How Accurate Is The Depth Meter?

[Cabin Fever]

On the subject of depth...  

How accurate is the Equinox depth meter on dime size objects?

 

The depth meter is very accurate on both the CTX and E-Trac and I take advantage of it.  

This is a risky tactic but I do have a few parks that have what I call the old coin layer. 

In these parks I use depth as indicator to dig or not dig. 

In one particular park I have never found an old coin less then roughly 6"

I use common sense while doing this and will retrieve all quarter signals (aka silver ring) and also dig the shallow targets around tree roots and hard packed areas with slower sink rate. 

I'm after old coins and don't like wasting my time retrieving clad pennies and dimes. 

It takes too much swing time away that can be used for getting over an old coin. 

Some will say I need to clear out the clad to hear what's below but I have found this to be so extremely rare that I have concluded the math tells me it's not worth it. 

 

Bryan

[Steve Herschbach]

Good question. I find the audio to be wonderfully revealing on the Equinox and have no problems most of the time telling you it is a deep coin just based on the sound. I have not paid a lot of attention to the depth meter yet as it is usually the last thing tuned. All they are is a signal strength indicator calibrated to a dime (normally) and so all the other parameters have to be in place before that final calibration takes place. Questions like this and many others can’t be answered in full until the code quits getting tweaked. All the code interacts and changing one thing often requires changing many other things.

[GB_Amateur]

9 minutes ago, Cabin Fever said:

This is a risky tactic but I do have a few parks that have what I call the old coin layer. 

In these parks I use depth as indicator to dig or not dig. 

In one particular park I have never found an old coin less then roughly 6"

Depths of old coins seems like a complicated subject.  I've read some things that Tom Dankowski has written about sink rate in his Florida soils but that definitely doesn't apply to my midwest sodded ground.  I've mentioned elsewhere on this site that this summer I found silver dimes at 4 inches and less, and one in particular (Barber) was only about 1 to 1.5 inches deep.  I'm confident it wasn't dropped recently nor do I think the soil was reworked recently.  We do have freeze/thaw cycles that presumably can move coins in both directions (that is deeper and shallower).

Another factor is detecting history.  Do previous hunters (with inferior equipment and/or inferior technique) find the shallow coins in your park, but leave the deep ones for you?

I have a feeling (or maybe just an unrealistic hope) that these new detector(s) coming out are going to help explain these mysteries.

[Cabin Fever]

Your right GB. Very complicated subject... Depth of coins not only is different from region to region but within the city I do most of my hunting it varies dramatically... Some of the parks I hunt I am not able to discriminate by depth except for surface coins.  I will definitely digging everything for awhile once I get my Equinox...

Bryan

[Ridge Runner]

That sink rate may hold true in some ground but I’ve yet to find it.

I’ve said this before and that’s some of the oldest coin found had little more than dust cover over them. Then on a new coin I dug up was between 8 to 9 inched deep. The detector didn’t ID the coin but you knew it was something there. I found it at the bottom of a slope with the dirt that washed down from above.

I’m one that don’t like headphones. I’ll tell you if you wear them and swing low plus slow at the end of the day your show will be larger. On the tell it’s your story.

[Steve Herschbach]

In my experience it is less about "sink rate" than "surface buildup" here in the west.

A dime dropped on desert soil will still be at or near surface 100 years later. In areas where there is turf however I see two things. First, I will hit an old park and start finding 1980 coins as deep as I can detect. That does not mean they sank - it means new soil was brought in and seeded. More recently is the trend to returfing by just adding a carpet of turf rolls. And then there is old fashioned buildup of dead grass and leaves building up the surface. Lots of yards feature sidewalks that have turf creating walls on both side, often 6" or more in depth. The turf was once level with the sidewalk.

Long story short here in Reno and in Anchorage I saw no real evidence of coins sinking, but lots of evidence that material accumulating at the surface is putting coins farther and farther out of reach.

[GB_Amateur]

I may have overstepped using (creating?) the term 'sink rate'.  But you guys seem to be agreeing with me that the depth of coins (old coins as well as newer ones) is a multi-variable problem.  For sure resodding, resurfacing, and general landscaping are big issues.  So is erosion (one of the few that is good for us).  Bottom line for me is that I don't equate depth with age.  If it sounds like a coin I'm digging it.  But I understand why others (like Cabin Fever) have dig/no-dig criteria for some sites.  If it works for you in your locations then it works!

[Dan(NM)]

I live in the desert Southwest (NM), we get on average 10" of rain per year. The ground is bone dry 90% of the year, although the city does water during the summer.  I've found  Barbers and V's practically on the surface, clad at 7-8", this has occurred in different area's in the same town.

 At the local zoo, started in 1898, most of the coins in the 8-10" range are from the 30's - 50's, no doubt fill has been brought in. This summer,  in one spot, where the grass had died and the the ground was bare, I found a 1906 V nickle on top on the ground :) Not far from there I dug a 1942 Walker at 10" ?????

So, I've learned to dig all targets and that means digging a boat load of clad and trash, because depth has nothing to do with the age of the coins here.

[Redneck]

Is the audio modulated on the EQ?   ( deep coins small sound, shallow coins large sound?)

[Steve Herschbach]

Yes indeed. That is why the audio is telling me “deep”.