Coin Shooting In Gold Mode

[glacialgold]

With the sun setting so early on DST, I haven't had a chance to go out after work lately for a relaxing bout of coinshooting. As a result, I've been fiddling around with some programs at home, waiting for the right weather and free time to test them out on the ground.

This morning I ducked out before breakfast and tested out a coinshooting program in Gold mode at a nearby schoolyard. I'd noticed in air tests that gold mode had solid depth on coins, and wanted to try make the mode work for coinshooting. So, here's what I tried out:

Gold M
Sensitivity (adjusted in the field, settled at 25)
Recovery speed 6
IF 3 / St 3 / BC 0
AG 2
GB auto
Noise cancel auto
Custom notch, keeping 23-27 and 38-57

The test site was a small section of a schoolyard I've hit many, many times with the Legend, the Nox, and the MXT Pro. Lots of modern clad, a few rings (silver at best), and plenty of aluminum (shredded cans, puil tabs, and small foil) and pencil erasers.

I'm not accustomed to running in Gold mode or pitch tones, so the audio part took a little time to get used to. After an hour of detecting, I pulled a quarter, a dime, 4 nickels, part of zincoln, as well as some aluminum scrap and pencil erasers. Nothing exciting, but still what I call good results for a brief period on hunted ground using new settings. I should add the coil was the LG24.

Normally I run Park M 1/2 in 60 tones all metal, but otherwise similar settings to the ones listed above. In Park and in my soil, nickels center around 25, but can hit at 23 if deep, and sometimes a 26/27 if shallower. In the Gold program, nickels hit at 23/24, and showed 1-3 ferrous bars for some reason. I found pencil erasers sounded great but stayed right at 27. The quarter was a weird one, 2" down and jumping from a 47-55. (I'd typically see quarters at a rock solid 50/51 in Park.) Today's quarter, however, was like 6" from a metal piece of playground equipment, which may account for the odd signal.

Overall, it was a fun experiment, and a chance to learn how the machine behaves differently in Gold mode. I don't think I'd use this program on a new location, but this test indicates it has some merit on previously-worked ground catching targets missed with more traditional settings.

[JCR]

It is fun to experiment, and if you make it a learning experience, profitable.

[Digalicious]

I really enjoy testing out various modes and settings as well.

I managed to get some recovery speed experimentation in, just before the ground froze up here. More specifically, experimentation with running the recovery speed at the minimum of 1. 

In my air tests with the recovery speed, I found no depth difference between 1 and 5, but a huge linear depth difference of 4" between 5 and 10. In really trashy sites, I typically ran 8 for the recovery speed, and sometimes ran 10. Of course, losing 3” to 4” of depth in the process, while apparently gaining a little  better separation ability.

I thought to myself: With a high recovery speed, am I really digging more treasure because of a little extra separation ability, or am I digging less treasure because of significant depth loss? I mean, due to the way DD coils are designed, they already have extraordinary separation ability. Plus, even with a low recovery setting on these modern SMF detectors, the separation ability is kind of remarkable.

Another factor to consider, aside from significant depth loss with a high recovery speed, is that higher recovery speeds give less accurate TID. That less accurate TID is most prevalent on the deep and old targets that we often are hunting for! For example, that deep silver may give a very low TID, perhaps even in the ferrous range, or could very well not be detected at all with a high recovery speed. Yet, a low recovery speed hits it loud and clear with a proper TID.

When I’m hunting for copper and silver, I always use M3 or 4khz for two reasons:

1) The low frequencies penetrate the ground deeper, and produce a better response on high conductors.

2) Low frequencies unmask high conductors from nonferrous trash, notably better than mid frequencies like M1, and high frequencies like M2.

Incidentally, M1 is weighted around 15khz, M2 is weighted around 40khz, and M3 is weighted around 7khz. That M3 weight is for Park mode. I don’t know for sure if it’s the same weight in Field mode’s M3, but it wasn’t in the beta test for that new M3.

I tested in my backyard using M3 and 1 on the recovery speed. Now, countless times I’ve gone over my backyard looking for high conductors, with various coil sizes, at various angles, and with various settings. I’m sure you all can relate to that 🙂. Anyway, I lost all hope of finding any more high conductors in my backyard, but then again, I always used a high recovery speed due to the massive amount of trash. So, I spent about an hour with M3 and a recovery speed of 1, and was rewarded with a large cent too corroded to date, and a 1919 Canadian 5 cent piece. Both were very deep, and that 5 cent piece is probably about the smallest diameter, and thinnest coin ever produced. Tough to hit those!

It’s still a little too early to tell, but it looks like from now on, I’m going to be using the lowest recovery speed, no matter how high the trash density is. To me, the major depth gain and TID accuracy advantage of using the minimum recovery speed, trumps the slight increase in separation ability of a high recovery speed.

Coincidently, a couple of days ago on a different forum, a member started a thread titled, “DEUS 2 ZERO REACTIVITY.... THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!”. You can probably guess by his thread title, what he thinks of a low recovery speed.

[JCR]

Recovery speed 1 on the Legend is deeper in clean ground with little to no mineralization But, you have to sweep the coil just right. There is a very narrow and unforgiving speed window at fringe depth. Slow for sure, but it’s hard to know when it is just right. Recovery speed 2 is practically as deep and much more forgiving. Add enough minerals to show on the Legend’s scale and you better go to Recovery speed 3. This has been my experience with 8 to 10 inch plus coins running the LG 35 flat out.

[Digalicious]

8 hours ago, JCR said:

Recovery speed 1 on the Legend is deeper in clean ground with little to no mineralization But, you have to sweep the coil just right. There is a very narrow and unforgiving speed window at fringe depth. Slow for sure, but it’s hard to know when it is just right. Recovery speed 2 is practically as deep and much more forgiving. Add enough minerals to show on the Legend’s scale and you better go to Recovery speed 3. This has been my experience with 8 to 10 inch plus coins running the LG 35 flat out.

Hi JCR.

Yes, I can see how highly mineralized ground could pose an issue with minimum recovery speed. Fortunately, I'm in bald ass prairie land with little mineralization. As a bonus, this prairie land is so flat, people can watch their dog run away for a week!

Although I didn't notice any depth difference between 1 and 5, I did consider some other difference between 1 and 5. Which is why I said it was still too early to tell. I'm fairly certain I won't go above 5 ever again, so now it's going to be more about experimenting between 1 and 5, and more specifically, keeping an eye out for what you mentioned 🙂

 

[JCR]

Even in heavy trash/nails l have not seen any advantage going above 5. The target response gets too clipped for my ear. I would rather sweep slower in trash anyway to be more thorough. I am usually at 3 or 4.  In my Red dirt mineral ground, l usually set up at 6.  7 if the ground is wet.

Good discussion thread. Thanks

[HardPack]

13 hours ago, Digalicious said:

2) Low frequencies unmask high conductors from nonferrous trash, notably better than mid frequencies like M1, and high frequencies like M2.

Incidentally, M1 is weighted around 15khz, M2 is weighted around 40khz, and M3 is weighted around 7khz. That M3 weight is for Park mode. I don’t know for sure if it’s the same weight in Field mode’s M3, but it wasn’t in the beta test for that new M3.

This good to know information. I have a site loaded with non-ferrous trash then mixed and covered by a blanket of ferrous trash ranging from small rusted can pieces, nails, you name it  I have detected older silver in the past with an AT Pro (15khz). Detected the site a couple days ago with the EQX 900 in field 1, recovery 7. I played with recovery speed starting at 0 then adjusting up to 8 just to cut through the shallow ferrous. I pulled everything out the dirt except for the original owners but no silver. Field 1 is weighted on the lower frequency side but how low or at what range who knows. I know there are still good targets in the mix. Perhaps next time I’ ll go through the lower single frequencies in park 1 at a recovery below 5. Thanks for sharing.

[Digalicious]

1 hour ago, HardPack said:

This good to know information. I have a site loaded with non-ferrous trash then mixed and covered by a blanket of ferrous trash ranging from small rusted can pieces, nails, you name it  

Sounds like a site to use a low weighted SMF to unmask coins from the nonferrous trash, as well as a high weighted SMF mode to unmask coins from the ferrous trash.

[glacialgold]

Per @Digalicious and @JCR's recovery speed discussion, I dropped the recovery speed to 4 on the coinshooting Gold mode program and hit a couple of well-trodden parks today.

Quick hunts here since I was detecting between errands, so I can't say anything super definitive. The lower ecovery speed setting did seem to reduce the clipped signals a bit. I also noticed nickels moved back up to center around 25 rather than 23, and quarters locked in at 50/51.

ETA: Yeah, I know the Legend is running in the 20-40kHz range on Gold  and that runs counter to discussion about lowering both recovery speed and freqency, but I figured I'd try out the recovery speed piece on this program since I can't lower the frequency below 20kHz in that mode. 

[Gold Kruzer Jerry]

What is the deal with the pencil erasers while detecting in school yards ! Kids must eat their pencils !

I have hit about 10 of them last time out !

Gold Kruzer Jerry