• Forum server maintanace Friday night.(around 7PM Centeral time)
    Website will be off line for a short while.

    You may need to log out, log back in after we're back online.

I'd accuracey

I guarantee in writing if you rely on the ID of ANY detector, you will leave valuable objects in the ground.

NO machine can be certain you have a coin, ring, token, medal or anything else. Your best ID is a shovel and your eyes.

Even the best machines have a very limited ID capability, especially at any depth.
 
I guarantee in writing if you rely on the ID of ANY detector, you will leave valuable objects in the ground.

NO machine can be certain you have a coin, ring, token, medal or anything else. Your best ID is a shovel and your eyes.

Even the best machines have a very limited ID capability, especially at any depth.

I can testify to this. My most exciting find ID'd as a pull tab on not just one, but two machines. Made me totally re-think my searching strategies.
 
Last edited:
I guarantee in writing if you rely on the ID of ANY detector, you will leave valuable objects in the ground.

NO machine can be certain you have a coin, ring, token, medal or anything else. Your best ID is a shovel and your eyes.

Even the best machines have a very limited ID capability, especially at any depth.

That is the God's honest TRUTH... It will just "help" you "guess" at what is in the ground, nothing will tell you FOR CERTAIN. Best way to get ALL the GOOD targets is to DIG ALL THE TARGETS and ID them once they are in your hand



I can testify to this. My most exciting find ID'd as a pull tab on not just one, but two machines. Made me totally re-think my searching strategies.

I too have had this experience and epiphany when I was just getting started...


GL & HH


:yes:
 
While what has been posted above is of course true, there are detectors with more accurate ID than others.

On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being poor ID ability and 10 being best, I'd give the Deus a 8. Depth of course is a factor, but I'm grading on target ID accuracy at the detectors best depth. I'd have to give the score to the CTX = 10 and the E-Trac = 9. Once you get shallow, say 6" or less, most decent machines have pretty accurate ID'ing on average conditions.
 
Target ID is great, and should be trusted. Why would they put it in so many expensive models, if they wanted you to dig even one piece of trash. You get what you paid for...

Just kidding, of course. The ID on any machine, is a computer generated estimate/guess. The closer the conditions are, to the programmed data, the better the ID. The real world, isn't a laboratory bench, or air test, so the results aren't going to be perfect either. I do appreciate those who swear by the numbers, leaves a few decent scraps for the rest of, who dig most everything. Wouldn't have gotten a very nice 14k pull tab, with ice, had went by the numbers. To be honest though, I was looking for a handful of pull tabs, to fill a bag to send to DirtyRob. I'm digging every target, as if it's potentially something nice. Got lucky on the ring, and didn't hit it with the digger.

I don't know too much about the ID processing, but if the detector isn't sure, does it default to a trash signal? I dig unusual sounding targets, a little out of blind hope, mostly out of curiosity. I'll trust the numbers and graphs, when I'm digging a lot of similar trash (iron). Usually those mystery signals are multiple items. Pretty sure ID numbers try to focus on a single item, since it only generates one number, which might bounce some.

Good thing about following the numbers, is you dig less trash, and you never know what you left behind for another hunter. Nothing to regret, we all cherry pick to some extent, otherwise it would look like a plowed field at the park.
 
Dig everything when possible, now I realize at some modern sites digging everything is very hard, even impossible but at old sites, DIG IT ALL. If you ignore tabs you lose military buttons, bullets, some coins, and god knows what else. TID can be useful but don't rely on it 100%, it's basically giving you a guesstimate on what it might be. Soil, other objects in the hole, or the way the target is laying can all fool TID.
 
I disagree with the Etrac Id, it was a solid whatever but never the same.and no,my machine wasn't faulty.but here's my thing,go by sound.if it sounds good dig.
 
The ID to me is just a general reference point to start from. Most of the time on shallower targets the ID is pretty accurate, but even then don't take it to the bank that it's right on the money. Years ago I got a good solid foil signal on a beach, and decided to dig. It turned out to be a 14kt ring with a ruby and two small diamonds. You never know what is under the coil till you dig it up.
 
If you want gold, you will have to dig trash. Sorry but you can place 10 gold items on the ground and they can all ring up different. Depends on size, depth, position, karat, etc. GL. HH. Tom
 
Exactly, target id is just a tool.and were talking coin id cause gold has no common id, anywhere.most detectors give a pretty accurate I'd till you get at depth,then it's not the same.that's why I sold my Etrac, id was jumpy at depth,just like any other detector I've owned.go by sound,it won't lie.
 
I don't dig everything because it would wreck parks & schoolyards, perhaps too dry and hard soil, bad back & other health problems. I know coins are nearly everywhere, but there are many fewer rings lost & many more pulltabs than coins in most places.

So, I do appreciate the more accurate ID at depth of some current detectors. I've not tried the over $1,000 detectors, but of those I've owned, I'm most impressed with the target ID of the Garrett AT Pro. I use the STD mode, coins program, iron totally rejected (40), iron ID off, sensitivity 7 out of 10.

After getting the ground balance about right, I get a very tilted quarter. Then, silence until I get a dime reading showing 8". Bounced between 80-85 (proper dime range) on every sweep. Down 7" a clad dime was found. Somewhat mineralized ground, very hard & dry. I got a shallow nickel, reading the 2 numbers they are assigned 52-53. I turned on the iron ID after that & learned it had been surrounded by 5 iron beeps!

I dug very little trash, almost all of it small & round. Using the stock coil. Most other detectors I owned rarely if ever IDed a coin correctly beyond 3"-5". The many Ace 250 detectors I had could ID a dime to 4", so 7" on AT Pro 75% better!

Now we have $200-$300 which I don't havedetectors that properly ID my 5" deep test dime & beep loud, like the Eurotek Pro & Bounty Hunter Land Ranger Pro. Also I'm sure Bounty Hunter Quick Draw Pro. These BH PRO models are nothing like the old BH Land Ranger & Quick Draw.

A man on You Tube demonstrated his AT Pro on a quarter buried 10.5" deep, using STD mode. It got a loud high tone on every pass. He mentioned he set the ground balance a few numbers low as that seemed to give best results.
 
I guarantee in writing if you rely on the ID of ANY detector, you will leave valuable objects in the ground.

NO machine can be certain you have a coin, ring, token, medal or anything else. Your best ID is a shovel and your eyes.

Even the best machines have a very limited ID capability, especially at any depth.
Thank you, this is why I read this forum. I spent along time faulting my equipment. It became obvious that with all the different alloys of coins and jewelry buried at different depths in varying soils that they could be accurately identified.
 
There is no detector that don't dig junk,and very rarely does someone post they're junk finds.most posts are pics of a ring or a few Silver coins.trust me,I'll bet the junk outweighed the good 50 to one,and that's putting it mildly.
 
Should also mention that no machine can see through trash, so rescanning the hole, before filling it, is a good idea. Most all detectors are good at their primary task, locating metal. All the add-on features are helpful tools, but aren't nearly as perfect as the marketing would have us believe. Just too many variables and possibilities to process in a millisecond.
 
No machine is perfect. Even on the CTX I get silver dimes ringing like memorials and wheat cents. The XP is know for the speed and lightness. It is also a great machine in iron but deep iron will trick it. Deep iron can trick all detectors.
 
I guarantee in writing if you rely on the ID of ANY detector, you will leave valuable objects in the ground.

NO machine can be certain you have a coin, ring, token, medal or anything else. Your best ID is a shovel and your eyes.

Even the best machines have a very limited ID capability, especially at any depth.

excellent post! :yes:

i've had so many targets, both good and bad, show up on the display where they shouldn't be that i don't put a whole lot of faith into what the display is telling me. the machine is only "guessing" based on many variables and the only way to know for sure what the target will be is by using the shovel and eye method Scuba mentioned above. :yes:
 
I guarantee in writing if you rely on the ID of ANY detector, you will leave valuable objects in the ground.

And I guarantee, in writing lol, if you rely on the sound of any detector, you will also leave valuable objects in the ground. I prefer as many target ID's as possible to narrow the odds. Visual & Audio. The more input the better the odds has been my experience.

Lately I have been finding a fair number of missed very deep coins with my E-Trac at the city park. I have been hearing nothing but a chirp and or broken sound but if the VDI numbers are good (FE hit mostly below from 08-19 and CO in the 38+ range) I recover and it has been coins. Had I just relied on sound only I would have never recovered them.

PS: I tried the suggestion of using Quick Mask and watching for the cursor to stay in the lower right corner, BS, almost every coin I recovered had the cursor bouncing in the bottom right corner most of the time.
 
Back
Top Bottom