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Rusty Sheetmetal, Softball Sized Hot Rocks And Cool Sunshine In The High Country


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Got away Saturday to the Highcountry near flagstaff AZ on a club hunt. 80 degrees up there instead of 110 back in Phoenix 

The site was a big clearing in the Pondarosa pine forest which had been a logging camp in the 20s. 

About 25 people showed up and we hunted pretty much all day. As usual I found nothing worth commenting on – a few people found a coin – one guy found five coins including a barber dime - two mercs – yuck. 

On the whole not really worthy of a report – except for the fact that large areas of the site where littered with Rusty thin sheet metal from old packing cases I guess – and softball sized hot rocks that drove most detectors absolutely nuts. Everybody I talk to pretty much told the same story - they had to turn sensitivity way down and we're still really bothered by all the hot rocks – not to mention the fact that the rusty sheet-metal tend to wrap around and come in as a high tone. 

Although my finds of miscellaneous buckles bolts and other iron junk were nothing to brag about, my detectors operated like champs. 

I started out with my IDX pro and a big foot coil and found that it sounded off in discriminate on the hot rocks - if I put it in all metal however I could clearly distinguish the hot rocks from actual targets because of their hollow bong sounds. Since my meter continue to read out in all metal I could pretty easily identify the iron. It ran happily full sensitivity and except for the fact that after four hours or so I just didn't want to swing that big foot coil back-and-forth anymore everything went pretty well. 

After lunch I pulled my new omega 8000 out of its box – I bought one of the $375 ones on closeout from Technetics – to my surprise the standard 10 inch concentric coil it totally ignored the hot rocks. The concentric oil did a pretty good job of grunting away on all the iron and not returning many high tone squeaks. After doing some targets to verify that there wasn't some high conductor hiding next to a piece of rusty flat sheet I got pretty confident that what sounded like iron was really iron. 

I realize this is probably not the most exciting report it's been posted on the forum this year – but I was pretty amazed at the Omega and it's total lack of response to those really really troublesome hot rocks.

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Rick, It sounds like you guys had a fun trip.

HH
Mike

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There seems to be something wrong with my IDX/Bigfoot combo - it hits my five years buried 8" quarter with 2-3" of "air space" and a correct ID - must be defective - everybody knows a Bigfoot is only good for a couple of inches. Wish I could remember what scoundrel sold me that turkey of a coil and piece of junk detector!

Seriously though, this particular modded IDX is wildly exceeding my expectations with the Bigfoot.  I also have a "half Bigfoot" -a Goldfoot.  This little coil is a razor.  It passes Monte's nailboard test with flying colors.  On the 8" quarter I buried, it hits it fine but withiut the 2" air gap the Bigfoot achieves.  Of course I should have brought it on the club hunt, but I didn't anticipate that much sheet metal, wire and assorted junk.

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On 6/27/2016 at 0:05 PM, Rick Kempf said:

Got away Saturday to the Highcountry near flagstaff AZ on a club hunt. 80 degrees up there instead of 110 back in
After lunch I pulled my new omega 8000 out of its box – I bought one of the $375 ones on closeout from Technetics – to my surprise the standard 10 inch concentric coil it totally ignored the hot rocks. The concentric oil did a pretty good job of grunting away on all the iron and not returning many high tone squeaks. After doing some targets to verify that there wasn't some high conductor hiding next to a piece of rusty flat sheet I got pretty confident that what sounded like iron was really iron. 

I realize this is probably not the most exciting report it's been posted on the forum this year – but I was pretty amazed at the Omega and it's total lack of response to those really really troublesome hot rocks.

Ok, am I the only (other) person surprised that the Teknetics Omega (IB unit operating at 7.8 kHz) with its stock elliptical concentric ignores hot rocks?  Which is it, the frequency, the coil type, or both?  'Cause my (cousin) 19 kHz Fisher Gold Bug Pro with both 5 inch round DD and 5in x 10in elliptical DD loves to sing when it sees those babies (Arizona and Colorado -- 2 for 2).

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19 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Ok, am I the only (other) person surprised that the Teknetics Omega (IB unit operating at 7.8 kHz) with its stock elliptical concentric ignores hot rocks?  Which is it, the frequency, the coil type, or both?

Both but mostly the lower frequency.

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I have no idea what magic Dave J worked with the Omega, but my IDX Pro is also low freq. - 6.59 kHz - and discriminate on it was just as unusable in the hot rocks as most of the other detectors.

The Omega is emi sensitive, but there was no emi up there.  When I turned it on and cranked the sensitivity up all the way, it was silent.  When I started waving it around over the lumpy volcanic stuff it stayed silent - I thought the thing was defective!  I had to throw down a coin to reassure myself that it was OK.

the next day at home, I tested it on an 8" deep quarter I buried 6 years ago in my "3 bar" red AZ dirt.  It would just barely hit it in discriminate, with no air gap to,speak of.  That disappointed me a bit, then I remembered an old thread on Dankowski by Keith Southern about the Omega and the 13" Ultimate coil.  I dug it out and read through it.  I promptly contacted Keith and asked if he had an ultimate coil to sell.  He didn't but put me on to someone who did.  It should arrive in a few days!

here's the link to the thread.

http://www.dankowskidetectors.com/discussions/read.php?2,58991,60399#msg-60399

 

 

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Please keep us informed as to the performance of that coil, Rick.  I still don't get it.  Glad Steve responded but his reply seemed matter-of-fact.  I guess one must give up something to get this quiet (ignoring hot rock) performance, and the obvious concession is insensitivity to small gold.  But I don't like assuming so I hope someone with 'data' can go into this deeper.

That thread you posted seems pretty lean, unless I didn't read it correctly.  There are used Omegas and Gammas on Ebay periodically (including now) for reasonable and even better discounts to new prices.  I bought a Gamma this past December for $200 and gave it away as a Christmas present.  Maybe I should try to get it back!  :rolleyes:

 

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Well, I have never used an Omega so I do not want to claim special knowledge, therefore the lack of detail. However, machines running under 10 kHz are designed for coin detecting and nobody wants to dig hot rocks in parks and school yards. On many coin machines hot rock signals can be eliminated without much fear of losing coins and can be factory set to do just that. On White's higher end coin detectors hot rocks get dumped into a special +95 VDI category and simply blocking that blocks the hot rocks. The Omega could be factory set to do the same. But yes, there are always trades to be made and there will be corresponding holes in the detection capability that usually would be detrimental for detecting weak signals/low conductive targets.

From the DFX Engineering Report http://www.whiteselectronics.com/the-hobby/knowledge-base/field-reports/dfx -

Hot Rock Rejection

Setting or clearing +95 in the DISC Editor (on the XLT®) can have a pretty dramatic effect. So, we have provided an adjustment to allow for more "shades of gray" between the extremes of simply accepting or rejecting this number with the DFX™.

A setting of 20 with the DFX™ does the same thing as selecting +95 to reject regarding XLT® models. Turning it all the way down to 0 makes it a "hot rock accept" control, like making +95 an accepted target did previously with the XLT®. A setting of 10 means that the detector will neither accept nor reject the target; it does nothing. Other settings give greater or lesser degrees of acceptance/rejection.

+95 in the disc editor controls whether the number is displayed, but has no effect on the audio response."

Remember that +95 in the DISC editor now only controls the Visual Discrimination of those readings. Audio Discrimination response to +95 readings is controlled by HOT ROCK REJ. A setting of 20 is the same as setting +95 to reject in an XLT. Setting to 0 is the same as clearing +95 to accept. A HOT ROCK REJ. setting of 10 means that the reading will have no effect on the audio Ñ it will neither accept nor reject the target. Other settings give various degrees of acceptance or rejection.

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