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Possible USA Nickel Vs. Pulltab Discrimination Technique


GB_Amateur

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One thing I suspect has annoyed coin hunters in the USA for a long time is how close (sometimes equal) the VDI of aluminum trash is to that of the 25% Ni, 75% Cu 5 cent 'nickel' coin.  I tend towards the "if in doubt, dig it out" camp but it has been mentioned (Jeff McClendon comes to mind) that minimizing digging can be a big plus in some parks where the employees and users notice and are bothered by any sign that digging has occurred.  That's not much of an issue where I live, partly because our parks don't seem to get much attention when it comes to the quality/plushness of the grass/sod.  But even I prefer to avoid digging aluminum as it wastes time and I've been hunting this year in an old park that is absolutely loaded with pulltabs.

My Minelab Equinox coin hunting search mode has always been and continues to be Park 1.  I notch out nothing and custom my 5 tone breaks at tone-1 ends at TID 5 or 6 (put the lowest non-ferrous in with ferrous), next tone ends at 11 (keep the foil, etc. below nickels), 12-13 only (nickel sweetspot), 14-19 (most pulltabs), and finally 20 and up (most coins along with some associated trash, most common being aluminum screwcaps which tend to be 21-23 but can fall outside both ends depending upon size and whether or not they've been flattened).  One more point -- these settings are for locations where I don't expect anything earlier than Barber coins.  If 3-cent pieces (both kinds), silver 5-cent (" half dimes"), or any gold coins are possible I would listen for and dig most everything above TID ~5 to not miss those.

A couple months back I started using the User Profile option.  At first I was playing around with Iron Bias (both FE and F2) settings, but decided for my sites and style it wasn't worth the possible loss of deep, iffy targets to warrant sufficient advantage of discerning crown caps or scraps of sheet metal (what some people call 'tin').  I don't know if they help with nails or not, but most nails that have been in the ground for a long time seem to grunt ferrous and I just live with (i.e. dig) those few that trick me.  So after deciding to leave IB at F2=0 I then had an open 'slot' as to how to configure the User Profile.  I decided (seemed to make sense...) that going with something quite a bit different than my search mode of Park 1 would be contrasting and might help identify good/bad targets.  I went with Field 2, 50 tones, wide open (no notching).  For the recovery speed setting I used Park 1's setting +2, so if I run Park 1 at RC=4 I set the User Profile Field 2 to RC=6.  If Park 1 RC=5 I set Field 2 RC=7.  (Those are the only recovery speeds I ever use in Park 1.)  I typically come from two different angles of attack, especially in Field 2 which seems more sensitive to the shape/orientation of the target.  (Important note:  I always pinpoint and then check VDI's after that as I've noticed being off-center often doesn't give the most reliable VDI reading, and that seems especially the case in Field 2 when using this technique.)

(Finally!) here's something I discerned after ~50 hours of park detecting:  when I get a signal in Park 1 with TID in the {12,13} window (no 11's or 14's) then investigating further with Field 2 gave a 'tell' as to whether I was seeing aluminum or a USA nickel.  If a nickel, the Field 2 TID would also be in {12,13} (although not necessarily identical to Park 1, in fact averaging a bit lower than Park 1).  If Field 2 showed any 11's or lower then the target was aluminum.  I never saw a case where Field 2 hitting 14 that was a nickel, either.  (I did notice some crown caps which looked like nickels in Park 1 would hit 14 in Field 2.)

In Park 1 most of my nickels are either solid 13 or (much more likely) a combination of 12 and 13.  I have found a few that were solid 12.  It's those solid 12's I'm most concerned about leading to false negatives, but since I've been experimenting with this technique I've found only one nickel that just nicked 11 in Field 2, and possibly I was off-center when I got the 11.  I mean it was just a momentary tick, not repeatable.

So false negatives (targets that this method says are not nickels but turn out to be) seem to be very rare.  But what about false positives -- both Park 1 and Field 2 say it's a nickel (both are in {12,13} exclusively) but it ends up being something else?  Those definitely happen.  The most common in my sites are broken off (i.e. missing the ring) beavertails which have been folded/rolled over so that they mimic a coin in shape/extent as opposed to when they are elongated.  Also this technique gets fooled by the smallest of the still intact ring-and-beavertails, particularly the ones without rivets.  (See my avatar for an example.  😁)

Warnings: 

1) Most of the targets I've investigated with this technique were't very deep -- say 4 inches or less.  If the signal indicates a deeper target, either from the volume of the Park 1 signal or the number of bars on the strength meter, I tend to dig if more than half the Park 1 VDI's are in {12,13} and nothing lower than 11 or higher than 14.  Those occur infrequently enough that I just dig 'em.

2) This technique might be ground dependent.  My soil is moderate so definitely not typical beach sand / Florida soil conditions but also not the difficult heavily magnetic type soils of some beaches and some Western USA locations, etc.

3) I don't know what happens if a coin is on edge.  I need to test this in my back yard teststand which I'll put on my to-do list this week.  That could throw a monkey wrench into things.

4) Here's a danger in this type of method.  I thought I found another 'tell' with this technique -- largish iron pieces (not nails but things like pieces of can, pieces of cast iron pipe, say the size somewhere USA quarter to silver dollar size, but deep) could be distinguished.  I found such a target which read VDI in the high 30's in Park 1 but dropped to the teens in Field 2.  If I could eliminate those, that would save digging a large, deep holes (and the time involved).  Then yesterday I got a similar signal (this time varying mid-20's to mid-30's in Park 1 and teens in Field 2) and decided to confirm my 'discovery', expecting a moderate piece of iron.  It was an early Wheat cent (TID low 20's out of the hole)!!  So how many good targets like that have I missed since "figuring out" that Park 1 high and Field 2 teens meant deep iron so don't dig??  My oversight is that I should have investigated this particular (uncommon) situation much more before reaching the conclusion that it was a good discrimination technique.  Oh, we learn from our mistakes but I'd still rather not make them....

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11 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

I found such a target which read VDI in the high 30's in Park 1 but dropped to the teens in Field 2.  If I could eliminate those, that would save digging a large, deep holes (and the time involved).  Then yesterday I got a similar signal (this time varying mid-20's to mid-30's in Park 1 and teens in Field 2) and decided to confirm my 'discovery', expecting a moderate piece of iron.  It was an early Wheat cent (TID low 20's out of the hole)!!

Out of the 30+ years of detecting under my belt, I have never really gone out on a hunt at a park and told myself I was gonna just concentrate on finding nickels and other possible lower conductors (gold).  
 

Sometimes, while at home, I think about how a day will come soon enough where I hunt that will “force” me to have to concentrate more on deeper low conductors because there will be a lack of deep, higher conductors to make my drive/trip worth my efforts.  Maybe I think about it because I’m dreading that day (I hope it never comes)....Our parks, like most heavily populated, older inner city parks, are just loaded with low conductive trash, so “angling for nickels”, or even gold is an arduous task, that will cause one to repeatedly empty out their trash pouches at the nearest trash can!!

I’m an old coin/artifacts hunter, and dig most every deep target >= 20 ID at depth, in addition to any ID >= 27 at any depth. I will concentrate on solid sounding 12-13 ID deeper conductors from time to time (only when the lack of deep high tone targets gets too few and far between for the area I’m detecting.  I’m a very patient hunter (gotta have that trait to be a successful old coin hunter), knowing very well that the older sites are not easily hunted out, so I spend a great deal of time hunting at snail pace, spots I have found “oldies” at countless times over the years.......and still find them with my Nox. 💪🏼👍🏼

Because I prefer to hunt for deep high conductive targets (Indian pennies, wheats, silver, etc), I prefer hunting in Park 1 or Field 1 on my Nox. If I wanted to concentrate on low conductors, including nickels, I’d probably hunt in Park 2 or Field 2.  
 

Park or Field 1 gives better, more accurate ID’s for higher conductors than Park/Field 2 does.  What I really like about the Nox in Park/Field 1 is that a super deep high conductor will ID higher than it typically would at a shallower depth.  For instance, a wheat penny at 8+ inches will typically ID at a higher value (sometimes in the mid to upper 30’s), as opposed to where it typically ID’s at 24-25 at shallower depths. Similarly, I have dug numerous silver dimes that have ID’d way above a typical US Quarter signal, even as high as 39....it’s this up-converting of the ID for lower frequency weighted Park/Field 1 modes that will never allow me to pass up those targets (since I stated above I never pass up ID’s above 19 in deeper strata).  I can’t think of an instance I will be hunting in Park/Field 2, for my hunting preferences......unless maybe that day will come where I’m only gonna angle for low conductors such as gold and US nickels.

The Nox 800 has been a “BIG” upgrade to my Explorer SE Pro.....I’m finding numerous old coins from areas I had stopped hunting with my Explorer....just the other day, I managed to have a 13 silver coin, 27 wheats day (6 hr hunt) at a park I pretty much gave up on with my Explorer. Many of these targets were in higher mineralized(noisy) ground, with depths the length of my propointer.....this wasn’t an isolated instance with my Nox either....this machine has re-opened up many local sites for me since I purchased it this past June. 

Some may be asking, how can this be possible?  Aren’t the FBS Minelab machines supposed to be superior to the new, Multi-IQ technology in the Nox, with regards to deeper higher conductive targets?  ( I remember even Minelab stating this two years ago when the Equinox first came out).  Had Minelab openly stated 2 years ago that this multi-IQ technology was superior to FBS with respect to “deep high conductors” , I probably would have pre-ordered a Nox before they hit the market.....I was “a holdout”......I waited to buy this machine, and really only purchased it because I was getting older (and more achy) and wanted to swing a lighter machine...I also had a buddy that purchased one early this year, and his finds from areas I hunted started to impress me.  Since purchasing my Nox, I have been so impressed at the depth of the machine along with it’s ability to hit the tiniest of deep high conductive targets...I have found so many “pieces” of chopped wheat pennies and silver coins at depth (yes, lawn-mower clipped old coins) with the Nox, along with tiny copper/silver charms....Sure I found plenty of chopped old coinage with my Explorer, but it has been much more frequent with my Nox.  I’ll be honest, many of the very deep targets, are not your typical “dig me, I’m an oldie” signal....they are very obscure signals, but I guess with all the years of hunting I had with my Explorer, it has helped me to hone in on these obscured, iffy sounding targets better....when I say “Iffy”, I mean the target that can’t be easily construed that one has a bonafide signal under one’s coil....with signals like this, one has to caress or coax the signal by wiggling your coil back and forth at just the right cadence to even get it to repeat enough so one can hear it....wiggle too fast or slow, and you won’t hear a beep/chirp, and that’s with hunting in all-metal, which I always hunt with my Nox.....so the deepest signals are not blanking because there’s a co-located target (i.e. iron) with it that I’ve notched out...these targets are just at the upper limit of detection with the mix of settings I’m using along with the ground I’m hunting at.

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12 hours ago, Raphis said:

I’ll be honest, many of the very deep targets, are not your typical “dig me, I’m an oldie” signal....they are very obscure signals, but I guess with all the years of hunting I had with my Explorer, it has helped me to hone in on these obscured, iffy sounding targets better....when I say “Iffy”, I mean the target that can’t be easily construed that one has a bonafide signal under one’s coil....with signals like this, one has to caress or coax the signal by wiggling your coil back and forth at just the right cadence to even get it to repeat enough so one can hear it....wiggle too fast or slow, and you won’t hear a beep/chirp, and that’s with hunting in all-metal, which I always hunt with my Nox.....so the deepest signals are not blanking because there’s a co-located target (i.e. iron) with it that I’ve notched out...these targets are just at the upper limit of detection with the mix of settings I’m using along with the ground I’m hunting at.

Great post, Raphis!  It's these kinds of details I wish more people would express.  Multiple things you said (I just quoted the sweetspot) are news to me while some confirmed what I've noticed but wasn't 100% convinced from my own observations.

To find these whispers, how slow do you hunt?  Can you give an estimate of how much ground you cover in an hour?  I've always strongly suspected (many would say 'known' but I'm not that overconfident) that in every place I've searched there are still good targets remaining, either deeper than I've been sensitive to (and here 'sensitive' refers to the overall package of the detector and me) or masked.  In both cases are there things I could do (different settings, different swing speeds, different angle of attack) to squeeze out an indication that I should dig?  I'm sure the answer is 'yes' and although it won't get all of the remaining goodies it will get some.  But I have to do the right things to accomplish that.

I've read so many talk about VID consistency of signals, good signals from different angles of attack, no associated iron grunts, etc. as requirements to dig.  Sure, sometimes I get all that, but so did most of the detectorists who hunted the same location, they just missed getting their coil over a few and those are the easy ones for me.  But what about the difficult ones you describe?  You answered that.  There's nothing 'pure' about the signals you get from those, just hints.

I got a silver quarter (only my second in 5 years of detecting) a few weeks ago and it gave me nothing I expected (VID, consistency, pinpointability,...).  It wasn't even that deep (5-6 inches) although I'm pretty sure it was on edge.  When I switched over to Field 2 (recovery speed 7) it was nothing anyone (well, I can't say that anymore after reading your post 😁) would dig.  I think I had even covered this spot previously but I'm not sure.  Chances are multiple other detectorists had their coils over it.

I'm starting to understand why you've been so successful at pulling out so many coins even at the end of the 2nd decade of the new millenium.  I wish you could come detect my parks and schools.  I want to see what you would find and how you'd do it.  It would be worth it to me to have you clean out (relative term even for you) half of my locations just to be able to learn how I can harvest the other half.

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I've found the ability "hone in" on the signal as Raphis describes is what separates the Nox from it's older FBS cousins that just don't have the recovery speed ability to do this.  It takes some practice and in fact I have to "re awake" my muscle memory in doing this technique if some time has elapsed between hunts, but this target interrogation technique has paid off for me in terms of being able to extract deep keepers, especially at junky (both ferrous and non-ferrous junk) sites.

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10 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Great post, Raphis!  It's these kinds of details I wish more people would express.  Multiple things you said (I just quoted the sweetspot) are news to me while some confirmed what I've noticed but wasn't 100% convinced from my own observations.

To find these whispers, how slow do you hunt?  Can you give an estimate of how much ground you cover in an hour?

10 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

I wish you could come detect my parks and schools.  I want to see what you would find and how you'd do it.  It would be worth it to me to have you clean out (relative term even for you) half of my locations just to be able to learn how I can harvest the other half.

Thanks, GB!  Funny you mentioned about wishing I could come to your hunting grounds just to see what I’d find...I had a buddy who used to call me to hunt his sites he hasn’t taken me to before, in hopes that I would start finding oldies, and bring his old sites back to life. 😂. I remember at least 5 sites he told me to go and hunt (sites I hadn’t hunted before), and  within minutes of hunting there, I was finding deep, old coinage at a good rate! He was swinging a Minelab Quattro at the time, and was having difficulty in hearing my deepie signals, but after he purchased a used Explorer II, his oldie finds started to increase.

How slow do I hunt and how much ground do I cover in an hr?  That depends on the trash density of the site I’m hunting, but most of the time, I hunt at “snail pace”.  I have only a few buddies I hunt with nowadays (used to be many more), and most of the time they are first to mention about wanting to move to a new site from our current site.  I usually tell them we’ll give our current spot another 15-20 min....sometimes if I or my buddies find more oldies in that time allotment, we end up staying another hr 😲😅, and sometimes we make our best finds because we stayed in one spot and didn’t move to another place in the day....patience, persistence, perseverance!!!

Most of the sites I hunt are very trashy (both non ferrous and ferrous trash).  In the highest of trash densities I hunt, I could spend 2-4 hrs easy in a 200’x200’ area....and in a high % of these types of sites, I’d go back to that same area more than 20 times over a period of 10 years....and even after a whole decade of pounding these spots, I’ll probably still go back to them and see if conditions have changed and/or if there’s still anything worth finding.  Obscure targets can be missed very easily. Also ground conditions will change over time to help/hinder your oldie finding efforts (wet/dry ground, grass height, decaying iron/aluminum, etc). I typically don’t “strip mine” a site.....I really don’t want to dig pulltabs/ring tabs and other trash targets...however, I will dig a piece of trash that is affecting an obscure deepie, keeper target that I’m hearing next to it.  

I’d also like to mention to you a few of my settings, which can be critical to hearing deep “iffy” targets on your Nox.

Sensitivity— This is a no brainer, but those really “on the fringe of max depth” targets can only be found when your sensitivity is at near max or max...So I hunt mostly in sensitivity 24 or 25...I’ll share with you Something I can’t quite explain about the sensitivity I hunt with on my Nox.  When I first started using my Nox back in June, I could never hunt at near max sensitivity....I was hunting around 20-22.  The machine seemed so unstable at 24-25.  I was mostly hunting in Park 1 at that time, with an iron bias of around FE-4.  All other settings on my machine back then are the same as they are today, except now I hunt in Field 1, and use F2-0 iron bias.  After 6 months have passed, I’m able to hunt at 24-25 in most every site I hunt at now...I ground balance/noise cancel (GB/NC) often throughout the day (maybe this was the difference from what I was doing before), when I feel those settings have digressed from optimum...I occasionally find myself GB/NC’ing immediately after locating a deep, iffy target just to see if the target changes in the way I hear it on my headphones before I dig it up.  Sometimes the GB/NC sequence makes the target sound cleaner, and sometimes it sounds the same as before.

Iron Bias -  I don’t want any chance of my machine to misinterpret a deep, iffy silver coin as iron, so I hunt with 0 IB. I’ll dig an occasional Ferrous object to not miss deep keeper targets. If you’re not digging the occasional Ferrous targets, you are missing some deep, iffy, masked non-ferrous targets.

Recovery speed - This setting can make/break your hunt/quest for the deepies.  I hunt with a speed setting of 4.  If I tried to change to 5 after locating a deep iffy that is difficult to hear on Speed setting of 4, the signal at 5 becomes either completely masked or gets more faint/obscure, causing anybody to pass right over the target. At lower settings, the recovery speed doesn’t give me adequate target separation (hunting in high trash sites) and makes the machine more noisy as you swing over the ground.  So, 4 has been my fav setting for all my sites I hunt at.

All Metal - Hunting in all metal is highly recommended...you don’t want your machine to blank your audio at any time, especially when a deep iffy keeper target is co-located to ferrous/non-ferrous trash that you had notched out. Lower the audio (pitch/volume) on the ferrous ID’s and other trashy ID’s, but don’t notch them out.

Headphones (Hardwired or Wireless ??) - This may be subjective, but my senses (ears) are telling me otherwise.  I had never hunted wireless before, until I started detecting with my Nox...I used the wireless for 3-4 months, and thought it was the cat’s meow.....until one day my headphone batteries died and I went back to the car to grab my audio cable....The difference of audio hardwiring my headphones was more than just subtle...the audio of deeper targets seemed more pronounced (harder hitting)....from that day on, I’m using my audio cable when I hunt.  I have an audio extension cable coming soon, so I can route my audio cable to the back of my Nox (by my elbow), to keep it out of the way when I  kneel down to recover my targets.

 

BEST OF LUCK TO ALL OUT THERE!!

STAY HEALTHY!! 👍🏼🤙🏻

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19 hours ago, Raphis said:

Some may be asking, how can this be possible?  Aren’t the FBS Minelab machines supposed to be superior to the new, Multi-IQ technology in the Nox, with regards to deeper higher conductive targets?

True story. I was a Equinox tester, and on seeing the Equinox make finds my CTX was missing, I sold the CTX and have never looked back. I tried to get the word out, but was kind of shocked when I came under attack from CTX owners and others. I ended up leaving other forums over it all. Anyway, I have to say over the last few years it has been gratifying to see all but a few holdouts come to recognize what I saw four years ago. 

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1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

True story. I was a Equinox tester, and on seeing the Equinox make finds my CTX was missing, I sold the CTX and have never looked back. I tried to get the word out, but was kind of shocked when I came under attack from CTX owners and others. I ended up leaving other forums over it all. Anyway, I have to say over the last few years it has been gratifying to see all but a few holdouts come to recognize what I saw four years ago. 

I think part of the issue with the FBS die hards is their dependence on the Fe/Co target ID vs. the combination of stripped down but stable target ID with expressive target audio of Equinox.  You hear all the complaints about the Equinox having only 50 ID segments, etc. as if one is going to leave a dime in the ground because one is only looking for quarters.  A target ID number regardless of whether it is 2, 3, or 4 digits can only tell you so much about the nature of a target.  Understanding what the audio nuances are telling you about a target (in conjunction with the TID) is key and that can really only be accomplished with a relatively fast machine such as the Equinox or Deus.   There are some key advanced features in the eTrac and CTX including the Fe/Co ID and associated sophisticated discrimination patterns that if married with a Multi IQ-based framework including the key Nox features of multiple Multi IQ profiles, speed, single frequency capability, and other sophisticated filtering such as iron bias, could result in a killer high end machine...but that is the subject of another thread....

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2 hours ago, phrunt said:

What the deep coin hunters have done without knowing it is taught themselves how to find gold nuggets!  It sounds like I would not like to go in a nugget hunt competition with Raphis and I myself was surprised how using the Nox for many coin hunts ended up improving my nugget hunting ability with the Nox.

You've given some excellent information there Raphis, thanks for those posts.  The Equinox is currently my favourite detector and it's going to take something pretty special to change that.

Thanks phrunt!  You are actually spot on with regards to deep coin hunter’s abilities in finding gold!  I had a friend who hunted mostly beaches here in So CA, and he told me that with my knowledge I gained from deep coin hunting, I would be “a terror“ on the beach if I hunted them....I was just an occasional beach hunter back in 2007, but since I lived within a few minutes of the beach, I ended up buying a TDI Pro back in 2014.  Granted, a PI machine is completely different technology to the VLF’s, but in the two years that followed my new detector purchase, I ended up finding over 600 silver coins and 40+ gold rings, hunting my beaches at snail pace (which most typical beach hunters don’t do), keeping my coil on the sand at all times, and listening to whisper signals while the TDI Pro was maxed out on sensitivity (No Ground balance).  Most of those finds were crazy deep (15-26”+) with my 17x13 Nugget Finder coil, and it took every muscle in my body to recover those targets 😂.  The beach/dirt combo hunter knows how infinitely harder it is to recover deep beach targets than it is to recover a dirt target. I obviously never hunted in the water with my TDI Pro.  I was hunting the Surfline and dry, hard packed sand.

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I very much appreciate the experiences share by everyone here. I'm not sure how much I can add to this topic except to confirm most of what has been said. One area I have the most trouble in is deep targets vs. shallow shards of cut coins. I have a few old parks I like to hunt for old coins, but, it's infested with cut coins and other specks of non-ferrous targets that fool both the detector on depth and myself in trying to diagnose the situation. At these old parks, I usually hunt by depth rather than target I.D. since the deep targets can read just about anything. The detector will say those cut coins are deep. They sound deep too, with a faint ,tight signal. I raise the coil to confirm depth and it also acts like a deep target when the signal disappears with a slight raising of the coil. Any pointers on how to deal with those pesky items would be appreciated.  I hunt usually in Park 1 at these places since it seems the deepest and most stable, but, I've tried just about all the other modes as well. 50 tone, recovery speed 3 or 4, sensitivity high as I can stand (usually 20-22 unless there is too much EMI). Looks like I need to try going higher and reducing my I.B. a bit too to see if that helps get a few more keepers. Raphis mentioned hunting 2-4 hours and covering an area maybe 200 X 200 feet. I wouldn't even cover that much in that amount of time, so, I don't think I'm moving too fast..... Maybe half that at most. I like to really analyze every sound in these places. It's just that there are so many, it takes a lot of time.

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4 hours ago, Raphis said:

Headphones (Hardwired or Wireless ??) - This may be subjective, but my senses (ears) are telling me otherwise.  I had never hunted wireless before, until I started detecting with my Nox...I used the wireless for 3-4 months, and thought it was the cat’s meow.....until one day my headphone batteries died and I went back to the car to grab my audio cable....The difference of audio hardwiring my headphones was more than just subtle...the audio of deeper targets seemed more pronounced (harder hitting)....from that day on, I’m using my audio cable when I hunt.  I have an audio extension cable coming soon, so I can route my audio cable to the back of my Nox (by my elbow), to keep it out of the way when I  kneel down to recover my targets.

Are you talking about the ML80 wireless headphones (supplied with the Eqx 800), some other Bluetooth headphone, or the WM08 combined with wired headphones?  (This last is what I've used from very early on, swapping out wired earbudes with wired headphones in summer heat, but still attaching to the WM08 module.)

Covering 200'x 200' sounds pretty fast for an afternoon (2-4 hours) for me.  I do sometimes go that speed but then wonder if I've gone too quickly.  (I know some people really like to motor through a site and would consider that crawling.)  My swing length isn't more than 6 ft, particularly in cool weather wearing lots of clothing.  I also swing a straight path rather than an arc and overlap 50% (or at least try to).  I hunt by myself so no pressure from others, and if I run out of time I know there will be another day.  The competition near me is almost nil -- I've only run into one detectorist who I feel knew what he was doing -- also swinging an Eqx 800 and told me prior to getting that he used an E-Trac.  And that was one time I saw him in going on 5 years (1000 documented hours in the last 4).  But I can tell from my finds frequency that over the years my parks and schools have been detected multiple times.  I think those detectorists have moved on.  Fortunately for me they weren't as thorough as you so I'm confident there are deep (>6 inches) good targets still in the ground.  (My deepest coin is 8 inches and only a handful of those so I haven't been getting the deepest ones, either.)

Thanks for sharing your settings and giving the reasons for them.  A lot of yours are the same as mine, but a big difference is that I hunt in Park 1 so I need to give your Field 1 a serious try.  In particular I'm glad to hear your recovery speed setting.  I experimented with Recovery=4 for several hunts this fall but went back to 5 (my previous standard).  I really didn't notice a big difference but then I didn't compare as carefully as you have so I'll switch back to 4.  It also appears that your sites have similar trash to mine -- lots of pulltabs but also a surprising amount of iron (nails mostly, but also pieces of wire).  I think you'd hit the ground running if you decide to take me up on my offer.  :laugh:

Just a couple more questions -- hope you don't mind me pestering:  do you use the 11" coil exclusively and are you running the latest (version 3.x) software?

 

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