volleyball court failure...

caheaton · Oct 11, 2016

Hello. Brought the F70 out to the volleyball court at a nearby park to do a little hunting while my wife and her friend were walking. I had hoped to find some lost jewelry, but would have been willing to settle for a clad coin or two.

All I managed to find were a couple scraps of foil and a child's bracelet (mostly glass beads, but with a metal clasp). Both the trash and the bracelet were shallow, about an inch or so deep. I found this odd, especially the overall lack of trash but I noticed that there was something "off" about the site....the F70 was unusually quiet. Likewise, even though the court was all dry sand the GB setting was 93...normally the plain dirt around here is around 63 or so.

A couple of times I received a solid dime signal, but even after digging a deep hole (as in at least 7 to 9 inches) nothing was to be found....and inserting the pinpointer into that hole would yield a weak but imprecise signal as to the location. I'm thinking that maybe when the park laid the volleyball court they laid down a wire screen or mesh to keep the weeds at bay, then filled the wire lined hole with sand.

Has anyone else encountered this before? Whatever it was, I suspect it was de-sensing the F70 so that the "normal" targets were getting masked.

DIGGER27 · Oct 11, 2016

No.
Every basketball or volleyball court I have ever hunted had zillions of targets.
Tabs, crown caps, screw on caps and more...plus some good stuff including coins.
This sounds weird, especially that 93 GB number.
I have never seen that anywhere at anytime and it starts on 90 and goes down when you pump and balance...never up.
I can't think of any mineral anywhere that can cause that from the most mineralized clay or dirt up to solid sheets of thick metal or iron under the ground.

Did you do a factory reset before you started or anytime during?
Did you try swinging over another area away from here to see if returned to normal?

Something is very strange about all of this.

caheaton · Oct 11, 2016

No, I didn't do a reset, but I did do a GB on the "plain" dirt and it was in the low to mid 60's...pretty much typical for the local soils here. The last time I used the detector was a few days prior in my front yard...was acting fine then. Settings were the same (no notches, disc set to eliminate only iron, sensitivity at around 50 (though I also tried ramping it up...not much change in the detector's behavior), threshold betwen -3 and 3 (tried changing that as well).

I'm beginning to think the park did something when they dug that court....maybe I'd have better luck in that particular court just running the sand by the shovel full through a screen

TheHunterGT · Oct 11, 2016

Deja Vu with this post as just last week my wife's Gold Bug and my T2 Classic both quick grabbed at 92-93 at a local fresh water lake. Wet sand was 80's...dry sand was all 90+. Was absolutely not wire mesh under us...but I have never seen anything like it before.

She actually walked over to me to ask what I was GBing at. Which is when I noticed it. So I decided to set to AM and manually GB it by ear....same thing. Neutral was 92.

Holbrook Lake in eastern Colorado north Rocky Ford and La Junta (if ya want to check Google maps or whatever). Terrible iron and lead content in my area according to USGS surveys. Joy.

As far as the volleyball sand pit. I have never once found anything in the 10+ I have hunted. I gave up on them. Basketball court areas I LOVE...but volleyball sand pits have left me high and dry. :confused:

DIGGER27 · Oct 11, 2016

TheHunterGT said:
Deja Vu with this post as just last week my wife's Gold Bug and my T2 Classic both quick grabbed at 92-93 at a local fresh water lake. Wet sand was 80's...dry sand was all 90+. Was absolutely not wire mesh under us...but I have never seen anything like it before.

Also weird.
Sunspots, the earth's magnetic poles shifting and realigning?

TheHunterGT said:
As far as the volleyball sand pit. I have never once found anything in the 10+ I have hunted. I gave up on them. Basketball court areas I LOVE...but volleyball sand pits have left me high and dry.

I also have never found much in the sand in volleyball pits.
Toy cars, a couple of coins, all that stuff I mentioned I find around the perimeters of volleyball courts.
Like basketball courts that is where players make piles of their stuff and sometimes their jewelry too.
I have found about 9 gold rings around basketball courts, one gold bracelet too and several silver objects so those are better for me by far.
One time I did find this next to a volleyball court so I always have to take a shot when I come by one...now.

BufordCityDawg · Oct 11, 2016

The VB courts around here are pretty empty. I still check them but best I can do is a few coins. You might want to drop a few to test the area to be sure though. I've done better around the basketball courts as well. No big finds, yet, but I'm hopeful.

BCD

Mud-puppy · Oct 11, 2016

In all this time, I've only found one sand Volleyball court that was just loaded with targets, that was last December I think...I zipped through there with the F70 set like normal and strip mined the place of a lot of clad, it was discolored and had been there a while, so that was odd too...no gold though....

Those sand VB courts get hit regularly in season....We have a lot of them up here on the beachs and a guy has to get there immediately after a big tournament to even hope to find a thing...

Small inbound CME on the 13th...Spaceweather.com...
Mud

GroundSweeper · Oct 11, 2016

Can't help with the GB thing but will add I've only found one gold ring, one silver ring, one silver bracelet, a nice cell phone (returned) plus nominal clad in sand volleyball courts over three years....

And at some, there's a few spots where they're definitely some manhole covers or other big iron (drains?) under the sand - deep, but sound soooo good.

The gold was a nice one, and other than their seeming vastness, I still will hit them up (dry sand is so easy to "dig"!)

Ring is 22k I think, or 18k at least, fourth from left in top row.

metaladdict · Oct 11, 2016

Most vball courts within forty miles of me are clean,no targets.

JOE319 · Oct 11, 2016

ABOUT THAT WIRE MESH....MDing around the trees in our local parks used to drive me nuts with signals all the time around the trees but after digging the hole and using the pinpointer nothing could be found....I Decided to dig until i could come up with an answer..WIRE MESH over a foot deep...After talking to the park crew i learned they use wire mesh 5 feet buried around the tree so that the tree roots would grow into the mesh...This was to prevent high winds from ripping the trees out of the ground.....I Dont know why theyd use mesh in volleyball courts though

TheHunterGT · Oct 12, 2016

JOE319 said:
ABOUT THAT WIRE MESH....MDing around the trees in our local parks used to drive me nuts with signals all the time around the trees but after digging the hole and using the pinpointer nothing could be found....I Decided to dig until i could come up with an answer..WIRE MESH over a foot deep...After talking to the park crew i learned they use wire mesh 5 feet buried around the tree so that the tree roots would grow into the mesh...This was to prevent high winds from ripping the trees out of the ground.....I Dont know why theyd use mesh in volleyball courts though

A local park around here has that as well. Each and every tree has a metal ring around it roughly 3-4 inches deep. Thought it was odd as all the other parks around here have nothing of the sort.

Could follow it all around each tree pretty easily...no tree finds there sadly.

MrNovice · Oct 15, 2016

I've never found anything of value yet in volleyball courts. I think most people in general are aware if they take a dive into the sand to save a play, things will tumble away. I'm sure stuff drops in the sand sometimes, but I've had more luck around the outside of the court and under tree bases nearby from spectators or someone putting things down before participating. It's hard dredging through the sand courts as well. Easy picking targets, but hard gridding that thick sand back and forth.

airscapes · Oct 15, 2016

Yup, did the only VC in the area and was like full of hot rocks..
It is either on the site of a factory of some sort that was coal fired or they put something down before the sand.. It happens to be township owned and a few blocks from the incinerator. The ground around the area is a bit boggy so thinking there is some sort of fill under the sand. No targets lots of hot rock type response.

jonnied1 · Oct 16, 2016

I don't have any luck in the volley ball courts here. There are two courts at one park loaded with these little discs with holes in them. They drive me nuts! :mad:

The only thing I can figure out is that they must have been brought in with the sand. They are only slightly magnetic.

Wom 27 · Oct 16, 2016

I've managed one toe ring. I guess volleyball is too much exercise for today's youth :laughing:

daddyflea · Oct 23, 2016

TheHunterGT said:
Deja Vu with this post as just last week my wife's Gold Bug and my T2 Classic both quick grabbed at 92-93 at a local fresh water lake. Wet sand was 80's...dry sand was all 90+. Was absolutely not wire mesh under us...but I have never seen anything like it before.

She actually walked over to me to ask what I was GBing at. Which is when I noticed it. So I decided to set to AM and manually GB it by ear....same thing. Neutral was 92.

Holbrook Lake in eastern Colorado north Rocky Ford and La Junta (if ya want to check Google maps or whatever). Terrible iron and lead content in my area according to USGS surveys. Joy.

As far as the volleyball sand pit. I have never once found anything in the 10+ I have hunted. I gave up on them. Basketball court areas I LOVE...but volleyball sand pits have left me high and dry.

Just the opposite here. I always do well at Volleyball courts.

volleyball court failure...

caheaton

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DIGGER27

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