Hunting By Ear With The D2

[CPT_GhostLight]

The Deus and Deus II have a reputation for allowing you to hunt by audio only and as I continue to learn my D2, I've been on a mission to train my ears to hear good target sounds and not look at the ID display so much. It's a work in progress for me, but I thank all the more experienced hunters here who have shared their knowledge and tips. It is sinking in and I am getting to where I can apply some of your expertise to my particular hunting sites and conditions.

Without getting into my usual long winded detecting stories, I'll say that I've been developing a variation in the Fast program that will allow good unmasking and go deep with good target sounds and separation to use in my mineralized ground. Isn't that what everybody wants? 😉 But I want to be able to use it without having my gaze glued onto the screen all the time. That's the hard part, but it's coming along.

I went out to a running trail here in town that was built on top of an old 1800s railroad track that has been gone since the 60s. I wanted to see if I could find any older targets that might be there and if I could hunt more by sound than sight. I ran Fast in Full Tones, PWM audio, Disc at -2.0, no Notch, Reactivity 2, Silencer 2, B-Caps 3, Sensitivity 96 (remember these setting don't work everywhere). This running trail has some benches around it and is loaded with modern park type trash. The cement top of the trail sits on a 4-5 foot mound of dirt covering and following the old RR track. I suspected the dirt mound was original dirt pushed in to cover the tracks after the rails and ties were removed, so I sarted off hunting the slopes along the sides of the trail and finding period targets right away. The cool thing about this program is I could easily tell iron by the sounds and only dug iron targets that I was curious about. Coins sounded like coins so I only glanced at the screen on the Zinc pennies because they sounded good and scratchy at the same time and ID confirmed it.

The ring was a great test for audio hunting at this site. There was a bench on a concrete pad on top of the mound next to the trail and I was hitting these little black twist caps everywhere around the bench. They were all a solid 82, fairly shallow, and sounded identical, but after the 4th one I dug, there was a a similar sound, but slightly fainter and more solid sounding if that makes any sense. I checked the screen and it was a solid 82 as well. I figured it was another screw cap, but it was quite a bit deeper into the mound. Imagine my surprise when out popped an old looking ring. I think it's silver or silver plated.

So short story long, I'm getting a little better at hearing difference in target sounds on the D2 and I dug 7 identical 82 ID targets together, but one sounded a little different and it was! 🙂

[JCR]

That’s a nice selection of old & newer keepers. Have you viewed that area & rail line on Historic Aerials? Must have been a busy spot.

Learning the audio subtleties of an expressive detector is well worth the time & effort, in fact you never stop learning.

Nice hunt & post. Thanks

 

[Ogliuga]

Very good hunt, congrats!

Have you ever used Pitch? With Pitch you don’t need to look at the screen because you can easily recognize the targets depth due to the intensity of the tone. My program for mineralized soils is with Pitch tone and, in my opinion, is performing. Obviously, sound identification isn’t detailed but, if your soils are mineralized, Pitch can be a good choice..

[GB_Amateur]

Are those the small aluminum caps from individual one drink size liquor bottles like sometimes served by airlines?  I suspect you'll find plenty of the larger aluminum screw caps from liquor and wine bottles along those railroad tracks.  I certainly do, often with the broken and jagged glass necks still attached.  Some of those go way back (to the Great Depression), I suspect.

[F350Platinum]

Nice hunt Cap'n!

Does the ring have any marks inside? Looks like plated brass.

I've found lots of those airline liquor bottle caps myself 🙄 annoying. One field had lots of 82's (I always react to the tone and then look at the ID anyway) and they all turn out to be bullets. Another has 85's that are all bullets. Just one of those things... No harm no foul. If you didn't keep digging them you would not have got the ring!

High trash count but I don't seem much iron in there, great job 👍

[ColonelDan]

Making excellent progress….that’s plain to see!!

Good job soldier…..

[CPT_GhostLight]

21 hours ago, Ogliuga said:

Very good hunt, congrats!

Have you ever used Pitch? With Pitch you don’t need to look at the screen because you can easily recognize the targets depth due to the intensity of the tone. My program for mineralized soils is with Pitch tone and, in my opinion, is performing. Obviously, sound identification isn’t detailed but, if your soils are mineralized, Pitch can be a good choice..

Yes I do like Pitch and use it with a few programs like the Silver Slayer when cherry picking. Pitch works great, but I also want to learn the subtle responses of Full Tones to hear the differences in target conductivity and shape, as well as depth for relic hunting.

21 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Are those the small aluminum caps from individual one drink size liquor bottles like sometimes served by airlines?  I suspect you'll find plenty of the larger aluminum screw caps from liquor and wine bottles along those railroad tracks.  I certainly do, often with the broken and jagged glass necks still attached.  Some of those go way back (to the Great Depression), I suspect.

Yes those small caps are from what we use to call shot bottles. There were also some larger caps and broken bottle pieces which you can see in the last trash photo. The small screw caps are modern, the larger ones are older. I think that place has been a popular drinking spot for a long time. 😉

22 hours ago, JCR said:

That’s a nice selection of old & newer keepers. Have you viewed that area & rail line on Historic Aerials? Must have been a busy spot.

Learning the audio subtleties of an expressive detector is well worth the time & effort, in fact you never stop learning.

Nice hunt & post. Thanks

 

Thanks, JCR. I did check that area on Historic Aerials. The railroad track was at the eastern edge of town in the 1940s and more houses show up on the east side beyond the track in the 1950s in the aerial phots which only go back to 1940s there. Early 1900s city maps show the same houses on the western edge of the track where they are in the first aerial photo, so I think there were people living next to the track for 120-140 years. 

19 hours ago, F350Platinum said:

Nice hunt Cap'n!

Does the ring have any marks inside? Looks like plated brass.

I've found lots of those airline liquor bottle caps myself 🙄 annoying. One field had lots of 82's (I always react to the tone and then look at the ID anyway) and they all turn out to be bullets. Another has 85's that are all bullets. Just one of those things... No harm no foul. If you didn't keep digging them you would not have got the ring!

High trash count but I don't seem much iron in there, great job 👍

Thanks F350. The ring doesn't have any hallmark that I can make out. I think it's plated too, it looks almost a identical to a ring I found at ghost town last Fall. The higher trash count was because I was trying to hunt by ear. I could tell many of the trash targets weren't good by the sound, but I dug them to verify. The iron was eay to tell so I only dug more interesting sounding pieces. I'm really liking Full tones like you suggested, it's got a lot of information going on in there. The hard part is learning to decipher the code, but I'm getting a little better. 😏

[Ogliuga]

2 hours ago, CPT_GhostLight said:

Yes I do like Pitch and use it with a few programs like the Silver Slayer when cherry picking. Pitch works great, but I also want to learn the subtle responses of Full Tones to hear the differences in target conductivity and shape, as well as depth for relic hunting.

Full tones are always my first choice when soil is mild, low mineralized. On hot soils, in my opinion, Pitch/2/3 tones is the best choice. I did a video test about the “more tones less depth” on Hematite. But on mild soils I love full tones/pwm which offer a detailed sound identification. After your tests let me know what you think. 👍

[Sandheron]

I only use full tones with a low audio response (2) the other settings are wide open to compensate. The remote stays in my pocket.