help??
hey, everyboby, LOVE the new forum!!!! I have a few questiions, I t'h in the ozarks of arkansas, & I"m picking up (hot rocks) never heard of this until yesterday, I'm new 2 this, any way, I have land that goes back to the 1800s w/ graveyard on it. & I have found 1 ,1942 wheat, Lots & Lots & lots of nails & rusty junk!!!! what am I doing wrong???? any help, hints???? THANKS PAM :-)
I found a way to find more coins. I collected a silver dollar, my gold wedding ring, a couple of other coins & a piece of my wife's gold jewelry. After finding a 2' square piece of ground with no readings, I buried each item 10". I then "found" the item recording all settings, sound of beep & coil height above the ground. I now have a chart to help me read my White's Classic IDX. It has helped a lot knowing that BEEP means a ring & not a poptop. I still dig a lot of trash, but my finds have really increased!Great Hunting!
first of all, it surprises me you arent finding anything good. have you tried turning up the discrimination? and second, try inspecting some of that trash. it could be valuble relics from the civil war era. good luck!
Thanks Tom for the reply, i will use the information. Should i update my coil if i'm going to search alot of old farm houses due to the large amount of trash?
You should have no problem finding coins with that detector, if you are finding a lot of trash, are you using your discrimination control, You should be able to filter out most trash.
If the trash your finding is very large, then you wont be able to filter it out.
Also certain items like pull tabs are hard to filter out without losing some sensitivity.
on the opposite side if you are digging a lot of trash your chances of finding some good stuff are also increased
I'm new to metal detecting and want to learn the hobby, i'm mostly interested in finding coins, does anyone know if I have a good detector using the White's Classic 5 ID or is there a better detector for coins? I'm finding alot of trash with it. Any helpful hints will be appreciated. Thanks.
I live in central Ar, I've been metal detecting for about 15 years. I am self tought and have used several different brand detectors. My advice is to get out to some parks, ball fields,public areas where you know that you will find coins. You will get lots of practice and learn your detector while finding something other than trash. I would carry my detector with me when I worked, taking time to check anywhere that people have been. Don't give up, give yourself more chance. Good Luck. Fellow Arkie.
Pam, sometimes you just don't hit an area that has anything "good". Try to get a pattern down instead of just looking around here and there. Do some air tests with your machine of various objects and try to remember the sounds they make as well as the numbers on the screen.
The Quick Draw II is a fine detector. It is Bounty Hunters lower mid-level detector. It has variable notch, VDI and depth indicator. If you want to find all the "good stuff" I would hunt in all metal at that old of a site. Try and find the clothes line, for items dropped out of the pockets, and look for the big tree where everybody rested or kids climbed and ate lunch.
It sounds like you just need more practice and patience.
Happy Hunting!
hey knightwalker, thanks for the info, my bounty hunter is a quick draw 2, I think its a good machine, cause it tells me something is down in the ground,(mostly junk) but, I'm still learning, another thing it does, it will lock on a target & I can not pinpoint it, so I have 2 reset, then I lose target or cant find at all, what does this mean??? any help??? thanks pam
thanks Joe, you gave me more info than the manual that came with my machine!!!! I will try your method, thank you, pam
I have hunted for years with a bounty hunter detector and have found many neat and valuable items. (to include a 1829 Spanish reale) If your detector has the ability to adjust the discrimination then you have a detector capable of finding older items among the other junk around it. The best tip that i can give is one that i have used for years and that is to adjust the discrimination with an everyday nickel. place it on the ground and adjust the discrimation until it no longer picks up the turn it slowly till it reads it again but just barely. this will get you away from a lot of the junk you are finding. Good luck and happy hunting
Pam,
The other comments in this thread are valid. I started my detecting years before there were meters, tone ID, depth indicators etc.
Ground ballance was a great inovation. Learning to ballance your detector is a primary skill.
Other settings to master are how much discrimination and sensitivity to use.
Many beginning detectorists tend to use too much discrimination. Discrimination levels set too high can cause you to miss good targets or too low can cause you to dig targets you want to eliminate. As a normal setting you will want to eliminate iron and some pull tabs, here is the critical line, gold rings, gold coins, and nickels will read in the pull tab area - so don't be too quick to eliminate the pull tabs.
Sensitivity is another setting that is often not understood. Too much sensitivity can cause you to pick up false targets (beeps, known as cross talk) from other nearby detectors that operate on the same frequency or a near frequency. Turning down the sensitivity can eliminate the cross talk. Adjusting the sensitivity can also help with eliminating the effects of mineralization by reducing the detectors response to the high levels of returned signal (this can also reduce depth, which can be a positive benifit under certain conditions).
Before the introduction of meters and screens with icons and scale numbers, we learned to "listen" to the beeps to identify the target. This is still the most reliable and desirable way to detect, then look to see what the meter tells you. Often the target will be a good one that the meter reads as "junk" while the "sound" will tell you it may be a good target or something different than what the meter says it is.
This is where a test garden pays off. Plant your targets no deeper than 6". Then spend about 30 minutes a day for about two weeks swinging your detector over the different targets and just listen to how they sound. After doing this you will find your self almost triping because you automatically stop so quickly at the sound of a good target when you are out hunting.
Search with care and best of luck.
Joe (detecting since 1968)
What kind of Bounty Hunter is it? If it is a gold detector, it's not set up to find coins. That could be a problem. If it is not then I agree with the others, you need to find places where people been the last 10 years, like around schools, where people parked on side of road, lost change while getting their keys out of their pocket. You might or might not find anything old, but will let you know how your detector reacts to certain coins. You also might try searching further out at that place you been. Sounds like your seaching where the house or other building sat, might be why your finding nails, try a wider area outward where someone might of been playing. Hope this helped.
Happy Hunting.
Knightwalker
Although a Bounty Hunter is not considered a so called "top of the line" detector it still hits on metal objects in the ground. I too started with a BH 2200 from Radio Shack and found thousands of good targets with it. To eliminate the unwanted targets like nails turn up your discrimination. Eliminating the iron targets will not remove the coins or jewelry you are looking for. Ron gave the best advice you can get and that is to learn what your detector is telling you. Even with that you have to hunt where people have congregated either recently or in the past. Some areas to look for are parks, fairgrounds and my favorite, grass parking lots. Stay with it and in no time you'll be finding all kinds of good targets.
thanks Ron, I'm hunting w/ a bounty hunter, may b thats my problem???? I got it 4 x-mas last year,& have found 1 wheat,a quarter, & LOTS of nails & junk. another question???? any good places in arkansas 2 hunt??? THANKS, PAM :-}
There are a number of possible answers to your question. There are several questions that I might ask in order to determine your problem. And you may not be doing anything wrong at all...
First: What kind of metal detector are you using? Does it give you a VDI number? This should tell you some information on your target. If the number ranges from -95 to -20 (These are approximate and not necessarily all inclusive) then your target will more than likely be iron. (e.g. nails, or other rusty items.)
Generally targets with a positive VDI number are your better chance of getting keepers, but there are trash items in this range as well. e.g. pop tabs, and bottle caps as well as old zinc lids. (Zinc lids can be considered good targets if you are relic hunting.)
If your detector has a VDI scale you can compare the VDI number against known target ranges.
Second: Does your metal detector model allow for additional coils? If so, you can try a smaller head which will allow for more separation of signals in trashy areas. The trade-off is more shallow target depth, but it helps for finding good targets among other trash items.
There are several suggestions that one might make to you:
First: Get to know and understand your metal detector. Familiarize yourself with how your detector responds to known targets. Pay attention to icons if your detector has icon identification capabilities, and listen to the audio portion. A good signal should give a clear unbroken sound and a bad target signal can be unstable and broken.
Second: A "test garden" is a good way to familiarize yourself with your detector. You can take several items both good and bad an bury them at different depths in your test garden. Mark these items with a wooden golf tee to allow you to know where they are. Keep track of the items in a test garden logbook. Note each item, its depth, location, etc. When you test your detector log the depth of the item given by your detector, the position of your coil when you received the signal, the icon your detector displayed, etc. Keep this log for each detector used as well as each separate coil used if using multiple coils.
Third: Get in some time reading past issues of tips right here on Lost Treasure On-line, or in the magazine as there are lots of good tips and ideas that will help you to become a better metal detectorist.
Fourth: Research! Find locations and sites where you can detect in your area (and away if you are so inclined.)
Fifth: Persevere! Don't give up! Metal detecting can be a rewarding hobby. (If I find nothing of real value, I at least try to learn a little bit of the history of an area that I am detecting... I have been searching at an old homestead here in Kansas which was built in 1854. The first owner was a pro-slavery advocate. His trouble was not paying heed to a man who told him to move on. That man hung him two days later. He was a member of the "Jayhawkers" in Linn County Kansas. So, you see the wealth wasn't necessarily in what I dug up from the ground, but what I "dug up" from the history books associated with my chosen treasure hunt site.)
Ron
thanks Pops, I like your name, thats what I call my dad. my BH was a x-mas gift last year from my husband, he told me he was going to see if I stuck with my hobby, then we would go up to a better machine, I think the 1 that I have is for kids.lol but, I stuck with it(any time I can hunt) so may b santa will bring another this year????