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Know nothing about the detectors you mention. As far as nickels go, back in my coin shooting days with my Etrac I'd hunt certain public parks, schools, etc. etc. and after several hunts I'd get an idea of the overall situation as to how hard an area has been hit and also an idea of the expertise of previous hunters and possibly the gear they used? After a few areas I'd get a feel for the location and notice things like most silver gone or maybe few coins in the surface to 6" range, etc....little clues. When silver was super sparse or "cherry picked" I'd focus on nickel targets/#'s and start popping V's and Buff's (and beaver tails). Most guys, especially in parks, scrim out nickel range targets because of trash. LOTS of nickels left out there guys along with the occasional gold ring that turns up in same range and many do. I called it "nickel knocking" and had a blast chasing the nickels and my last 2 season chasing nickels I'd average maybe 250/season with approximately 10% being buffs/V's/war nickels. Best place for nickels is curb strips because of way less beaver tails and general trash you'd find in more public areas like parks/schools etc. Another benefit hunting curb strips is the quality of the nickels is generally much better because most homeowners don't use fertilizer on that (city) curb strip. I had one city park that had lots of buffs/V nickels but whatever fertilizer they used just trashed the nickels so I quit hunting there entirely even though lots of V's and buffs turned up. Focus on the nickels and hit those curb strips.....have a bunch of fun! I guess my theory on why so many nickels is that most guys scrim them out to avoid trash...??? PS...only truly RARE coin I've ever dug was a 3-legged 1937D buff in great shape for a dug nickel because the curb strip never saw any fertilizer. Sold that 3 legger to a forum member on here..... Pic is very last coin shooting season (2017?) "keeper" nickels. Been on gold nuggs ever since...

May 24 2002 Part One We had a pretty good cleanup this morning with .6 ounces in the pan. We got an early start with Vern, Jim, and I going up to dig and Jacob staying down at camp. Our cut into the base of the mountain is quite wide now and we have seen some examples of rolling bedrock. Due to all the upheaval in this entire area bedrock is illusive. One day you encounter it and the next it has dived deeper. Without the necessary heavy equipment and permits we are waiting for the work continues to be slow but steady. Fortunately, the weather has remained on the cool side. At the end of the day we washed 14 yards of gravel. TO BE CONTINUED .............

Normally, I’m more of a coin and jewelry type guy, but when given the opportunity to hunt a CW Union camp, I’ll take it! The place has been in use continually since the Civil War as residential/farmland. So I am sure there is a mix of ages to the stuff which can be found. The live round is stamped FA 43 which should be Frankford Arsenal in Pennsylvania. This looks like a pistol round to me, and from what I have found, the 43 should be the date (1943). Any ideas on the caliber or type? The badge/tag has a little green patina. The pins are the only magnetic part. If I stare until I go cross eyed I think there used to be lettering on the top, bottom and middle. But I can’t make anything out. I would think if it is modern mass-produced, the two ends would be roughly symmetrical. But they’re not. With no details I’m guessing it’s going to be pretty impossible to ID. But does this look like anything anybody has found from the Civil War? The big ring and the jewelry ring may be brass because they are both weathering black. Alas, there was no stone in the ring. Just six prongs. There is a hole underneath the prongs for light refraction, so I figured it must’ve had a real stone. The bigger brass ring (hoop) was made from a flat piece of metal bent around to form a tube and then bent to form a ring. Looks like there is a punch point through one end and the rest of the hoop beyond the punch point has broken off. I figure it’s probably garbage, but thought I would post it here first, as artifacts are not my bag. The smaller shark tooth shaped thing is lead. I see no connection point for a line. It is painted black. If I scribble on it with a number two pencil, and then wipe off the graphite, I leave a small groove. So it may be older, unhardened, lead. But the lack of a lot of powdery whitish surface oxidation makes me think it might be newer. Any ideas? Also found a bent fork, a possible hinged medicine container, part of a harmonica, and a couple 1950’s wheats along with a couple modern coins. Found one square nail in a hole with another target. Judging by the racket, I could dig a couple 5 gallon buckets of square nails at this site if I wanted to. Thanks F350Platinum and Rattlehead! I used Relic Reaper when the nails weren’t to dense and Silver Slayer otherwise. This is a new permission and I just scouted it last weekend. There is a lot left to cover (and learn) and I will keep you posted! Thanks for looking!

May 24 2002 Part Two Jacob Unwinds A Tale When we got back to camp Jacob was working on a good supper for the crew. He told us he was quite proud of the way we were working and our determined attitudes. He said that is exactly what it takes to be a gold miner. He served up hash with hot water cornbread and his own baked beans from a special recipe. I’m telling you that this was one heck of a good supper for a tired and hungry crew. After we ate he broke out some beer and a bottle of Bushmills. It seemed like he was in a pretty good mood and felt like talking. He wasn’t always like that. Sometimes he was very quiet and introspective. We knew when to leave him alone and always let him decide when he wanted to have a good talk with us. Tonight, as we stoked up the campfire and sipped some good Irish whisky, he asked us if we wanted to hear a true story. A story that only the crew from 1937 had been told. I said yes, of course we do. So he began to tell us what he said was a true tale that he had experienced right here where we were sitting. TO BE CNTINUED .................

I'm not sweating it at all and as long as you all are liking the Rocks, Minerals, Gems & Geology Forum that's all that really matters. Consider the question answered, and thanks!

Well, we just had a Nigerian join and pull the classic Nigerian scam. He sent PM messages to I do not know how many members about needing help with collecting some funds, you get a lot of it for helping, blah, blah, blah. Luckily he sent me one so I shut it down in 20 minutes, but in twenty minutes he could have spammed a lot of people. If I had not caught him, in a couple days he could have really went wild. At least one new member asked that his account be deleted after getting it, as he thought getting it was a consequence of joining the forum. Over 30% of first time posters are now spammers. The worst are the "sleeper" spammers, who post, then go back and edit the post a week or two later to include a spam link. They like to quote somebody, then go back later and bury a link in the quote - makes it look like the person the quoted put in the link, not them. And a few are just burying a link in a line that looks like this: ______ just somewhere it might not be noticed. Obviously not a "click on this link" so much as trying to boost Google ranking by making it look like this site links to their site. We are getting lots of one time posters on the Rock forum who post a bunch of photos saying "what is this" and never respond to the people who take time trying to help identify the photos. I suspect they are just using this site to host photos for use elsewhere, since it's often ten photos, not one. To sum up, maybe one or two out of a hundred new members actually hangs around and posts more than once or twice. The rest are spammers or lurkers. Long story short is I am again considering creating a "New Member" account for new members, that basically only allows them to post text. No links, no photos, no PMs, no editing of posts, nothing but text, until they have made 10 posts over a 30 day period or more. That eliminates somebody just slamming out ten junk posts quick. After proving they are a person who really is interested in being a participating member, then they can have access to the other stuff. It's either that or at some point I'll just stop accepting new members unless it is by request or recommendation, which would obviously tend to suppress new membership. But oh well. Right now every day first thing I have to review all new members, plus periodically do a deep dive into older new members going back for months to catch the sleeper agents. I'm not particularly busy at the moment and it's all fine, and in a way I'm just whining a bit at the moment. But if my life does get busier for some reason, or I just get tired of the sheer volume of the nonsense, I may put some sort of brake on things. That does not affect any of you per se, other than the possibility new members do not replace members that leave fast enough, and the forum does not grow like it has been, or even starts to slow down. People might think that prospect would be something I would care about, but it's much less so than people might imagine. I'm not a social media butterfly chasing eyeballs and outside of this forum can't be found online anywhere else, and being offline entirely is more a dream than a threat.

Years ago, when I learned how EMI affects a detectors performance I did a simple study. I took my detector to many different locations to determine the maximum air distance of a US dime from the coil, using the most stable settings at the time. I used the greatest distance as a starting point to near zero EMI affect on my detector (my opinion). I then marked the maximum distance I could obtain on the lower shaft (12" for the Equinox). So now, when I go hunting, I can get a good guess by air testing the machine (machine health check), if something is wrong with either the machine or maybe even silent EMI (not audible chatter). Looking at the picture, I have a mark at about 12" which is the maximum distance I can get using a US dime and the Equinox after the best settings and noise cancel. It is surprising, just how many times I can't get a repeatable audio at 12" regardless of my settings (effects of EMI). But moving only 20', things might change, better or worse. This works good on all the detectors I've ever used. The F75 tends to be affected a little more by EMI but the maximum air test is quite a bit more than the Equinox. Both machines have places where they outperform the other.

JW and I often gold hunt at a spot that has high voltage power lines run smack through it from a hydro dam, it's amazing how different times of day affect the EMI in the area, it's rather remote apart from those power lines, no houses or anything going to cause EMI, not on a flight path or anything like that. We both agree on the characteristics of EMI at this place and how different times of day or even weather affect it. During heavy fog which happens quite a bit at that spot being a gully at the bottom of mountains the EMI drops right down, detectors go so calm, even the old model GPX purrs along. Wind direction seems to affect EMI from the lines too, depending on which direction the wind blows it seems to change the EMI, so weird. Times of day mean a lot, perhaps its demand on the lines but certain times of day have higher EMI, towards the end of the day usually the detectors enjoy a more stable operation right when you're getting tired and hungry the detector starts to purr 🙂 At dusk it's usually a really good time for stability which is odd as that would be a high power load time with everyone at home cooking dinner, so I don't know if it has anything to do with power draw. As it gets dark EMI goes right down. You can be hunting in one spot in the morning (a spot where I not too long ago found a 4 gram nugget) and the detector be frustrating to use, noise cancels all the time and then as the day goes on suddenly the EMI calms right down and things improve dramatically. The GPZ is by far the best detector to use at this spot, it really handles the EMI exceptionally and can detect right up near these massive power lines, especially when outfitted with the concentric coil, even though it's 15" it handles EMI much better than smaller coils than it is, perhaps due to it's small receive winding. EMI is a depth killer so doing all you can to have a detector running without being affected by EMI is important, I think you're better off running a lower sensitivity and not getting bad EMI than running unstable with EMI with higher sensitivity. EMI is also a big reason detectors get unstable or bouncy target ID's, EMI is acting like a target, the detector is detecting something (EMI) so even if you hit a good target but have EMI at the same time it can change your Target ID's undesirably.

EMI is a killer no matter what machine you have. Even a pulse machine is affected. And EMI can change even if you stand still. You never know when more EMI is produced, whether it be from from military, aviation, or just an increase in house hold electric usage. I've even notice that sometimes are better to hunt that others depending on the sun. I love late afternoon hunts vs early morning (sunrise) hunts. Maybe just coincidence, but I do better in the late afternoon. I wonder if guys that hunt at night can tell the difference from a day hunt?

You'll get used to digging a lot after a while 😄 The fields have more non ferrous targets and better chance for silver. The beach gets hit a lot and only small areas open up every once in a while, like the one I did at the end of the day. You guys have tame sand but that means everyone has good depth from their machines, so you have to get deep to get the gold. Yeah, I wish Minelab would just release a lot of machines rather than trickle them out. Many other people have way more time than I do to hunt, so they could learn the Manticore a lot better and faster than me. Most of the fields have nice, dark dirt, except as you get closer to the beach. The banks don't protect the fields during Nor'easter storms, so there is always some mix of dirt and salt/sand. There you will get the usual effects of tarnishing the silver. Yeah, the beach produced a lot of iron that reads funny with the black sand. There were times the discriminator was not convincing that I was digging a non ferrous target. So I dug almost everything. Some non ferrous did read iron. It's going to take me a while to get what I want from it on a beach. I'm fairly sure it's doable, I just have to figure out how. On land it's a lot easier to get comfortable with it. I always dig more in tricky situations. The black sand smeared the discriminator sometimes making some iron sound good and some non iron sound bad. I should go by tone more and leave the 2D screen alone during those situations. On normal sand, the 2D discrimination works really well when combined with pinpoint, 90 degree turn, double beep, and quality and tone of the target. I think I would have passed on more targets had it not been for that 925 knot ring. They always get you to dig more when they throw you a bone 😄 I do dig a lot to double check that I am not blindly assuming the discrimination works evenly, everywhere I go. In tough ground, I dig more. I rarely ever leave a target in the ground once I start digging. On large, unmovable targets, I have to leave them only to dig them up again and again on different hunts 😄 Good luck when your Manticore comes in. I think you will like it a lot. It hits hard on solid targets like coins and rings. But it hits little crap too.🙄

Deus 2 is a big improvement over Deus 1 for people that hunt in iron mineralization, salt mineralization or both at the same time since it runs much quieter and ground balances better in those more extreme ground conditions. It is also a big improvement over Deus 1 for any kind of submerged in water hunting. For people that hunt in steel alloy and aluminum trashed parks, Deus 2 is a gigantic improvement over Deus 1. I basically would not take a Deus 1 into a really modern trashed area with constant aluminum and steel bottle cap trash in the past. For people who depend on correct target IDs and audio tones on deeper targets especially low to mid conductor non-ferrous targets, Deus 2 is a humongous improvement over Deus 1 if soil or beach conditions are even slightly mineralized. Up averaging of deeper coin sized targets for the most part has been eliminated until the depth of detection is reached in most ground conditions that aren't too extreme. It still has virtually the same great ergonomics as Deus 1, same portability, and same fantastic iron trash handling.

Those are all good links for weeding out spammers! We use them all over at FMDF.

I employ commercial spam email and ip filtering or the task would be overwhelming. However, spammers create endless new accounts so there are always some that pass the filters, and those are the issue. I've avoided having to give manual approval to each new member, but that certainly is an option at this point, since I am manually reviewing and watching them anyway. This discussion has allowed me to focus however. What is the goal here? Why did I set this forum up? It was to attract the kind of people I want personally to hang out with. Drama free people who just want to talk about gold prospecting or metal detecting. And to help people who have questions about those subjects. That's it, plain and simple. People who join and never post are not contributing to that goal. They are not asking for help with a question. They are not engaging in the conversation or helping answer questions for others. The only reason I have been given to allow members to join and not post is so they can PM people who place ads in the Classifieds. Well, that's nice for the people placing the ads, but pretty thin otherwise, as most members do not place ads at all. "(which is down to almost none now that we took your lead and deleted the zero posters.THX for the idea ! ) We now require 1 post within a month and 10 posts before allowing links. All newbs have to be approved before posting access is granted. (I think the 10 post minimum was the most effective part of our effort.)" Speaking of the Classifieds I had a real problem there, and it never went away until I imposed a 10 post requirement on placing ads. So yeah, that works. Getting rid of the zero posters older than 90 days has had no ill effects, and if it's just to support people who want to PM on an ad, then 30 days will still be fine. Anyway, thank you for that feedback. It's good to know the one post in 30 and 10 post rule is working for you.

Often the soft copper oxidation will hold the detail while the metal below it has been destroyed. It might be worth it to not clean the coin to save the detail but this can be messy when you have a lot of coppers. I clean all my coppers. I think they look better cleaned and my hands don't get dirty when handling them.

I have not used the Deus 1 but I've been using the Deus 2 for a long time now with great success. Because it is everything the Deus 1 is and much more, I would say the Deus 2 is the better choice, but you have to consider your budget and where you want to use it. Perhaps if you provide more information it would help. 🙂 To have all the Deus 2 accessories and coils will cost you well over US $2,000. Each accessory is more expensive than the Deus 1, although some work with the Deus 2. The coils are not interchangeable.

I don’t clean my musket balls. My first really old find was 1804 large cent. Everything I did to it did more damage to the point it was an unrecognizable slug. I now use the hippocratic method - first do no harm.

I wouldn't sweat it, Steve. The answers do help others besides the OP's. As we go through life, we're bound to run into the occasional butthead. Irritates me, but nothing we can do about it. Jim

Hugh (Chase Goldman) has been a big help. Moderators are great at taking care of old fashioned fights and such. Watching for and chasing down these spammers is what is getting to be more problematic. I'm pretty sure on lots of forums the solution is just ignore it. So what if a post made a month ago suddenly spouts a link to some "write college papers for free" website? It's not noticeable in current conversation, which is where most moderator efforts are focused. But yeah, being a detail oriented control freak I do all the background and more tedious stuff. Maybe I'm part of the problem as I just don't like spammers.

I have several buddies who own both the Deus II and the Manticore and the number of nickels they continue to pull from heavily hunted parks is just astounding. These parks have been hit and hit hard by every detector including the Equinox. I personally have hunted several of these parks with my Equinox and my Legend and usually come away with a ton of tabs and just a few nickels. Do you guys think this is due to the expanded TID on the Deus II and the Manticore? Perhaps the averaging that goes along with lower number TID scales is being nullified to a degree by the 0 - 100 scales on these two detectors. A buddy of mine dug 11 nickels in an hour and a half at a pounded park yesterday and he said every one came in at a 27. Bill

There has been quite a bit of discussion about the Deus audio and how target TID can differ from target audio. In my effort to learn the D2 more thoroughly, I've been trying to learn the sounds and diferences between Tones vs Pitch vs Full Tones and PWM vs Square audio. I came from a square tone world so working in PWM has taken some getting use to, but I am finally starting to get the hang of it. I still like Square audio and really like Pitch tones, but have forced myself to use Full Tones in PWM to train my ears. One of the main advantages I am learning with PWM is that it gives more subtle audio information that can help with identifying targets. I was reminded of this again last weekend when I was invited by a detecting buddy to help out on a Ring Rescue mission. He is the consummate jewelry detectorist and a member of Ring Finders. So I met up with him a tiny house to look for a lost wedding ring set in a small gravel covered yard. It was a short hunt and we both covered the area with no luck. Since we still had an hour or two to kill and some sunshine to burn, we decided to hit a small park that I had never been to. This is when the D2 decided to teach me another lesson. I decided to start off in the Silver Slayer program (Fast, Notch to 40, No upper Notch, Pitch in Square audio) to cover more area in the short time we had. I had only travelled a short way across the field glancing at every good sounding TID looking for nickel and dime to quarter range signals when I noticed a recurring 57 number popping up. That's usually a junk target in my parks, but as the D2 would explain, not always. That's when I stopped and changed back to my Fast Full Tone program with PWM audio and retraced my steps. I could hear a familiar wavy/scratchy with iron bump sound with most of the 57s but one sang out hard and round. I dug all the 57s and I'm glad I did, because the really good sounding one turned out to be a 10K gold ring with a heart shaped Fire Opal two small diamonds! The D2 reminded me to stick with the lesson program and complete my training and I will, although I'll happily accept more lessons like that! 😎 To recap the lesson plan: See with Your Ears...

I admit I am getting tired of the folks that join, post a bunch of "what is this" photos, and then never respond when people take the time to answer. No thank you, nothing. I've wondered if it is some sort of scam, but I follow up and watch, and most seem to be hit and run members - one post, gone forever. And a few sleeper spammers. Maybe people posting photos here to use elsewhere, as it always seems to be a bunch of photos at once. So I'll ask the longtime members - what do you think of this forum? Is it worth having? People ok with it in general? I'm only asking because these one time posters of whatever they found in the driveway are kind of putting me off answering here. But as long as you all are happy I'm happy, so just checking in.

If you're gold prospecting, Deus 1 without a doubt.

Welcome to the wonderful world of relic hunting, Geologyhound! You found some cool stuff, well done! That bullet looks like a .45 auto round to me, probably WWII to Korea vintage. The fork, brass plate and brass ring could be CW period. If you can find the maker's name on the fork, you may be able to narrow that date down. The lid looks like the top to a ladies compact (face powder). It and the ring feel like 1940's to 60's to me. Also check that shotgun cap before you toss it out, some of those can be really old. One suggestion, I use a version of the Silver Slayer on relic sites too, but I lower the first notch to 10-35 and remove the second notch entirely because many buttons can come in the 45-80 range as well as many old decorative and jewelry items on relic sites. IHPs can show up in the 70s because of all the iron. I know it can be daunting to hear so many sounds at once, but listen for the really good sounding targets between the noise. Good Hunting!

That was me 😄 Gorgeous 3 leg Buffalo. Thanks again for that. I want to move to Montana and detect there. Come on down to MA if you want to dig corroded nickels 😄. Your area produces pristine nickels compared to anywhere around me. Great looking coins! Nice collection of nickels.

On Thursday I hit up the beach I normally hit and found it sanded in. Even in the good spot. So I went further down and found even more nothing. Upon my return trip back to the entrance, I happened upon a target and discovered it to be a heavy and somewhat tarnished ring. Inside was stamped Mexico but it didn't have any other markings besides that. I got too ahead of myself I kept thinking it was 10k gold because it was tarnishing green and somewhat gold in color. Unfortunately when I finally did get back and ran an acid test on it, it was not 10k gold so im a bit disappointed in that. Oh well a ring is a ring. Today I hit up 6 beaches to find a beach that would produce. Went to all my regular spots, but found practically nothing except this one silvery pendant that I initially thought was a junker (due to the gemstones initially looking like plastic in the sun when I dug it out). It has the color of silver and when I looked again, the gem in the middle looked like it was cut, while the ones above and below shone like opals. I reckon that they're likely to be real. Still it was odd that it rang up as 24-26 on my legend. No luck on the beach search though, everything is pretty much sanded in for now. The last beach I did go to had a pier or something that went out towards the ruins of an old ship. Unfortunately that pier got wreaked in a storm, and so did the ship, so they tore it down recently. It would have been good to look there after they removed the pier but I was 2 days too late. Missed out on some silver but its alright. There's always new opportunities elsewhere.

Some of the cool stuff I find are old though. I guess my main concern is everything just getting sanded in so I can't even reach the targets. The gold had rocks filling the inner part of the band and the silver just looked old due to the design. (I got it cleaned up and it looks great)

That would have been a painful lesson for me given the scarcity/rarity of the 1804 Large Cent. Likely it didn't have much numismatic value in the condition it was in, but it would still be enjoyable to have something so unusual. Well, I assume you still have it... All USA large cents and half cents were made from 100% copper planchets. AFAIK no small cents were ever made of 100% copper -- early ones (1856-64) were 88% copper and 1864-1982 were 95% copper. (I don't recognize anything later as other than trash. 😠) I do think those with more tin included in the alloy (Indian Heads being typical) are resistant to corrosion -- at least they tend to be more attractive. But as to whether the alloys are more resistant than pure copper? Given that the early ones (Largies and Halfies) have been in the ground longer, maybe it's just the time effect that makes the biggest difference in them being more delicate. 18th and early 19th Century coins from other countries (e.g. Great Britain) might help break the stalemate, assuming they were alloys and not pure copper. (I have no idea of their detailed composition.) Maybe @kac , @F350Platinum , @Badger-NH , and others here can shed some light given they've found those coins too.

I have one of these too and they make a big difference. The other large difference was moving away from the big brick battery to lithium RC batteries. Once you get rid of the battery amplifier it is a whole lot quieter and you can run much hotter, which means better depth and higher stability setting

Deus II. Hands down no brainer decision.

Will do. I hadn't thought about a livery button. Thanks, I'll do some looking.

I’ve owned both, and for me it would be the Deus 2 without a doubt. With the Deus 2, you basically get a Deus 1 built in (running mono), plus SMF, more depth, and a much more stable ID. If budget didn’t allow for a D2 with remote, I’d still go for a D2 lite over a D1.

I am not doing anything at this point, just looking for suggestions, and I appreciate your comments. Welcome to the forum. The software is robust but it only allows so much. Most stuff, like posting photos is all or nothing, so it's not a matter of allowing just two photos. But spamming the forum with photos is not the problem really, and that was just an example, one that I would probably forgo. Forum membership is not required to be a lurker. Anyone can view the forum without joining. I am not the normal forum owner. Having members purely for the sake of having an inflated membership number is not something I seek. I'm not trying to sell ads to anyone, so that number serves no purpose. The forum exists for one reason only - good drama free conversation between decent humans with the goal of enlightening and informing. Anyone who is joining and not contributing to that goal does not need to be a member, and so this last year I began deleting accounts older than 90 days where the new member has not posted, and will continue to do so. I may take that down to 30 days.

I wash off the dirt but leave them white if possible.

I am being optimistic 🙂 The coils are an embarrassment, but we don't need to go there. I'm just hoping the engineers at Minelab have done a lot more than a $5 roll of copper tape can do, and if a roll of tape like that could improve it's EMI capability they've failed dismally and I hope that's not the case. Their slogan is performance is everything, but I really think having a detector of a reasonable quality matters too. For the price it should be shielded as good as the engineers could possibly do, anything less is not acceptable.

I’m sure I’m one of the newer members here. But as you might be able to deduce from my handle, the rock and mineral section is one of the reasons I joined. From beach combing as a kid, I’ve always loved rocks and lapidary. If questions/answers here can kindle a life interest in a couple truly curious people, I am willing to put up with a lack of a polite response from some drive-by posters.

Remember to investigate back and forth with pinpoint (vco) to get the shape. Use your imagination to see the shape that you hear🤫

I have the Pro Arc which is the F75 LTD with a different face plate. I get a consistent 15" air test on a US nickel with both the DST settings. All metal is absolutely awesome in the boost mode. I have a few civil war bullets I might try tomorrow.

New member? Check. Never posted (until now)? Check. Considering making a first post asking what kind of rocks are these? Another check, but I guess it would be a second post now. I even received a PM yesterday that was probably the scammer. It was gone before I could log in and read it, but I could tell from the email notification that it was likely a scam. I not a scammer, nor a sleeper, but I am likely to mostly be a lurker. The more active posters here know so much more than me that I doubt I'll have much to say other than ask questions, and even then I can usually find more information to read up on before asking than I have time to fully go through. That said, I can understand forbidding new members from sending PM until they have first posted, but I would think a lower threshold could serve the same purpose. Another forum I'm on stills allows new members to send PMs without making posts, but will ban anyone trying to sell via PM without prior posts. This was due to a significant number of new members who all had a "friend George in Ohio" that seems to have everything anyone wants to buy at unbelievably good prices. If you do clamp down on us, I would ask that you at least allow a couple photos. It might take me a year or more to get to the 10 post requirement to find out what these rocks are.

I find the forum a wealth of knowledge from a guy in Missouri that's lucky to get to Az on vacation once a year. I don't post often because well frankly most of you have forgot more about this hobby than I will ever know lol. I do enjoy reading those who do though, I learn a GREAT deal, so thanks to all of you.

Thank you! A lot to digest here. Coming from the Spectrum XLT, I figure the audio response setting is similar to the XLT’s pre-amp gain. But, the preamp gain setting tended to make the detector unstable with medium to high settings. This does not seem to be the case with the D2, at least with the low to medium audio response settings with which I have been tinkering. Square pitch seems a lot more like the XLT’s tones. I think what I will do is do is set up two custom programs side-by-side with the same tone settings - one PWM, and one square. I have read multiple times that an experienced user can hear the sharp edges of can slaw with PWM, and I would love to dig less of that!

I use the following site. https://www.stopforumspam.com/

Very impressive work for a newb ! You might be a "natural" ? What would you be spending that propane money on if you weren't having fun doing these ?

I don't know? But we both seem to be having ferrous ID issues in our respective operating modes. There may be users getting a different response in clean ground. Could it be that Black Sand is the culprit? I know air testing does not give the issues I am seeing in the field. Almost like a breakdown of detection. Targets always appear to be bitey, to me and not crisp and clean. [i am running square tones] The problem: If I turn up filters to make some items sound better initially, the game might be lost in fringe targets. Maybe this week I will try PWM sounds and see if the bitey responses smooth out. Thoughts?

Very nice pieces.

the revised manual is now up on Nokta's site but here you all go manual below The Legend User Manual (EN) - Software V1.11 View Download

Gotta say this one freaks me out a bit, was it an exercise in assimilation (digging everything to understand the detectors' discrimination capability), or habit, because with your PI you usually dig it all? 🤔 I like the black sand advantage using gold mode. This feels like a noob question but I thought I'd go for it anyway 🤣 Interesting hunt as usual, definitely more like one would expect from a PI than the new SMF machines. 😀 I'm glad you always show the "real deal". 👍

it sure does take a lot of heat, the gas forge I have goes through the 9kg LPG refills fairly quick doing the Railroad Spike projects. And like you say heating hammering then re heating the oil quench and then the tempering, there is a fair bit going on. and for the Axe/tomahawk punching the eye for the handle when red hot also takes a few re heats to get it done then drift it out to the handle size, all while trying to keep the eye on center is a challenge in itself anyway I now have a pair of Viking axes tomahawks or camp axes, whichever you want to call them, and also a pair of crevice tools now as well, been busy forging and using gas that's for sure the pair of axes and the pair of crevice tools cheers dave

So could just about everyone with access to one. Good to hear that, and it shows that with so many combined settings options (way more than the Equinox, for example) that your earlier statement is correct. I recall previously that you had not yet found a combo of settings that allowed you to detect in those difficult ferrous conditions. I was thinking similarly to GPT_G regarding your trash collection. I also note that two of your three silver coins from the grass/turf show signs of salt damage. So (probably not surprising to those of who live near the ocean) you were hunting in some intermediate zone between true dry-land turf and true beach conditions. At least that's this land-lubber's viewpoint. 😁 Thanks for your typical thorough report.

Using Silver Slayer will do that because of the discrimination and notch settings, it allows targets that fall below 00 to come through. There is a negative side to discrimination. I'm probably not giving you the best answer tho. One thing I will write for sure is that you could open up the nickel notch a bit but it may do more harm than good, I've found "V", Buffalo and Shield nickels that fell in at 58 with my program that SS would miss altogether. Just one point lower is all you need. I believe the badge is horse tack that broke off, it has broken prongs on the back and is heavy solid brass, about 3" in diameter. I remember it being a high tone, but set off the detector at more than a foot because it was shallow. I don't publish the settings simply because I wasn't sure of myself initially, the program is kind of wild because it neither notches nor discriminates. It's more "all metal" than any other. Notch is off, and Disc is 00. You will hear absolutely everything except that which definitely is iron, including the false tones iron often generates. The beauty of the program is that the iron that falses above 00 will show itself on a 45-90 degree turn, it will be pushed to a low tone like Silver Slayer. Silver Slayer eliminates the higher tone falsing altogether, or most of it. Again I don't know the science but it works. Only very few iron targets fool it. I tested it in the worst possible scenario recently (Culpeper VA red clay soil) and it acted a bit different there but with the same assimilation result. I was very pleased. For relic hunting you really want to hear everything, and use your hearing and site assimilation to discriminate. I've plucked a 14k gold ring and a hammered 1607 Silver sixpence half because I'm not using any discrimination. Simply put, you know it's good when you hear it. 😀

Uhhhh… Carl works for FTP last I heard. I’d still buy another Impulse AQ - done right. And would not turn my nose up at an impulse Gold. The one thing the Axiom crew would not give me is a manual ground balance. Not ground grab, actual manual ground balance.