Discovery 2000 Detector - Tips?

Burks

Hello. Recently my dad found the Discovery 2000 metal detector we had bought years ago to find the markers for our property. Since then it has been in storage. With the weather getting nicer I wanted to give it a try at hunting for coins. I've NEVER used a metal detector before and have no idea what I am doing.

Do you have any general tips? Specific ones for this make/model? I searched around the net and found a few somewhat helpful articles/posts on this detector. Mostly for larger items.

Thanks. I'll let everyone know if I find anything more then a nail

lordmarcovan

General tips? Read your owner's manual forwards and backwards several times, and practice, practice, practice!

Specific tips for that model? Can't help you much there. That's a Bounty Hunter machine, right? I think the Discovery nameplate is what the Bounty Hunter machines are sold under, through Wal-Mart. Generally speaking, in my experience, Bounty Detector machines are not as solidly built as other brands, but they're lightweight and perform quite well for their pricerange- lots of bang for the buck.

Get out there and use that thing. Dig every signal at first, so you get an idea of how the machine responds. When you are more confident of that, then use a little discrimination if you have to. Remember, though, the less discrimination the better. It's nice to be able to reject trash, but the more trash you reject, the better the chances you'll also be rejecting some good stuff, too ("throwing the baby out with the bathwater", so to speak).

I look forward to seeing you post your first Wheaties, and then your first silver, eventually!

lordmarcovan

BTW, that's a lovely Gothic crown (florin?) in your avatar. Auldfartte originally uploaded that one, if I remember correctly?

Burks

Yes it is quite nice. That's why I'm using it One of these days I'll have one of my coins up there, one of these days....

Really the only places open for me to dig is my parent's property (almost an acre) and the farmer's field, which he doesn't care. Other then that I'm limited to space. Still have to call the city and see if digging at the parks is alright. There are coins to be found. When my grandfather was building his house he found an 185? large cent. Very bad condition but they are out there. Town dates back to the mid 1800's....has to be something lying around!

lordmarcovan

Oho... so you might get an Indian head or a large cent before you get a Wheatie! I wouldn't bet on it, though. You should find such things in time, with practice, particularly if one's already turned up there.

That sounds like a promising site... get busy, man! I wanna see some cool digs!

konsole

Set the sensitivity on the strongest (deepest) it will go. When you get a strong signal continue to swing the detector back and forth and lower the senitiivty as you do it. Keep lowering the sensitivity until the strong signal disappears. Thats the way I always do it and I find it works great for pinpointing the depth of the item. If you determine that the item isnt that deep then dig a hold 1 foot across and about 3 inches deep. Run the detector over the pile of dirt and over the hole. If the detector is still picking the item up in the hold then dig about another 2 inches and run the detector over the pile of dirt and hold again. Proceed until you get the signal in the pile of dirt. At that point flatten the pile of dirt run the detector over it. Flattening the pile should help you find the item pretty quick. I'm not sure what the numbers are for other detectors but I've found that coin size items will be detected at about 4 inches deep on the lower sensitivity, 6 inches on the medium sensitivity and up to 12 inches on the strongest sensitivity. Also I've found that items will sometimes be picked up when scanning one way (like north to south) but then will disappear when scanning east to west. I think it may have to do with the direction the item is lying in the ground. Mine uses 2 9v batteries and I bought 6 rechargeable ones on ebay and I carry them all fully charge with me. Everytime I get a low battery signal on 1 set them I put in a different set even though that first set should still work for a while. The reason I do that is because 9v batteries arent cheap and with rechargeable batteries you can make sure you always have strong batties in the detector and not have to worry about throwing the low power ones out.