Beach Vs Land Programs: An Unmasking Conundrum

[F350Platinum]

8 minutes ago, ColonelDan said:

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!!!  😂

From what live beach results I've seen lately with other newer machines, we already don't have that much to worry about. 😎 It's sad but kinda a thrill to have another detectorist ask me if I'm finding anything because he isn't. I just say "I'm doing all right"... 🤷‍♂️

I would hope adjusting reactivity would sort this out, but it really doesn't, and the higher you go you begin to lose the deeper stuff. That's always been the deal relic hunting, and I agree with the Cap'n that higher sensitivity gets you fringe targets outside the swing that are worth investigating.

[ColonelDan]

31 minutes ago, F350Platinum said:

From what live beach results I've seen lately with other newer machines, we already don't have that much to worry about. 😎 It's sad but kinda a thrill to have another detectorist ask me if I'm finding anything because he isn't. I just say "I'm doing all right"... 🤷‍♂️

I would hope adjusting reactivity would sort this out, but it really doesn't, and the higher you go you begin to lose the deeper stuff. That's always been the deal relic hunting, and I agree with the Cap'n that higher sensitivity gets you fringe targets outside the swing that are worth investigating.

Yep, I routinely keep reactivity at 0-1 on the beach because of the depth issue and I really don’t need too much separation….which is one saving grace where this masking shortcoming is concerned.

[CPT_GhostLight]

2 hours ago, ColonelDan said:

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!!!  😂

I'm sorry, Colonel, you're right. I forgot I was on the duplicate settings in the General program when I was lowering Disc below zero. It's hard to keep good notes when I'm trying to beat a target into submission. 😏

Also for some reason I thought you had the 9" coil. Well that's just one more reason to go back and test again. 😉

[ColonelDan]

33 minutes ago, CPT_GhostLight said:

I'm sorry, Colonel, you're right. I forgot I was on the duplicate settings in the General program when I was lowering Disc below zero. It's hard to keep good notes when I'm trying to beat a target into submission. 😏

Also for some reason I thought you had the 9" coil. Well that's just one more reason to go back and test again. 😉

👍🏻😊

[midalake]

3 hours ago, ColonelDan said:

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.

Could have sworn I did run -6.4 in a few beach programs under .71 for a few days. Did you try in .71? I actually wrote a review somewhere. 

[ColonelDan]

1 minute ago, midalake said:

Could have sworn I did run -6.4 in a few beach programs under .71 for a few days. Did you try in .71? I actually wrote a review somewhere. 

You may be right about .71.  I can’t swear to that one way or the other.  Both of my D2s are using 1.1  and they don’t go into negative territory 

[midalake]

3 minutes ago, ColonelDan said:

You may be right about .71.  I can’t swear to that one way or the other.  Both of my D2s are using 1.1  and they don’t go into negative territory 

I actually rather liked it. If you don't want to back date, I will be back on my .71 D2 in August, and I can check. If it does go to -6.4 I just might try a notch from there. 

[TJ Jeepguy]

General is just on another level around iron. Glad you guys are putting this machine through the wringer!  I haven’t got to experiment too much lately. All my inland sites are full of poison ivy and skeeters.  

[CPT_GhostLight]

6 hours ago, TJ Jeepguy said:

General is just on another level around iron. Glad you guys are putting this machine through the wringer!  I haven’t got to experiment too much lately. All my inland sites are full of poison ivy and skeeters.  

I was hunting down by a river today and those blood suckers swarmed me! I think I took out about a half dozen of them before I had to make a hasty retreat. Next time I go down there, I'm going to send a cow in there first to keep them lil' suckers busy before I go in. 🦟🪓🤨

[ColonelDan]

I must conclude that we who use the beach programs are destined to see this masking issue continue until XP engineers solve it for us.  No combination of settings on our end yet found will do it on buried targets.  Several of us here on this thread have tried all we know how with no success.  We can successfully unmask good targets using land based programs but not the beach programs. 

For those who do hunt the beach, the General program will work but only on the very dry sand....and I've also used a modified Deep HC program but again, only on the very dry sand.  Once you get those programs into even minimally wet sand, they are not effective...nor can they be. 

Another small consolation is that, at least on the beaches I hunt, good targets are seldom laying very close to ferrous junk. So if you're an odds player, those odds are slightly in your favor.  But in as much as this is a software problem,  I'm confident that the software developers, and only they, can solve it.  Those same engineers have created the best detector on the market today by far, so again, I'm highly confident this too can be overcome....but only with their help.  I do hope this issue gets into the hands of XP engineers so they can work their magic.

Thanks again to all who jumped into this and gave their time and effort in trying to resolve it and find a solution open to us...the Deus II user community.  I salute and appreciate you all....👍   Soldier on.