Have you ever detected a target and couldn't find it?

laserart

I spent a half hour trying to locate "something" in the sand and finally just filled the hole in. Even with the pinpointer I couldn't locate it. I finally decided it was a bullet and blended in visually with the small stones. There was lots of empty brass, .22's so it was a logical deduction for me to think it was a bullet. The crazy thing is it was in the volley ball court at the high school. Gotta love rural schools.

KeithinMD

This has happened to me more times than I can remember - often in sand. Sometimes I think the item is very deep and very big, usually not the type of stuff I am looking for, so I give up on it. When I have not given up on the item, it is usually a soda can. I get a great signal that appears to be less than 12 inches deep. But with my detector, large items give the appearance of a smaller item closer to the surface.

marym

Ken that happens to me alot, especially in the ball field that I've been hitting recently. There's lots of somethings under the ground, but I'll be damned if I can bring them to the surface!

Musky1011

I once was detecting in a picnic area in northern wisconsin, thought I was looking for a penny,
drove me nuts trying to locate it. till I realized that the signal was actually a copper nugget

Jim

flydoc

Almost everytime I go out I get a least one signal like this. I know it's something valuable (wishful thinking) but I never find it.

BullRun

I have often had this too. For me it seems to vary depending on where I am. By this, I mean that some places I will get them consistently and others, I never have this happen. I don't ever recall getting them (signals I can not find) in playgrounds where there is the wood chips. I always just chalk it up to soil minerals.

I have to laugh sometimes, because I can find it in the hole, dig it out and it is out of the hole, sift through it with a "fine tooth comb" and it will still be invisible with a strong, pinpointed signal.

millennium

That has happened to me..as I suspect to all of us at some point...That problem happened to me a long while ago, and I kept at it. I dug all the dirt out and then placed it on a plastic floor mat piece I carry with me to help in the recovery..I would sweep the dirt then divide the dirt in half, then sweep the dirt again and discard the half that had no signal. I kept doing that for three or four times until I finally had the target narrowed down to less than a handful..I then spread the dirt out very thin and swept it again...the coin was there...almost the exact color of the dirt it was in....Here it is:

lordmarcovan

A Pillar type half real in Hanover Park with a GTI-2500 detector, huh, Steve?

Well, guess what. I took MY GTI-2500 to Hanover Park Sunday. Slapped the big coil on it, too.

Guess what I got!












Yup. You guessed it. Zip. Zilcho. Nada. Bupkis.

No, wait. That ain't entirely true. I did get something. A strained tendon in my right arm, from swinging that un-ergonomic cinderblock of a detector, which is even worse with the big coil on it.

lordmarcovan

Oh, and in answer to your question

<< <i>Have you ever detected a target and couldn't find it? >>



All the damn time.

millennium

I had only owned the Gti for 3 months or so when I found that...I wasn't sure if I was just stupid or was actually getting a hit...after using the Groundhog for as long as I did, it was quite a change...

laserart

I had a signal last night, couldn't find it. Finally put my pinpointer on it and held it there and still couldn't find it until it eventually was lost. So whatever it was couldn't have been very big.

phut

<< <i>Have you ever detected a target and couldn't find it? >>


I've had several that were tricky, but I don't recall letting any get away.
A couple cases.
Deep target and the find falls of the shovel back into the hole. Halo is gone and the target is now too deep for the machine to pick up. Take out another scoop and the same thing happens. Eventually the target comes out of the hole, or gets within pinpoint range.
I've had several finds stick to the shovel. One time I didn't notice until I got to the next target. Now, it's the first place I check for a disapearing target.
A few times I've flipped a plug and put the dirt on top of a near by large piece of iron. The machine discriminates out the iron and the find. I'll move the dirt to a new spot or turn off disc and get rid of the iron first.
I've popped plugs and had the target somehow jump out of the hole and land up to two feet away.
Most of the time it turns out to be a small cut nail, or 22 shell or bullet, and the machine is doing it's job of discriminatring.
Never let a tiny piece of metal beat you.

laserart

The past 2 nights I have been searching the site where the fire was a couple of weeks ago. It happens to be right next to the tracks and lots of soft black dirt like coal dust, because it is coal dust. My hands are black by the time I get going home again. Anyway, I have found many targets with a definate "dollar" ring to them. So I dig in earnst only to come up with a rock like thing that sounds off as a dollar tone every time. It must be a klincker from the burned coal but I don't know why it gives a silver ping from the detector. I would expect iron, but the machine is set on "coins" not "all metal"

fastrudy

Those cinders have the same electrical conductivity as a dollar? Doesn't seem likely, but that is what the logic would suggest

Dockwalliper

The worst is when I get a good signal, cut the plug. check the hole...nothin'. Check the plug....Nothin" Put the plug back and the signals back. Do it all again...some results...........I quit.

CROCKofCOINS

>>I quit <

LOL..I know what you mean. :-|

Jerry

laserart

That's what the screen on the detector is suggesting. These are not the typical clinckers I remember as a boy cleaning out the coal furnace every few days but more smooth and much smaller ranging from something smaller than a walnut to walnut in size and I have no idea what it is, they are light weight too.

JJ69

Do yourself a favor, when hunting in sand use a sandscoop. Don't even need a pinpointer.
I prefer the metal ones, they make em plastic, which has the advantage of not setting your detector off, but alot of beaches
get hard as clay a couple inhes down, and you can use the corner of the scoop to dig, an option not available with plastic ones.
Sand finds are very difficult to locate without a scoop, as any hole you dig just fills back in and, as you say, many objects blend right in with the sand.

Once you know an objects approx location, just take a big scoop of sand, then rescan the area. If there is no signal, that usually means that you have the object in the scoop, and you can proceed to shake it out and recover it.
Of course, its possible there are multiple objects, and there could be one in the scoop and one or more still in the hole.
When I take a scoop of sand and rescan the hole and there is still a signal, I dump out that load and get another one until it stops signaling, but I also rescan the dumped loads in case there is something in it.