Parks Are A Different Beast Than Beaches

[Sirius]

The main park I wanted to go to was closed today due to storm damage, so I went to another park down south. Turns out it was trashed so bad that every step I took ended with me finding a beaver tail and barely any coins. I also found a ton of crushed cans and various other junk. I've mostly stuck to beaches and had tremendous luck there, but with parks it's a whole other game that requires more investigation. Luckily I pulled a bunch of trash today that i'll be using to test my detector on. Hopefully i'll figure out a way to distinguish between trash and coins with enough testing. Anybody got any tips on hunting parks?

[GB_Amateur]

I'm only after coins so it's easier for me to mentally discriminate out the aluminum (and iron) trash than those who hunt jewelry, which can't be distinguished from aluminum trash.

Aluminum trash can be everywhere but pulltabs and foil tend to be thickest around where people eat -- e.g. picnic tables/shelters.  Of course there are desirable targets there, too, but sometimes it's easier to start detecting away from the picnic areas, at least to keep your sanity, find a few goodies, and build confidence.  Or go the other direction, starting with the trashiest areas when you have the most energy and work towards the less trashy as your stamina (physical AND mental) decline.

Put yourself in the minds eye of those who visit the parks.   Where do they congregate?  Where do they lounge around?  Shaded areas (especially east of trees for when the hottest part of the day is shaded) and on slopes where it's easier to get up/down and more comfortable to sit.  If a sports field is present, hunt the field itself (where the players lose stuff) and around the perimeter (where the spectators set up their lawn chairs -- again think 'shade') can be good.

And it's especially important to minimize the 'footprint' damage.  If you detect in dry conditions, carry jugs of water and liberally pour it over the spot you just filled.  Try your best to leave a recovery spot with minimal visible disturbance.  Use small tools, not ones with long handles.  Carry off any trash you come across, whether you dug it or not.  If you happen to be approached by someone who is skeptical of what you are doing (rare in my experience), showing them the trash (while keeping your cool) will almost always defuse the situation.  Be a good citizen!  Not that hard and the least we can do to pay back for the privilege we are granted.

[schoolofhardNox]

I don't have a Legend so I can't tell you much about that, but a lot of guys hunt by discriminating out almost everything, except a slot for nickels and another wider slot just above zinc cents. That includes all copper cents - silver dollar. They usually have a small buffer of 1 or 2 numbers each way to account for ground conditions. So if your nickles read say 12, then they would allow 11, 12, 13. So you would get some gold possibly. Like other said, set your recovery speed/reactivity faster, and slow down you coil speed. I would use a 1 tone of 2 tone program since all the rest is discriminated out, you won't need multi/variable tones. Once you get the hang of that you can loosen up discrimination to include other numbers. You could also try a single frequency if you have that option. You Tube some videos of park hunting with the Legend and see how they do it.

 

[Digalicious]

To add to the excellent advice….

Try using Park mode's new M3 from V1.10. It's weighted lower than M1 and will unmask coins from nonferrous trash notably better than M1. Then again, 4khz will do it even better than the new M3.

If you only want to dig coins from a trashy park, you can either ignore or notch out anything but the coin IDs. You will miss some coins when you cherry pick like that, but you'll dig a lot less junk (very little junk if you do it right). On second thought, by cherry picking, you'll save a massive amount of time because you're digging very little trash. That means much more time is spent digging the coin IDs. So you'll actually dig more coins by cherry picking 🙂

 

[Sirius]

38 minutes ago, Digalicious said:

To add to the excellent advice from GB and Geezer:

Try using Park mode's new M3 from V1.10. It's weighted lower than M1 and will unmask coins from nonferrous trash notably better than M1. Then again, 4khz will do it even better than the new M3.

If you only want to dig coins from a trashy park, you can either ignore or notch out anything but the coin IDs. You will miss some coins when you cherry pick like that, but you'll dig a lot less junk (very little junk if you do it right). On second thought, by cherry picking, you'll save a massive amount of time because you're digging very little trash. That means much more time is spent digging the coin IDs. So you'll actually dig more coins by cherry picking 🙂

 

I was using M3 today, and man it was still all beaver tails. 4khz seems to cause targets to change their target Id's something like nonferrous trash would hit 50-60 which is the max for the legend. Not sure how that works so i'll have to do some testing later.

[Digalicious]

There seems to be a trend with using low weighted SMF to sniff out coins in nonferrous trash. The Legend's new Park M3 is weighted even lower than the Nox's Park 1. I suspect that the weighting of the Legend's M3 is similar to the D2's and Manti's high conductor mode.

Above and beyond that, if I was cherry picking coins in nonferrous trash, I would choose a SF no higher than about 7 or 8 khz. Once the frequency goes higher than about 7 or 8, the coins masked by nonferrous trash will often read below the nickel range. With frequencies lower than that, then those same coins ID almost as if the nonferrous trash wasn't there. As such, I can see how 6.4 khz on your Tarsacci would work wonders in nonferrous trash,.

 

[Digalicious]

3 minutes ago, Sirius said:

I was using M3 today, and man it was still all beaver tails. 4khz seems to cause targets to change their target Id's something like nonferrous trash would hit 50-60 which is the max for the legend. Not sure how that works so i'll have to do some testing later.

Hmmm.

Yes, the caveat to using such a low frequency, does mean that aluminum can ID very high. In my experience though, it didn't happen very often.

[Sirius]

3 minutes ago, Digalicious said:

Hmmm.

Yes, the caveat to using such a low frequency, does mean that aluminum can ID very high. In my experience though, it didn't happen very often.

This is a good thing though, if it's reading that high I tend to ignore such numbers same when it reads 60 on the beach. Someone I met at the beach said anything higher than 35 or so is most likely to be trash, but he was using a nox so the target ids are definitely going to be different.

[kac]

Your biggest concentration of coins and jewelry will be where there is the most activity. Small coils will do best for separation. 6" or 6x9 will do really well in those areas. Use a hand digger or probe.

Ideally you should cherry pick the silvers first as they are the easiest then do some passes for the lower conductors.

If it is a local park you can access often, try to do your hunts before they cut the grass. Those mowers suck up a lot of stuff.

Older parks you can do some research and see if the layout of them had been changed over the years, might have had trees that are no longer there.

[Digalicious]

5 minutes ago, Geezer said:

 

I have not heard of frequency swinging TID that much. Does that allow  you to pick the masked coins out as lower tones then? Are you saying it pushes aluminum trash up and coins down?  

It depends on the size of the aluminum and how close it is to the coil. For example, if small foil reads just above ferrous, and it's masking a high conductor coin, then frequencies below around 8 khz will ID the coin almost as if the foil wasn't there. Once around 10 khz and above, that same coin will ID much closer to the small foil (just below the nickel range).

I did experience some lone aluminum bottle caps having a much higher than normal ID when using very low frequencies.