Beach Vs Land Programs: An Unmasking Conundrum

[ColonelDan]

36 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

Hmm. Interesting.  So there potentially is merit to zero iron volume as I suggested earlier in this thread.  But to be fair, I was suggesting it as an alternative to notch. Great info CPT.

I will test this approach tomorrow.  I’m particularly interested in trying a negative discrimination setting along with the lower iron volume because when I tried low iron volume without negative discrimination, the masking remained.  
If we find a solution, we will certainly capture those settings, post them in total and send a report to XP.

[midalake]

1 hour ago, CPT_GhostLight said:

When I set the Reactivity from 1.5-2.5, it improved the response even more with the lower Iron Volume settings.

Ugh, I have not had good depth testing responses with reactivity 1.5 and beyond. 

Myself, I hunt in 1 reactivity. 

[ColonelDan]

9 hours ago, midalake said:

Ugh, I have not had good depth testing responses with reactivity 1.5 and beyond. 

Myself, I hunt in 1 reactivity. 

Same here.  I try to stay at 0 and 1 at the most.

[Chase Goldman]

8 minutes ago, ColonelDan said:

Same here.  I try to stay at 0 and 1 at the most.

Same here on the beach.

9 hours ago, ColonelDan said:

I will test this approach tomorrow.  I’m particularly interested in trying a negative discrimination setting along with the lower iron volume because when I tried low iron volume without negative discrimination, the masking remained.  
If we find a solution, we will certainly capture those settings, post them in total and send a report to XP.

Yes, that with Notch might be the answer.  A case where the positive disc processing of the stake might be working against you.

[ColonelDan]

1 minute ago, Chase Goldman said:

Same here on the beach.

Yes, that with Notch might be the answer.

That’s exactly what I want to try…. Notch on 0-10 which should not affect the quarter at all if the software properly unmasks the quarter. 

[midalake]

1 hour ago, ColonelDan said:

Notch on 0-10 which should not affect the quarter at all

A Notch of 0-50 should not affect the quarter either [just saying] 

[F350Platinum]

Ok, my turn. 😀 Took the D2 and 13" to my local beach this morning with a tent stake and a shiny new clad quarter. Beautiful white river sand here.

Set Beach sensitive up with full tones and everything else Cap'n did, and buried the quarter and stake. I used the typical one I find:

The only program that caught the quarter on the edge of the coil was my modified General program with audio filter at 5. Only on the edge of the 13". I could literally sweep the edge back and forth and get a 93, get close to the center and iron. A 6/7. Some times it would average and I'd see a 58 or something in the 50s.

Changed reactivity, changed audio response individually, changed iron audio, nada in beach sensitive. Tried disc and notch separately, still a no go. Turned Audio filter up and got a click before and after the iron tone, reactivity 2. All this was with sensitivity at 95.

Guess I added a new sound to my dig repertoire, iron grunt with click might be a hit. 😀 Any high tone with iron makes me suspicious anyway since V1.1.

Then I thought, "How far does the stake have to be away from the 13" to allow the quarter to be found? 🤔

The answer is pretty far, like 8", unless you catch the coin on the heel of the coil, it nails it. Closer the tip is the more it will go to iron. 

There is a distinct advantage to using a larger coil on a tent stake beach, the edges pick up stuff. Some short wiggling is in order, keep the edge on the target. 

I'm sure this scenario is pretty limited, heck you can use General in the dry. Most tent stakes are in the dry anyway, right?

Ok, now I'm gonna duck and cover 🤣

[CPT_GhostLight]

Very interesting results, F350! I was using the 9" coil because that's what the Colonel uses and I wanted to recreate his circumstances as best I could. Maybe what I was experiencing was the coil edge phenomenon as well that hit on the quarter just enough without hitting the tent peg.

One thing I have noticed is the 9" coil runs noticeably hotter at Senitivity 95 than the 11" coil, so maybe that is allowing better coil edge detection. When I use the 11", I bump the sensitivity to 96 or 97 to get that same edge detect factor, which is great for locating targets a few inches away from the end of my sweep.

I'm going to try to get a longer time out to test all this more carefully and use both the 9" and 11" coils and different programs and settings to see if we can derive some more repeatable common data to help us all decipher some of the mysteries and anomalies of the D2. Any others, especially beach hunters, who want to test this would be very welcomed to help. Anything we can find out conclusively helps us all.

The D2 is a powerful and highly customizable machine and, with the more advanced user control we've been given in this latest update, I think we will figure all this out eventually. Onward and upward! 😎

[F350Platinum]

2 minutes ago, CPT_GhostLight said:

The D2 is a power and highly customizable machine and, with the more advanced user control we've been given in this latest update, I think we will figure all this out eventually. Onward and upward! 😎

Yeah I'm not going to say it's the be all and end all, but... This last update does seem to be a pretty good one. I do miss the simplicity of V.71 but am enjoying the wider parameters and extra settings, especially audio filter which meshes PWM and square.

I took the time to go in the water today as well, and have good to say about the Diving program, it's very quiet until it doesn't need to be. This on a tip from PI-Man and his 18k banner day.

This place is barren of good finds until it isn't, and it cleanly nailed two pennies in waist deep water. If there was anything out there I would have found it.

I got the shiny Zincoln in the dry, and the quarter in the parking lot. The parking lot is loaded with coins but also with aluminum bottle tops and pull tabs. I have to be willing to dig in gravel. Any time there is trash there the county mowing service just shreds it. 🤬

[ColonelDan]

A MineLab convert learns something new about the D2….again.

I was experimenting yet again with settings to see if I could unmask the quarter…. No luck except for my modified General program much like F350 reported.  
I went back to Beach Sensitive to try yet again, this time by adjusting the discrimination….and that’s when I realized that  you can’t go below 0.0 discrim in the Beach programs.  I’ve experimented with negative discrim in Gary Blackwell’s Sonar program but it never crossed my mind to try it with a beach program….until now.  Initially, I thought it was some sort of malfunction, but no, it’s embedded in the software from what I could determine!  
I never stop learning about this amazing detector!😁

BTW CPT, I use an 11” coil.  Since 99% of my detecting is on the beach, I don’t even own a 9 inch coil.😉

I sincerely want to thank all you guys for jumping in on this unmasking investigation.  If we can find a way to unmask the good target next to iron on the beach or make XP aware of all this so they can address it, we will have helped many fellow detectorists  in my view…..of course that also means helping out our competitors!!!  😂