Thinking Out Of The Box

[auminesweeper]

In order to make finds some of the things I have done have gone against all the things that we know what not to do and although I know they are wrong where people would find rare coins etc once every 2 or 3 years on one such site I started pulling 6 or 7 per week, But I know I am wrong in the terms of correct deployment of such things, But I have the finds and I am still not sure what to think of that,

I have seen every thing from BBS, FBS to XP machines being deployed with small coils to sift through the junk and still they find nothing in such heavily junk filled sites, So I thought about it and decided to do the total opposite to what every one else is doing and knows to be correct, So I fitted the biggest coil I had 12" concentric in my case and set the Disc on "3" which is a bit too high and the finds came thick and fast, Seeing deeper gave me the edge and at the time I thought it was laughable and amusing, But the more I did it the more it made sense, People see me there and the look on their face is priceless, A 12 inch concentric in a junk filled site this must look like that this is my first time detecting,

I know the limits of the machine so now I have to be inventive, because the biggest coil I have seen there is a 10DD on an FBS/BBS machines, well because of the recovery speed, that gave me one edge and over machines like the XP the bigger concentric gave me another edge, I know it is a crazy thing to do but it works and so far I have never found less than 3 Ancient coins and many from the 1800s plus Gold jewellery  and junk jewellery etc and not once have I ever gone home empty handed, So until I have gone over all my sites then they will not be hunted out but the added bonus is they get ploughed every year and so the cycle begins again,

I figure this is place is good for at leased another 4 or 5 years and then there is still my old patches to detect, In the Prospecting world doing this might only work for a year or two, But it will work because desperate times calls for desperate measures and this type of madness seems to fill in the gaps while we are waiting for the next Innovation to come along, If some of you are lacking the drive about detecting some area's I would urge folks to try it because you only have every thing to gain.

Good luck,  john

[RickUK]

John,i have used a similar setup or way of thinking for the last few years,albeit the Whites detectors we shoot from the hip are different ie mine is the DFX and you use the MXT,but i do also use a 12'' Concentric coil on mine most of the time the Jimmy Sierra Hotshot coil,but when mine runs in 15Khz they are pretty similar,both machines have advantages and disadvantages over the other.

I am finding that the finds in the top 6-8'' are gradually getting harder to find and i am talking about non trashy sites here,the reason being over the last 30-40 years detectorist have picked the once productive top layer of finds,i will agree with you that on farmland that is regular ploughed and rolled does produce new finds each turn of the plough,so yes the cycle is pretty constant,also as tractors are getting more powerful they can drag a deeper plough which is once again good news.

On pasture once the targets ie coins and artifacts have been detected once again in the top 8'' then we dont have the luxury of deep ploughing or very rare is it to get pasture ploughed,so this is why i use a much bigger detector/coil setup to get down to the next layer as i call it,i liken it to peeling the layers off a onion,the 1st layer of finds have been detected,so a heavy hitting setup is required.The machines that i would use for deep pasture would be say the T2 with a large SEF coil on,my Nexus with the dual 9'' coil and in recent times a PI mainly the TDI Pro.

So yes i will totally agree with you that thinking outside the box is a good thing,folks still cannot really grasp why i keep going down the route of a detector either VLF or PI with larger than stock coils,the reason is i am 'thinking outside the box' so that i can get the next layer of coins or artifacts that stock coils just cannot get too,but it works,well it does for me anyway.

I started going down the depth route about 5 years ago when we have located a scattered Celtic gold stater hoard,the scattered coins had been in a tight radius and the container had the top of the container taken off when deep ploughing,but although a normal detector with a stock coil would locate the scattered loose coins,it would not find the actual container,but a specific machine that is geared up will/has located deeper staters from this hoard which are from 55BC.

Trashy sites also benefit from Concentric coils and also the DFX wins again but also followed by the Legendary Laser B3 with a 10'' Polo coil on,maybe 20+ years old but still a deadly machine,modern machines are very good machines but in a few recent topic on the forum VLF machines seem to have hit the buffers in terms of what they can do,but this is when thinking outside the box can really take you to the next league and increase your finds rate.

The bottom line is the amount of good finds that go into your finds pouch as that is the barometer on how well we are doing,if finds are still appearing then we are doing the right thing,but if finds are drying up or not as prolific as once it was,then i personally step back and think 'why' is it because i have change my detector,my tactics and then change or adapt and hopefully the finds will start flowing again.

Sometimes the latest 'all sing all dancing' machines are not always the answer,but 'thinking outside the box' can be,and also a lot of luck.

[auminesweeper]

Yes Rick I agree, Over here we don't quite have the freedoms afforded to us like in the US or Australia so we have to make the best of what we have, I started using the 12" coil back in may 2010 and I stuck to it and I only used the smaller 950 coil in woodland if the 12" is to big, Having the Once largest detector dealer near by has not helped my find and the fact that they use to use the area for club rallies etc has not helped either but using this method has paid off because I managed to pay for one machine in the first 5 minutes,

The machines I use have been the most productive so as of yet I see no reason to change One particular machine because the recovery is fast enough and I can adjust the depth by changing coils and by using the 12" coil at less than half power it will pull coins at 13 and a half inches and it can see deeper if I am willing to put up with the noise of the other targets and that is only because I like to hear all the targets not just the non ferrous targets, If you want to find the good stuff then it is better to listen to the lot and hearing those faint targets within the mayhem is the best way, Also using a faint threshold and listening to those faint rises are sometimes all it takes, But by using a bigger coil I can in crease the depth without running the machine on the edge and still have something in reserve,

I just realised, something you don't have enough machines do ya, Heck you must be up to about 15 or 16 or more by now ?

One day I would like to see that Nexus in action when you have got time because I read the field tests on that machine in the Searcher or Treasure Hunting magazines and it was impressive back then,

Good luck,, john

[RickUK]

John,the trouble with really trashy sites and using a larger coils can of course have a downside as well,especially with masking,all it takes is just one say small hob nail on a trashy roman site under a larger coil and that can totally mask out a very good target,Concentric coils on a VLF are 'generally' far superior discrimination wise but of course the extra large coil although it gives extra depth can still cause the biggest problem going masking.

Although i love the 12'' Hotshot concentric coil,on certain sites i would still use a slightly smaller one say in the 89'' range to reduce the problem of masking a decent target,its a fine balancing trick really when to use a big coil over s slightly smaller one albeit not a real small coil that most folks would use.

Decision like that have to be made from just pure observations of the ground and how the detector is reacting,a small coil would be my preferred choice certainly on freshly cut stubble and also a round one rather than a elliptical one,as a small round one would not catch on the stiff stubble as much.

[auminesweeper]

Yeah I was thinking along those lines until I did recovery tests and using a machine with a fast recovery which allows you a bit more freedom to use a larger coil because one off sets the other,

john

[PhaseTech]

Big coils are less reactive to very small targets, but does that mean they see through them, or does their presence still provide some form of masking? What is everyone's thoughts on this? 

The Smooth and Enhance timings on the GPX series do a very good job at ignoring decomposed iron targets. I wonder if a mid-large sized DD coil in Enhance would be of any use in very old sites where the iron is very badly decomposed? I got a feeling the unit would just ignore a large majority of it.  

[auminesweeper]

54 minutes ago, PhaseTech said:

Big coils are less reactive to very small targets, but does that mean they see through them, or does their presence still provide some form of masking? What is everyone's thoughts on this? 

The Smooth and Enhance timings on the GPX series do a very good job at ignoring decomposed iron targets. I wonder if a mid-large sized DD coil in Enhance would be of any use in very old sites where the iron is very badly decomposed? I got a feeling the unit would just ignore a large majority of it.  

Nenad, I think that the larger DD coils are Blind to surface junk and even more so when you hold them  about 6 inches or more off the ground, So to me large DD's just cant see targets as small as a concentric can, IE like when I changed the Twin D coil on my GMT to The Long scan of equal size, But the 8x14 Comcentric is about as sensitive as the 6x10 Twin D coil maybe less to the point of it being more like a normal VLF with a DD.

The coils I use are 12" and bigger concentrics and they can see just about as good as a 6x10 DD Down to 0.02 to 0.03 grams and there is about a 20% drop in the ground balance reading / setting So they do have some hidden talents So my soil reading of 57 to 64 ish would read 69 to 76 if I was to use a DD, as to why this is happening I am not sure but it is something that I noticed during testing. ,

On my first 3500 it came with an 11" DD and it was no way near as sensitive as the 15" CON on my VLF, But the 11" DD commander coil did allow the 35 to ignore/ ID some trash in the top 6 inches, after that the rest was down to fate, As for the GPX series I don't know much about how they deal in the above situations,

[DDancer]

Nothing wrong with thinking outside the box.  Its a small place, that box, and can hamper more than help most of the time.

Using my SD2100e or GP3000 I'd often switch up my coils and try different methods with some success.  The DD coil really is quite good at ferriting out trash and good targets and used in Mono with larger DD coils as good as any mono I know.  GP did not like mono's over 11 inches~ mine anyway.  But a 16 or 24 DD and it was pretty hot even though you had to sweep alot more. 

Getting out of the box is pretty well tied to knowing your equipement.

Neat thread :)

[auminesweeper]

Yeah I was wondering about mono coils on the 3500 because some folks reckon that the 35 does not like them in hot ground, I only used DD's on mine and in the DD mode as I had no reason to use the mono mode, but now I have another one I have got to go through the coil thing all over again because technology and coil designs have really moved on where as the detectors have come to a stand still for a while.

john

[DDancer]

I will be curious to see what results you have with the 35 and the new coils.  Might give me reason to bring the 3000 back out of retirement. As to mono mode with a DD I found it to be a stable way of using the DD and a good method for pin pointing with larger DD coils in deeper holes along with Cancel.  Mono with the stock 11 DD worked as well as my mono Joey coil in hot ground with less singing.  Just have to remember the coil only really works on the left.  Cant speak for the 35 as a mono machine though I've seen plenty of big mono's on them.

My old 3000 worked well against the 35, 2006, and in some cases the 4000 back in 2010, last time I took it out for a good fossick down in Australias west.  Got out of the PI box last year as my partner and I went with the 7000.  He got there about 2 months before me and he was already getting out of the box the 7000 has with its only accessories~ the settings and modes.  By the end of that tour we were both out of the factory box, in no small part with help from this Forum and tips in a few others, but again it was getting to know the machine that helped the most with a go-to attitude for trying different things.