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Confused about the 800 and unmasking targets in iron infested sites

maxxkatt

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Sep 20, 2015
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North Atlanta, GA
I have owned the 800 since March of this year with the intention of starting to do more civil war relic and old home site hunting. I was under the impression before I purchased my 800 that it was really good at picking through junk targets that masked coins, 3 ringers etc. But maybe people were not talking back then about the iron falsing problem.

so is it good at unmasking everywhere but in iron infested sites? If that is so, then for relic hunting a simple older beep and dig detector would be just as good as the 800.

I was out hunting the other day at an old home site located in the back part of a pubic park where people rarely went. Found that in park2, sens 19, Iron bias 3-4, recover 6, auto ground balance, and noise canceled it was still pretty chatty reporting lots of signals. However, the two modern quarters and round cast silver plated broach gave very good repeatable signals in both directions with stable TID 24-25 on quarters and 30-32 on the broach.

I was surprised an the lack of junk I had to dig, just one pop top and one small piece of can slaw. Only the can slaw fooled me. I was pretty sure the pop top was a pop top at 14-15, but was just curious so dug it.

I was happy with the hunt because I did not have to dig a lot of iron. When I switched on the horseshoe to hear the iron, heard a lot of iron rumbling in my headphones, but the good signals came through clearly. I was using 5 tones and sometimes 50 tones.

so is this the norm with the 800? just have to listen to a lot junk signals under the coil? I guess I could set some tone breaks to quiet down the junk audio responses.

Does anyone with the 800 discriminate out junk targets or just set tone breaks to accomplish the same effect. I have heard discriminate can affect the depths. Not sure why if that is true.

I was happy with the hunt because I did not have to dig a lot of iron. When I switched on the horseshoe to hear the iron, heard a lot of iron rumbling in my headphones, but the good signals dominated. I was using 5 tones and sometimes 50 tones.

I am not sure if I am having buyers remorse and thinking I may should have bought the XP Deus.
 
You should try setting iron bias to 0 this will help quiet most iron but not all.
Seems to me depth is affected by turning down sensitivity.
Happy hunting!
 
I'd like to go out to that site with you some time and do some tests too. We could hit targets with different setting to see if it affects them.

BCD
 
When relic hunting I adjust my Tone volume for iron to a lower setting. This way you still hear the iron but it is not a constant buzzing in your ear. Makes the good targets pop out nicely.
 
When relic hunting I adjust my Tone volume for iron to a lower setting. This way you still hear the iron but it is not a constant buzzing in your ear. Makes the good targets pop out nicely.

same here.. I have the iron volume at 1 on my custom program. If im in an area with relic potential ill turn it up a bit.
 
Hunting heavy iron with Equinox.
I have done loads.
You set iron bias setting at 0, be prepared to be blasted with tones off of iron.
Higher iron bias will help somewhat, it won’t knock out all the iron falsing.
Now running higher iron bias also reduces Nox performance a small far as separating nonferrous from ferrous. Unmasking effects reduced too.

What to do.
It will take practice using the detector in such sites.
Rthym of tones and nuance of tones are the keys.

Lower conductors will usually sound lower sounding tone wise vs iron tones provided (with horseshoe button disengaged).
I actually recommend folks to use horseshoe disengaged for hunting such sites.
Now, more shallow nonferrous and bigger will generally not sound (so different ) tone volume wise vs ferrous.

Repeatability of signals provided over iron infested site is something to key on.
With real good coil management ( height and sweep and actual coil placement) a person can tell if tone provided repeats, say 3 out of 4 times.

Reducing sensitivty can help, but remember depth is reduced.

Nox likes to provide the nice little clean what I call ding dong signal when it comes over the nonferrous. ID of targets can be skewed to what they really are (airtest) but many times the Nox will ID pretty good. Best detector for doing I have used (on mid and lower conductors) (remember though this is on located targets. Will equinox find all nonferrous in a nail ridden site? Nope.
And no other metal detector will either.
 
Hunting heavy iron with Equinox.
I have done loads.
You set iron bias setting at 0, be prepared to be blasted with tones off of iron.
Higher iron bias will help somewhat, it won’t knock out all the iron falsing.
Now running higher iron bias also reduces Nox performance a small far as separating nonferrous from ferrous. Unmasking effects reduced too.

What to do.
It will take practice using the detector in such sites.
Rthym of tones and nuance of tones are the keys.

Lower conductors will usually sound lower sounding tone wise vs iron tones provided (with horseshoe button disengaged).
I actually recommend folks to use horseshoe disengaged for hunting such sites.
Now, more shallow nonferrous and bigger will generally not sound (so different ) tone volume wise vs ferrous.

Repeatability of signals provided over iron infested site is something to key on.
With real good coil management ( height and sweep and actual coil placement) a person can tell if tone provided repeats, say 3 out of 4 times.

Reducing sensitivty can help, but remember depth is reduced.

Nox likes to provide the nice little clean what I call ding dong signal when it comes over the nonferrous. ID of targets can be skewed to what they really are (airtest) but many times the Nox will ID pretty good. Best detector for doing I have used (on mid and lower conductors) (remember though this is on located targets. Will equinox find all nonferrous in a nail ridden site? Nope.
And no other metal detector will either.

This is very helpful, thank you. I have an old home that I detect that has one section that's infested with nails, etc...very hard to detect for me. I'll try this in the spring when we get back there.
 
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