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Deep Coins Which Would You Choose Pi Or VLF ?


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The vlf reads the easy targets well, on the hard ones things change unfortunately and it's very likely that you'll get a coin like iron or it won't detect it so you don't dig it. I personally think that if someone spends a lot of time on a pi machine like the GPX and learns to listen to it with the proper coils, they will hardly bother with vlf detectors again.

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So, from what I can tell, Irondigger is a USA based detector user that is hoping to go to a European site (wooded, plowed field, pasture, beach, mineralization??????) in the future and is asking what detector to take with him. So, which detector can he not take with him on an international flight due to lithium ion battery restrictions........?

How does that change the picture?

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1 hour ago, Jeff McClendon said:

So, from what I can tell, Irondigger is a USA based detector user that is hoping to go to a European site (wooded, plowed field, pasture, beach, mineralization??????) in the future and is asking what detector to take with him. So, which detector can he not take with him on an international flight due to lithium ion battery restrictions........?

How does that change the picture?

When I travel over seas for detecting, I send my detectors packed on UPS or Fed X to my hotel. Their always there ready and waiting. No problems so far. Just a thought.

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IronDigger,

here is an unbiased, no agenda video for the Equinox testing depth of the 11" and 15" coils on three UK coins in air tests and more importantly on those three coins buried down to 21".

Long video by Sid (27 minutes) but its easy to skip to the in the ground testing.

Just for a reference since you asked the question. Whether an 8" coil SDC 2300 would do any better....???? No clue.

No doubt, the dirt Sid is testing in is probably pretty mild.

 

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For me when i am on a roman site i would tend to use the Nox with the stock coil,but saying that alot of roman sites do/can have alot of habitable non desirable junk that normal goes hand in hand with such a site,sites that have habitation on them be it roman,saxon,celtic or what ever those are the one that will have the coinage and artefacts,these are the really desirable sites that need to be done very methodically......time factor that you have access to these sites are in my mind can be a dictating factor and what i mean by this is if you are on say your own permission that you can detect at your OWN leisure then you have not got the clock ticking against you,but if you are on say a club dig or rally for a limit amount of time like say just one day then that means you can not hunt the ground as thorough as you should be able to and different tactics are required.

For me when i go on my own permission and i dont have the clock ticking away then i would use a VLF with say the stock coil or possibly a smaller one,you cannot decide in my mind till you actually start detecting and if the site is full of junk then i would change to a smaller coil to get in between the junk,target masking etc are the biggest issues with such sites and also high mineral content sites but of course with multi freq machines ground minerals should not be a issue......if i locate a hotspot then i will slow down and do that area very methodically with the stock coil and then put on a larger coil after the signals have dried up with the stock coil,once the signals and finds have dried up after doing that location with the larger coil on the VLF machine,then i will bring out the TDI Pro with the stock coil or a bigger one,you can generally get a idea on what the finds are like and pick your detecting weapon of choice accordingly to what the finds are like coming up.

On a roman villa site that our club has been doing for over 15 years we have pulled up nearly 10,000 roman coins,the majority are bronze roman corroded coins,but also silver and gold roman,but what makes this site so unusual and unique and hard is the soil is highly black mineralised soil and about 70 miles inland,so a multi freq VLF like the Nox or Deus 2 and especially Pulse machines are the best weapons of choice on this site,in the last 2 years the rate of finds has diminished but still coming up.

For me personally i would choose a VLF to do a initial detecting Reccie on a site and when i find a hot spot in this case roman then i would slow down anD use a gradually larger coil and finally a Pulse....of course this is only how i work my roman sites or infact any era,other may and will do it differently.

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20 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Let’s say you hit a place that produced multiple finds that were very valuable to you. You used all the best VLFs until there was nothing more to be found. Yes, a good PI could reveal more of those finds. Yes, you will dig junk in the process. A PI is what every single serious hunter turns to if they are convinced a site still holds valuable finds that a VLF can’t produce. It’s up to you to decide if the price in junk dug is worth what you are after.

As a nugget hunter, I look at the incredible amount of what I think is just junk that relic hunters dig for a few good finds, and have to smile. Non-ferrous junk is no better than ferrous junk as far as I’m concerned, and I’d be tossing most of the “treasure” that relics hunters show in the trash bin. Pretending a VLF is better because it digs a worthless beat up brass shell casing instead of a nail? All I have to do is define square nails as desired relics, and all the sudden my PI finds almost no junk at all! :smile:

I’m not trying to take a swing at the relic hunters here. I’m just pointing out that digging junk is part of this game, no matter what type of detecting you like. Want gold jewelry, you better be digging aluminum. Relic hunters better at least dig all non-ferrous, even if most of it is junk. While passing some valuable ferrous relics, I might add. I use PIs almost exclusively, and I certainly dig many pounds of junk, but I also dig pounds of gold. Seems acceptable to me. :wink:

Yeah, BUT... it usually only takes me seconds to recover that brass casing, move on to the next, while the PI guy almost always takes longer.

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I to see all the variable conditions I would face, as in most detecting having both P.I. and a good vlf is a good idea all depends on the conditions. On my first trip I am going to just take a vlf and get a general understanding what conditions we will be hunting. I can always leave it there and bring a p.i. next time I go which would be the following year. Thanks for all the comments..

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