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False advertising

I've dug up God knows how many nails and chunks of metal. There have been a few coins and other interesting artifacts in there, but nothing silver.

Which is why I wonder, why does my metal detector keep telling me that there is something that identifies as a silver coin when it never is? Does anyone else have this problem? I've come to realize that aluminum registers the same as silver, I believe. But why do I sometimes get nothing but a REALLY small nail or something? Does anyone know?

Comments

  • PRECIOUSMENTALPRECIOUSMENTAL Posts: 961 ✭✭✭✭
    Make and model of detector please.
    How much experience do you have?
  • pcgs69pcgs69 Posts: 4,258 ✭✭✭✭
    Could just be falsing from iron. The e-trac and ctx3030 have done it for me quite often. My buddy owns an Ace 250 and always complains about "half dollar signals" that turn out to be nails. Maybe it's some kind of interference - like electrical?

    When I get a decent signal, I sometimes try it from 4 angles to see if it's consistent. It's not a 100% guaranteed method because it could be a coin next to a nail, but often it helps determine if it's a nail or a coin.
  • rickoricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭
    What detector are you using and does it have adjustable settings?? Cheers, RickO
  • pocketpiececommemspocketpiececommems Posts: 5,723 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Maybe it would be helpful to take a variety of coins and trash and bury them in a sand pile and figure out the settings. Can you set your discriminator to block out the nails?
  • WhiteTornadoWhiteTornado Posts: 2,102 ✭✭✭
    Depends on many different factors. Model of detector, your level of experience, the type of soil and related conditions you're hunting in, etc.

    I have a Tesoro Cibola and hunted a park yesterday. Although I had the discrimination set just above the Tab level, I was still hitting pull tabs. I had to turn it up much higher to avoid them. Was probably just a function of the soil conditions at the time. It had rained hard the day before, so perhaps that made a difference; I'm not sure. Even at a high discrimination setting, I hit a couple of nails. They were regular size nails, not small, though.
  • I have an Ace 350. It has settings but only as far as discrimination and sensitivity.

    I am new at it. I've been doing it about every day, though, so that should help me get experience. It's really fun but it would be cool if I could get a coin older than 1964! (and it was a nickel, so not silver :/)
  • lordmarcovanlordmarcovan Posts: 43,194 ✭✭✭✭✭
    One thing to remember is that a detector's meter reading is really just an "educated guess" by the machine, and you will inevitably get many hot signals up in the high range which are not silver, or even coins. They're still worth digging, though.

    Aluminum should not register the same as silver unless it's a large chunk, like a soda can.

    If you're getting hot signals on REALLY small nails, maybe you should back down a little on the sensitivity.

    No matter how sophisticated your machine, though, there will be times when it "lies" to you. I have found that this tends to be a bit more prevalent with the discrimination and meter readings on Garretts, for some reason. (I'm not sure why. They're good machines, otherwise- I'm a Garrett man, myself.)

    But don't let that discourage you. When in doubt, dig! And with practice, you'll learn to "read between the lines" a bit more and not rely so much on the meter.

    You WILL pop that 1964 barrier and get a silver coin eventually, if you're hunting in places that were developed before 1970. You'll know you're getting warm when the Wheat cents start appearing.

    It's gonna take a LOT of patience, though. And a lot of dug trash.


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  • rickoricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Yep...lots of trash...However, the prime directive is 'dig everything' - that way, you will not miss a disguised treasure....Cheers, RickO
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