gig everything in the + vdi scale except 95 cause thats where the coal comes up, doing yards around here theres gonna be hot rocks.