Do you dig every signal!?

kiyote

Does anyone take this approach? I've honed my skills on my CZ-3D to weed out most junk, but I always pass on the "overload" signals. Now I'm wondering if I'm an idiot. If I ran my detector over a buried 40lb safe full of old notes, I'd get the "overload" junk signal.

MPeter

Dig it all!! What if there was a rusty garbage can buried on top of a box full of gold coins???

millennium

It depends for me....If I am in an old part of town or an area that has bee occupied for years and years, I'll do an all targets mode for a while.....You never know what might me hidden under nails and lead..


this was:

demodigger

like the guy above me, i dig all if in an old area. i usually don't detect areas newer than 1920. i've had MANY occations where i dug junk and found something great right underneath. one such time, i was working the site of school house from 1867. i dug a piece of wood with some nails in it. directly under it was the ring in this picture. the ring is made from an 1870's french coin. very cool find.

another time i was working a site where some homes were removed. in the back porch area, was alot of trash. loads of bottle caps and nails. this fine beauty was recovered after digging all the trash.

if none of this helps out just remember: gold, tokens, indian cents, half dimes and many others all read like trash. so, what ARE you passing up?

mrguby

thats so sweet i wanna cry.

ricko

Dig it all.. every signal... the treasures hide among the trash. Cheers, RickO

JoePA

Yup, I generally dig them all, in fact at times when I haven't dug a signal I've gone back and dug it up later (sometimes months later) just because I kept wondering what it might be that I didn't dig up.

crispy

It really depends on where I am and what I'm looking for. Some areas just aren't practical because you'd be digging every inch to an inch and a half because of the sheer amount of signals. I will let depth and signal type dictate what I'm digging. If a signal appears solid but ID's peculiarly I will investigate. Time constraints also play a big part in what targets I dig.

millennium

I might also add that I have surface elimination that I run at about 4" in a trashy area that is just too nasty. It does what it says, eliminates trash signals up to 4" deep.

tesorocazador

Like most I don't dig overload signals unless I'm somewhere quite old. I normally hunt coins with my tried and true Garrett GTAx 500. When it jumps around on the graph and won't settle down on one area I normally keep going. Recently I tried digging some of the questionable signals and have been suprised that several were coins mixed with trash. The area I'm working now is were they demolished several blocks of 1940 era houses back in the late 1990's. It has been hunted hard (daily by some for years) and items other than trash seldom show up. I figured out on one hunt I was averaging 1 coin every seven minutes. Since I'm getting older now I don't hunt 8 hours plus every trip but average 2 or 3 hours each time now. I can still go all day but it has to be for a great site or relic hunting. Anyway back to the subject at hand, My answer would be when in doubt DIG.

el Tesoro Cazador

mr1931S

i got used to digging everything when detecting with my White's. As a result, i made some very nice finds.The alternative for me would have been to use the discriminator on this machine and be content to only find recently lost pocket change laying around near the surface.Forget finding the old silver (at about 3" in those days) with the discriminator on.

i think "learning" the sounds is where it's at for the detectorist, regardless of machine being used.i could tell you such things as," silver dime at 3 inches" when analyzing a target with my White's. Excepting pennies, dimes are the most frequently lost coin.The downside here is that i tended to focus on trying to find dimes because i got so good at recognizing one when i "saw" it that i would ignore other less interesting sounds, especially when detecting in really trashy areas.However, i do recall finding a very nice 1897 s dime in the park one day that was not really sounding like a "dime at 3 inches" because of gobs of metal trash around it. Pull tabs down in the ground aways would make a sound very,very close to the "dime at 3 inches." i would probe nearly every target in the park because of the abundance of pull tab pieces in the ground. No solid feel, no dig. Undoubtedly, i went through the center of a few rings with my probe because with that White's i could pinpoint the center of a dime that was as deep as 7".

It stands to reason that good coins can be under the trash. Anymore, what i'll do is balance my time between all-metal and discriminate on my Bounty Hunter. Constantly digging trash does get tiresome but we all know that one good to excellent coin find is all it takes to make up for all those trash finds. Digging all sounds is not for me. I listen for interesting sounds. I will occasionally "take a chance" knowing that i could easily be digging a fine specimen of metal junk. After digging the junk and getting it out of the ground i'll go over the hole again for more sound. Aha! a silver dime was under that doodad.

I would say if new to the hobby, dig everything. If more experienced, don't get complacent. Be willing to take a chance. Some days will be better than others regardless of one's experience level with detectors.

Hopefully, i've answered the question.

Rickc300

I couldn't tell you how many pull tabs and other trash items I dug the afternoon I found the coin below. I found it about 4 inches below a pull tab I had just dug. Yet another reason to dig almost every signal and to also re-check your hole before filling it in. I also found a dateless large cent a couple of weeks ago while checking out my girlfriends Ace 250 and digging out an old tin Pepsi can that most likely caused the original signal... Like Rick O says,

<< <i>Dig it all.. every signal... the treasures hide among the trash. >>


Rick C

groht5

metalmeister

I am no expert at detecting so, Yes I dig everything. I dig Iron signals just
to see what the heck got lost down there!

blueifalcon

I dig every ding-ding I hear because I am far from an expert and would probably wonder forever if the one I passed up was historic in nature. Heck, I even pick up every penny I see, even though my shocks ache all the time.