Interesting hunt

[markg]

Recently had a very puzzling yet intriguing ground target while just fulling around, listening to the ground. Before I go on I must state I traded my Equinox 800 in for a new Deus 2 detector, several weeks ago. I had used the Equinox for over 6 years and it was kind of time to trade up. Well anyway, I came across a very nice text book audio, repeatable, sweet sounding high tone, very faint, I knew it had to be something good perhaps a dime or penny and deep sounding. Decided to play around with the different programs on the Deus to see which would give the best audio and most stable ID. All the programs would get the target with varying audio responses and fairly consistent ID. Now I must admit I hunt with the coil just lightly scrubbing the ground. Experimented with the typical settings, sensitivity, reactivity, sweep speed etc. During all this I inadvertently must have slight raised to coil off the ground and the detector automatically went from a nice high tone to a low iron tone. Continued to sweep over the target, lowering to scrub the ground and the high tone with the ID returned, raised the coil and the iron tone and ID returned. Experimented for over 15 minuted and never found a setting or program that didn't exhibit the same behavior when raising the coil only slightly. To end this story the target was an 8" dime and by what I could tell laying perfectly flat.

Now turn the clock back a couple months the same type of occurrence happened to both Fred (the only living hunting buddy I presently have) and I. We were hunting an old plantation comparing signals before digging having a fantastic day and Fred called me over to check a target before he dug. Except that day he was using the Manticore and I the Equinox, if he raised the coil only slightly the Manticore would go silent with only an occasional high/low tone but no ID. I tried the Equinox and basically got the same results. Puzzling, intriguing. Well anyway he dug and recovered a horse bridle relic.
Now this leads me back to yet another story where I was hunting with the F75 and the 5" coil. Located a nice repeatable tone and called Fred over with the Manticore and he got nothing, only silence, no audio or ID. He tried every possible setting with no positive results. Finally he switched to single frequency mode and the target came alive. Still not satisfied, he experimented for quite some time yet never found a setting or combination of setting while in the Multi-Frequency mode that would indicate a target that the F75 had found.

[NASA-Tom]

Mark........ I remember the 3rd part of the story. The smaller coil could 'see between' the iron/trash to a better degree....... and report a good signal. I doubt it was a Single-Freq....or Multi-Freq rationale; yet/but/rather............. large coil saw TOO many interfering targets; yet, the smaller coil could 'see between' the trash just enough to ascertain the good target.

Good report!

[JCR]

Mark, What sort of Ground Mineralization does that site have?

[markg]

At the old plantation the ground is very hot. Maxed out on both the F75 and the Deus 2.
Iron everywhere, there is a tremendous amount of small bits and pieces of iron everywhere. I've dug some of them and they look to be rusted pieces of square nails.

[JCR]

Sounds like a few of my sites. Heavy minerals AND heavy iron will do odd things to targets.