Pi Question

[Guest]

Just finished a second day hunting with the new Mirage PI. Short days, I seldom go for more than 2-3 hours, but enough to start learning a new to me machine. Something I notice and wonder about. The  9.5" mono coil appears more sensitive to iron near the edge of the coil, while nonferrous seems to hit harder near the center of the coil. Could that be a thing or am I deluded? If it is a real thing, is it a reliable way to make dig decisions?

I could swear I read something somewhere about this, but am no longer sure because I am deluded in general anyway. Anyone got thoughts?

[AllenJ]

Interesting question but I'm still pretty new to metal detecting and don't have an answer, I do however look forward to what people who have more experience have to say about this.  I've used three coils, a DD, a mono sniper coil and a Miner John's Folder Mono and each had their own way of detecting things.  The folded mono took some getting used to and I still use a test target from time to time to remind me how it detects toe to heel and side to side while sweeping over a target.  I dug enough "large" holes when I first got it to know I'm saving time and effort with my practice tests lol. 

[Steve Herschbach]

When using a mono coil very weak targets will signal best right against the coil winding. As a target gets stronger the place with the best signal will shift to the middle of the coil. Ferrous items signal better on a PI so it would make sense that they would tend to show up in the middle first, but it is mainly just a signal strength thing.

On the other hand a spike or other long ferrous item buried horizontally can throw the signal way off center. When I used my 18" mono coil some targets that seemed dead center would turn out to be a large nail about 9" off center and deep.

[AllenJ]

27 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

On the other hand a spike or other long ferrous item buried horizontally can throw the signal way off center. When I used my 18" mono coil some targets that seemed dead center would turn out to be a large nail about 9" off center and deep.

Awesome information, thank you.  That actually explains a lot of wide holes I had to dug for square nails last year!