For The Newbies Or Others! How To Search When Detecting!

JBEXPRESS

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Ok guys, I have seen a lot of questions about how to search a place or where should you start... There are a lot of people starting out and don't know what to do and just wonder around in hopes to find something... As I use to do this when I started..

Well What I do and most others that have been in the hobby for a while is do something called Gridding...

What you do is you find the location of where you want to detect. Start at one corner of the field, tot lot, beach/ sand... wherever and detect in a straight line until u get to the end of wherever you working on, move over a few steps and detect back to where you started... You will continue this until you have covered the whole area.. Then you want to do the same thing going the other way... So whatever you missed the first time around you should pick up this time... By the time you are done, whatever was laying in that place you detected should have been picked up if reachable.

Ever since I started doing this over a year 1/2 ago, my finds have sky rocketed!!

Hope this will help to all the newbies or others that didn't know about this.

Good Luck and Happy Hunting!
 

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Ok guys, I have seen a lot of questions about how to search a place or where should you start... There are a lot of people starting out and don't know what to do and just wonder around in hopes to find something... As I use to do this when I started..

Well What I do and most others that have been in the hobby for a while is do something called Gridding...

What you do is you find the location of where you want to detect. Start at one corner of the field, tot lot, beach/ sand... wherever and detect in a straight line until u get to the end of wherever you working on, move over a few steps and detect back to where you started... You will continue this until you have covered the whole area.. Then you want to do the same thing going the other way... So whatever you missed the first time around you should pick up this time... By the time you are done, whatever was laying in that place you detected should have been picked up if reachable.

Ever since I started doing this over a year 1/2 ago, my finds have sky rocketed!!

Hope this will help to all the newbies or others that didn't know about this.

Good Luck and Happy Hunting!

Thanks for the info. I'm hitting ball field's I will try this. hard not to wonder randomly, Got to make myself stay on the grid.
 
Thanks for the info. I'm hitting ball field's I will try this. hard not to wonder randomly, Got to make myself stay on the grid.

Trust me it works!! If its laying there, You should find it :D Good Luck!
 
You know, I've seen everyone talk about gridding, but I've had a hard time convincing myself that the second direction (90 degree turn) is worth it after I've gone back and forth over a patch in one direction the first time with my DD coil. I know it's just a psychological thing, so hearing you say that your finds have skyrocketed since resorting to gridding helps me set my mind to trying it. Thanks!
 
You know, I've seen everyone talk about gridding, but I've had a hard time convincing myself that the second direction (90 degree turn) is worth it after I've gone back and forth over a patch in one direction the first time with my DD coil. I know it's just a psychological thing, so hearing you say that your finds have skyrocketed since resorting to gridding helps me set my mind to trying it. Thanks!

Yes please try it, you will see! :yes: Sometimes things are laying a certain way and you might miss it the first pass but should get it going the other way...
 
I can't draw a fancy diagram but I can tell you how I do totlots in a pattern...At least with them you have a definite border. I start at a point on the perimeter. I prefer to go counter clockwise and I begin with working the first 3 feet of the outside edge, next to the border. When I get back to my starting point, I step left 3 feet and start again in the same manner, and I try to have at least a 1 foot overlap of my previous search run. I do this until I reach far enough into the totyard to come next to equipment. When I get to it...for a short break, I search all the way around the equipment one path wide...3 feet..and in and under all slides, elevated areas and so forth. Having finished that set I go back to my pattern and come in the next 3 feet. Spiraling inwards I work it around and around until all the equipment areas are well covered. Often then there is a small central open space. I work it back and forth in a concentric pattern and then a back and forth pattern as depicted in the first poster' diagram. After that is done, I wander in the yard for a few minutes...swinging and revisiting areas that I had reasonable numbers of hits, on the perimeters of those areas. Sometimes I hit a coin or two doing that, but if I have done a good search, then anywhere I swing on the lot is dead quiet cause I clean all the trash as I go.

Afterwards if I have time I work the outside perimeter around the totyard, cause kids often sit at the edge of the lot and some mulch or gravel spills out, ready to hide any coins that drop!
 
Thanks for the info. I'm hitting ball field's I will try this. hard not to wonder randomly, Got to make myself stay on the grid.

if you happen to be doing a manicured lawn (a mowed lawn), keeping on track is a lot easier. just follow the lines from the mower for your first leg of the gridding. i do that and it really helps to keep me on my lines. :D

You know, I've seen everyone talk about gridding, but I've had a hard time convincing myself that the second direction (90 degree turn) is worth it after I've gone back and forth over a patch in one direction the first time with my DD coil. I know it's just a psychological thing, so hearing you say that your finds have skyrocketed since resorting to gridding helps me set my mind to trying it. Thanks!

i was doing an area, finished the first part of my pattern, then started doing it at 90 degrees and one of the first targets i hit was a 1927 nickel. :shock: knowing that i had already "covered" that area, and before i even dug this "new" target, i checked the ground again from my original position and sure enough.... NO target showed up! 90 deg again, and there it was, loud and clear! it must have been the way the coin was oriented in the ground and had i not started the second part of the gridding, i never would have found that particular coin!
some people will even do the same area again diagonally both ways for a VERY thorough search.

great graphics and great info JB.... for both the newcomers and old timers alike. thanks for the post! :D

Pete
 
I'll bet a lot of you would be surprised what you'd find by just turning around and going back over the area you just detected.

Yep. Last summer, at the old park, I learned how coming in from another direction produced signals not heard previously. It lasted all summer. The moisture content of the soil varied from day to day and week to week, and was a factor also.
 
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