Discrimination - How much is too much?

TEXASDIGGER

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Houston, TX
Day 2 of my metal detecting life. Have learned a ton so far. Today I was at a park with a lot of picnic tables and trash cans...pull tab heaven (or hell depending on your perspective).

After digging 5 or 6 of these little gems I decided to crank up the disc. I have an F-5 with stock 10 inch eliptical and started out in D2 tone with disc set almost all the way down. I cranked it up to about 55 to take out all the trash, etc. and only dug strong high tones. Found it a lot easier and ended up digging mostly dimes. Nothing interesting but very educational practice.

Question - How much discrimination is too much and what am I loosing when I have it up? I know the area palys a large part and I needed more disc with all the trash. Am I trading off anything important or am I on the right track? I got what I thought was some "whispers" but dug and dug (an cussed and cussed) to no avail.
 
Have you done some air tests? My 14k wedding band comes in around 57 (nickels and pull tabs too) and my 10k H.S. ring displays a 68. There isn't any gold in my area other than jewelry or coins, so I notch out up to 40+. If I am looking for relics I will search in "all metals" mode, but get ready for the junk and trash. My sensitivity goes from 4-12 and usually search in the 8-10 range, above that (depending on ground conditions) I can get false signals and chatter. Personally, I would think you aren't missing much.....although I could be wrong. I have found that the best way for me to learn what works or doesn't, is to spend time using it. FYI: I am a newb as well and I am only sharing what little knowledge I have.
 
I can only safely put three notches on my F4.A small hammered coin I have doenst register with 4 knocked out and basically anything good can register after 3 notches.
 
You will lose gold jewelery, most military buttons, musket and mini balls... And it will also hurt your depth.
 
I think there is a time and place for every disc setting. If it is a high trash area I'm not waisting my time digging up stuff unless I have a strong idea its a coin.

Sure you will always have that one guy digging everything and he might find some ring and he will of course come running and try to rub it in your nose and get you to award him the golden bozo nose, but honestly big freaking deal.

I have had someone buy a lottery ticket after me and win $500, so does that mean I'm dumb if I don't buy every lottery ticket in every store I go into?? Nope, just means the guy was lucky good for him.

Do, what you feel is the best setting for the area your in because no one area is alike and if another person walks up and laughs at your setting...well follow him home...LMAO just kidding.


P.S. Never heard of Notch settings affecting your depth...sensitivity yess, notch no. I will test that theory for sure, it just doesn't sound correct.
 
Yup, common sense is sometimes better than the best metal detector. When I detected my back yard I knew a hot tub had been back there.......turned the disc down to iron.......when I did the front yard, I knew the former owner had been a part time woodworker.......turned the disc up to nickels so not to spend all my day digging nails. Did I miss anthing? I doubt it, the neighbors tell me they were pretty frugal/cheap. Never hurts to talk to the neighbors!!!!

Dusty
 
Good stuff - Kinda what I thought about high trash areas.

I'm going to an area tomorrow that used to be part of an old logging town. Just fields now where all the workers' houses used to be.

I will probably keep the disc low and the gain high.

Thanks!
 
Disc does nothing but eliminate what is heard thru the headphones. The detector is still doing what its supposed to... see targets EVERY target. As it sees these target you get what is called coil shut down.... that reduces depth. Think about it as a sponge.... every time it sees a target you squeeze the sponge. So anytime you use disc you need to know what bad and GOOD targets you may be eliminating. Sometimes if you want to cherry pick lots of disc is ok. You also have to know how quickly your detector recovers.

Dew
 
This should help.
This is the scale off a DFX.
The VDI numbers are not exactly the same for every detector out there, but it is close, and it should give you a clue on where different metals are in relation to each other.
This helped me understand why so many people here say dig it all...especially if you want to find gold.

HH
 

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I hunt to have fun. If the area is too trashy and you don't discriminate then digging all those pieces of foil, small pieces of iron, and pull tabs is not fun. You need to find a balance between the trashiness vs. your willingness to dig. If you miss out on a small gold ring you wouldn't even have know about in the 1st place well then at least you didn't miss out on having fun.
 
I see people talking about the detector's "recovery time". Can someone please explain that to me???:?:

Your detector goes over a coin and beeps - it's the time it takes for it to reset before there's another coin in the swinging path of the coil and it beeps for that.
 
I see people talking about the detector's "recovery time". Can someone please explain that to me???:?:

Your detector goes over a coin and beeps - it's the time it takes for it to reset before there's another coin in the swinging path of the coil and it beeps for that.

Or conversely, when you go over a target that is being discriminated out, the audio is forcibly suppressed for a certain amount of time. If you happen to go over a good target during this suppressed period, the detector won't beep to let you know it's there.
 
unless you have an etrac then it can be nulled and if theres a coin or anything round and not discriminated out it screams out dig me
curtis
 
This is a TRUE fact!!!!!!!!!!

The best discriminator is your Lesche (or whatever type of digger you own).:roll:
 
LOL!! Thanks for the replies. That clears it up for me.

On my F-5 it shows a "d" or "dd" during that period. I finally decided it was doing something along the lines of recovery. What I didn't realize is that I may be missing coins while it that mode. I had assumed that the display on my machine stays on the last target until a new target is detected.
 
Discrimination settings

I usually start out with my discrimination setting to where the detector still hits on nickels. I hunt that way most of the time, but once in a while I'll cherry pick and run the disc. up to eliminate tabs as well. Depends on how much time I have and how many tabs I've already dug.
BB
 
for discriminating, here's a great example for you:
the ground here is frozen like a rock. being half bored, i did some simple air tests with the Ace 250. one coin i tried was a Canadian 50 cent piece (1994). waving it over the coil on it's flat side, it showed up as a 50c coin. at the same distance (about 4 inches) from the coil on edge it repeatedly showed up as IRON!
i think i'll be using very little, if any discrimination and will be digging everything!

Pete
 
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