To Notch Or Not To Notch, That Is My Question

[Cal_Cobra]

I've never been a big fan of notching.  Heck if I have a machine with iron audio, I'll run it wide open, drop the iron audio so I can hear it without audio fatigue and let my ears be the discriminator/notcher.

[Jeff McClendon]

The original poster was asking about notching in mostly modern aluminum trash not older sites with mostly tin and iron trash. Working sites like that is totally different since many of the ferrous targets will be falsing all over the target ID scale and masking will really become a problem. I try not to notch anything in iron trash. Hunting for anything good in machine gun aluminum trash is a whole different scenario. The Equinox is very good at that type of hunting whether using notching to clear out the easy stuff or not. I cringe when I think about taking my Deus into that type of modern aluminum target environment..........

For the original poster, in thick aluminum trash I often hunt both ways with my 800. I will set up a trashy park pattern and save it in the user profile. Often I will have a Park 1 trashy notched setup in my user profile and a fairly normal Park 2 with only -9 to -5 rejected to go over the same ground after cherry picking it with the trashy notched program. In the kind of situation you are describing which is full of non-ferrous targets, digging it all would take decades.

[Valens Legacy]

I am also  newbie myself and have found that my grandmothers yard is filled with not only modern trash, but also has very nice old coins in it. So far just using the 800 in normal factory settings I have dug my hearts desire of trash from the yard. I personally think that the factory is better for her yard as I would have missed several nice items by notching out the so called trash. Between many aluminum pieces I have found many coins that did not have a normal reading until they were out of the ground.

So I for one do not plan on using the notching feature in the near future, because there are to many good targets to be lost by doing so.

[Badger-NH]

If you are not passing up targets then there is no need to notch anything, but I can only dig trash for so long. When I get tired after a few hours of swinging, I often start skipping over targets that are not coins. Switching to a coins only notch program at that point allows me to relax and increases my odds of finding a good coin before the end of the day.

[GB_Amateur]

19 hours ago, CPT_GhostLight said:

But among all the excellent wisdom and kindly shared information on this forum, someone much wiser than I said to "Get to know what the detector is telling you about a target by learning and listening to the sounds it makes." That has been the hardest thing to learn on this machine for me, but I have forced myself to resist the urge to notch, and some of it is beginning to sink in.

I agree. The more you listen (with your brain, not just your ears) the more you understand the Equinox's 'language'.  But just like learning a modern foreign language, turning on the radio or TV to a station with native speakers when you are just starting out  is going to be overwhelming.  I'm 2 3/4 years into using the Eqx 800 and still learning what it's telling me.  (Thanks to site member/poster Raphis here, I've recently made another quantum step in that learning process.)

 

15 hours ago, CPT_GhostLight said:

you might try Park 1 and lower the tone volumes of the normal trash ID ranges that way you'll still hear any good targets that are in those ranges but the trash signals won't be as loud on the ears.

Yes, the 800 has those extra features that allow this.  I run 5 tones in search mode (50 tones in investigation mode -- typically User Profiled) and each tone is customized in every one of the three setting options:  tone volume, tone pitch, and tone break.  As Jeff and others point out, in typical parks (meaning any park that has been frequented since the aluminum can and its associated pulltabs went into use around 1965), the aluminum density can be extremely tedious.  And many (including all of my parks) also have iron nails, wire, etc. adding to the din.

 

[Badger-NH]

I usually hunt in all metal but have the iron volume turned all the way down. That way I can tell how much is iron around but the low tones are quietly in the background and not bothersome. Running in all metal allows you to hear the entire signal, not just the broken parts of it.

I hunt in all metal 90% of the time and rarely use any discrimination, but the notch feature is nice to have when you just want to cherry pick.

[Dug D]

Metal Detecting just like fishing, you can do it your way 🙂 

But some great suggestions in the posts above. It takes a little more time, but I adjust tone breaks and volume of each using all metal, that way I hear faintly what is interfering with what might be a good signal. Sometimes I need to dig out shallow junk that is in the way.  

 

[UtahRich]

I've found some success in a slightly different approach when it comes to dealing with conductive trash in an area with older coins. 

In these areas I hunt by depth rather than discriminating out a segment of the scale.  With so much conductive trash, 5 tones works for me.  If I'm hunting for old coins and such, I lower the audible response on my iron segment (-9 to -1) as well as my foil segment (0-11) and the tabs segment (14-17). I have separate segments for nickels (12-13) and IHC level (18 to 40). I can tweak with the beginning of my high coins segment depending on the area I'm hunting.

zinc pennies are typically shallower as are the square tabs and pull tabs.  By turning the iron audio down, and lowering the "foil" audio  to something comfortable (both volume and tone) as well as the "tab" audio,  i can still hear those items from those categories. By increasing the audio / tone on the nickels and higher coins, these signals stand out to my hearing and can bring a quick STOP and allow me to investigate the target.

Also, by still being able to hear the "diminished" audio of the foil and tab segments, I can listen for deeper targets that are likely older items worth investigating.

This is something that works for me in some of the sites I hunting with lots of conductive trash. 

Rich -

[damatman88]

8 hours ago, UtahRich said:

I've found some success in a slightly different approach when it comes to dealing with conductive trash in an area with older coins. 

In these areas I hunt by depth rather than discriminating out a segment of the scale.  With so much conductive trash, 5 tones works for me.  If I'm hunting for old coins and such, I lower the audible response on my iron segment (-9 to -1) as well as my foil segment (0-11) and the tabs segment (14-17). I have separate segments for nickels (12-13) and IHC level (18 to 40). I can tweak with the beginning of my high coins segment depending on the area I'm hunting.

zinc pennies are typically shallower as are the square tabs and pull tabs.  By turning the iron audio down, and lowering the "foil" audio  to something comfortable (both volume and tone) as well as the "tab" audio,  i can still hear those items from those categories. By increasing the audio / tone on the nickels and higher coins, these signals stand out to my hearing and can bring a quick STOP and allow me to investigate the target.

Also, by still being able to hear the "diminished" audio of the foil and tab segments, I can listen for deeper targets that are likely older items worth investigating.

This is something that works for me in some of the sites I hunting with lots of conductive trash. 

Rich -

Thanks for that Rich. I have been leaning more toward the volume tweaks after all the input from everyone regarding notching. I found an 1822 large cent on one of my permissions that also has lots of modern aluminum trash. There are so many goodies that may ring up in the other numbers I may have notched out, ie gold coins, trimes and IHPs.