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All Metal vs. Notch vs. Auto-Notch - Advice?

CincinnatiKid

Full Member
Joined
Jun 14, 2011
Messages
143
Location
Salt Lake City, UT
Hi,

Im new to metal detecting, and have a Pioneer 202. I typically am hunting in the Auto-Notch mode, which screens out most of the garbage and Im able to get pretty good readings on coins 4-8 inches down. The coins Id like to find the most are Indian Heads and of course anything w/ Lady Liberty on it.

My question is, by operating in auto-notch is it screening out certain old coins as well? Missing out on jewelry? Should I be going All-metal and digging everything? Just curious what methods you all use. Any insight or advice would be great!!

Thanks so much for the help.

CincinnatiKid
 
Ive had more sucess with all metal

I have a titan xd 2000 which is simmilar to your machine .... found a gold high school ring on all metal mode . it came up as a pull tab. In my opinon i would dig all till you get stress by all the garbage . then notch it :yes:
 
I have the bigger brother to your 202 & it works very similar. I test theories on my buddies back yard, that has an old foundation, which I hunt like my own and also a coin garden.

So here is what I've learned:

1. Auto Notch: I use this only if I'm "cherry picking" a site or the hunt is about over and I'm looking for another good target or two.

2. Notch: I will notch out nails & will investigate ALL signals above it. If the target is "iffy", hit the discrimination button again to accept all targets and swing slow.

3. All Metal: This is where the 202 and 505 differ. The 505 has an all metal mode that sounds louder as you get near a target. The 202's all metal mode is the Discrimination mode with the discrimination knob turned the whole way to the left to accept all metal.

Basically, I hunt in Discrimination mode with the discrimination knob the whole way to the left. Why? I hunt nail infested sites and to extract good targets next to nails requires you to hear every signal. On our models, there is a little lag if you notch something out. I found a large cent two weeks ago that had an iron nail laying on it. The signal was mostly iron, but would occasionally hit at pull tab so I dug it to my surprise :shock:

Go slow in target rich areas and also try the 4" coil for better separation. I found a large button last night under a piece of wire. The 8" coil missed it.

I hope this helps you.
 
Good question. I have a BH505, I tried auto notch and notch, but really have not tried them too much. I just stick to all discrimination mode, and turn all sensitivity very high to hear everything, and then turn discrimination knob accordingly , if there is a lot of iron, I turn it up a little to not see iron as much, if there is no iron I let it go for all iron. I just don't trust notch and auto notch modes yet. But I like the machine and found good coins. HH
 
I wrote this one for Bounty Hunter machines. The first couple of machines I had were by them.
 

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Hi,

Im new to metal detecting, and have a Pioneer 202. I typically am hunting in the Auto-Notch mode, which screens out most of the garbage and Im able to get pretty good readings on coins 4-8 inches down. The coins Id like to find the most are Indian Heads and of course anything w/ Lady Liberty on it.

My question is, by operating in auto-notch is it screening out certain old coins as well? Missing out on jewelry? Should I be going All-metal and digging everything? Just curious what methods you all use. Any insight or advice would be great!!

Thanks so much for the help.

CincinnatiKid
I never cared for all metal and used notch the most. Throw a nickle down and after you pick that up turn the disc down a hair more. Liberty nickles read lower than modern ones.
 
Strangely enough today I am taking a Tracker IV to work and giving it to a co-worker to take home and try out. She always wanted to try metal detecting and her boys been pestering her for some time now for one. I figure to let it go real cheap and free up the storage a bit.
 
Hi,

Im new to metal detecting, and have a Pioneer 202. I typically am hunting in the Auto-Notch mode, which screens out most of the garbage and Im able to get pretty good readings on coins 4-8 inches down. The coins Id like to find the most are Indian Heads and of course anything w/ Lady Liberty on it.

My question is, by operating in auto-notch is it screening out certain old coins as well? Missing out on jewelry? Should I be going All-metal and digging everything? Just curious what methods you all use. Any insight or advice would be great!!

Thanks so much for the help.

CincinnatiKid


Use any disc and you will lose some depth compared to all metal.
Gold can come up anywhere from iron to zinc.

Indian heads will usually hit as a zinc signal, not copper, so if you are notching out that area, you won't find any of these.
Evidently, auto-notch on a 202 cuts out screw-on bottle caps.
On my detectors, these things can come in as zinc.
Be a little more selective in your notching to find those Indians, or just tell me where you hunt and I can come in behind you with way less disc and if they are there, I will find them.
I'll show them to you...but I will definitely keep them for my collection

I keep posting the picture below from a White's machine because I think a lot of people don't really understand where metal signals come in in the real world.
The VDI #'s might be different on different machines, but this is the range where different metals live.
 

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I never cared for all metal and used notch the most. Throw a nickle down and after you pick that up turn the disc down a hair more. Liberty nickles read lower than modern ones.


I too have the Pioneer 505 and agree with Western. You have to be sure your getting the nickles because in Autonotch I have found that I DO NOT pick up nickles which is not good because gold can be confused for nickles and you dont want to miss that.
 
Hi,

Im new to metal detecting, and have a Pioneer 202. I typically am hunting in the Auto-Notch mode, which screens out most of the garbage and Im able to get pretty good readings on coins 4-8 inches down. The coins Id like to find the most are Indian Heads and of course anything w/ Lady Liberty on it.

My question is, by operating in auto-notch is it screening out certain old coins as well? Missing out on jewelry? Should I be going All-metal and digging everything? Just curious what methods you all use. Any insight or advice would be great!!

Thanks so much for the help.

CincinnatiKid

What is most of the garbage.Dont trust them.I know.Only in really bad areas use disc.The Fisher F5 which is gone now told me the large cent I found was a pull tab.
 
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