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NavyDT's diggin journal 2017

NavyDT

NavyDT

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 8, 2010
Messages
362
Location
Norfolk, VA
Hello all,

Just got my first hunt in of 2017. Had a little break in the action here at flight school so i decided to hit the dirt and see what i could find.

I was using @tnsharpshooter 's advice with my set up. I started by making a new program with the XP Deus with the following perimeters i am using V4

Disc -2.5
Audio report 5 ( i left this at the default of 3 because i could not find this setting)
Volume in headphone module 6
Freq,,in heavy iron 18khz
In cleaner places looking for coins 8khz (used for most of my hunt )
ID norm off
Reactvity 2 or 2.5
Silencer -1
Sens 93
Tx power 2
Full tones

Since this was my first hunt with the XP Deus i decided that cracking on come clad at a nearby tot lot would be a good warm up. oh 8khz zincolins were hitting mid 70's and anything worth digging was 83+ dug some pennies and dimes and one quarter and a bunch of can slaw and foil. was good to see how the machine functions. Man i is fast! even swinging between the poles of the playground equipment i was still able to find targets just inches away from the poles.

Now that i had a rough idea of what i was after it was time to head to the lake shore.

The area is a mix of late to mid 1960's expansion and some newer development. i headed for the area of the shore where the picnic benches were all concrete. Tones of 49-57 signals these things were screamin loud. dug the first one, pull tab, dug the 2nd one, again pull tab. this continued for around 45 minutes and 20 pull tabs later. you know, ol navy is a slow learner. i started igoring those after a while and started digging anything 48 and below and 72 and above with good sounds. started in an area hitting lots of 1961-1972 pennies so i knew that the area might have a silver in there. time started running out and i was a bit discouraged that i hadnt hit anything other than clad all day. half heartedly swinging on the way back to the car i got a repeatable faint signal. The XY screen was showing uper right to lower left strait line and it sounded good, but faint from all angles. Got the lesche out and got a sizable plug removed. pin point, nothing. ive got at least 6 inches of plug out at this point. rescan with the XP, its still in there some where. dig dig and pow i see it, an edge of silver staring out.

I knew at that point i had a silver. Got her out of the hole and the grin on my face was so big it almost swallowed my ears with the headphones attached. i had my first silver of the year and the first with my new XP Deus - A 1941 Mercury Dime in really nice condition.

Hope you enjoyed the hunt as much as i did and see you next time
Very Respectfully,
NavyDT




image hosting
 
24mar2017

Well its the 2nd hunt with the XP Deus. there are a lot of features that i like on this detector, the recovery speed is top notch. What i dont like is when you change frequencies say from 8khz to 18khz the full tones and VDI numbers change. They have a ID Norm feature but that changes all tones to the 18khz number, and there is not alot of space at the top end ( anything dime+ is 90+) which is easy to confuse with large iron falsings. anyways i digress back to the hunt...

Its that time of the year again, the dreaded spring break. The kids are free and about to dive the parental figures up the walls. This year we decided to take them down to pensacola so they could burn it off the beach... the perfect place to test to XP Deus. We get down and to the beach and the kids start doing their thing. i get to swinging. Now as i said in the past post im using TNsharpshooters program and i really like it. Not a whole lot of targets on most of the beach, but near the boarded walk and the pavilion mixed in the trash i did seam to pick out a few coins.

After the muchkins were done muckin about we headed back for a bite and some chill time. There was this wicked cool light house near by, i figured it would be frowned upon to detect right there on the spot proper but i hit some of the wooded area near by hoping for some of that 1850's coinage. yea, that didnt pan out at all. the area had TONS of huge trash that kept all signals from being recieved. boo.

Nearly defeated with nothing to show my daughter came up and said "hey i want to dig one with you dad!" i was standing out side of our beach cabin and i said ok kid follow me. On 8khz i hit a 74 of the vdi, im thinking zincolin. i give her the digger and the garret carrot. i point with the coil and bend down to show her where to dig. what did we unearth? a damn lil silver ring! 925 stamped on the inside. Needless to say, she was super happy 8 year old.

Anyways, here is the clad and ring pic for the hunt.

Keep swinging em out there!
NavyDT

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"Silver" pennies...

Yup, I've had many zinc and copper pennies magically turn to silver as they were being dug up. I thought my digger was a magic wand or something. :laughing:

Looks like you have one too...keep using it!
Congrats...
 
26MAR17 ghetto hunt!

Well the family is down at the beach but i made my way back home. After some study and preparation for Monday i decided for a little hunt. I went to a near by park in the small town thats outside the base gate. Real classy place, broken class and bottle tops/caps/pull tabs GALORE. There wasn't an area in the park that had more than a foot of space with out some piece of metal in it. I picked my way though the trash as best i could. Most of the clad came from a jungle gym type bar set. kids hanging upside down for the win. No silver today but i did find a 1949 wheat. I think that it was just random luck instead of a year that is indicative of the location.

After some time at the park i went back to the lake area that gave up the merc from a few days ago. well, no luck i didn't find a single coin in an hour! oh well... maybe tomorrow?

30e24800f5cabc513431fba9b23160fb.jpg


Sent from my Pixel XL
 
You are progressing with your unit.
I can tell.

Nice find on the silver.
Congrats

Stay with it,,,it'll get better with time.

Thank you for your service!!
 
Triple Wheat Spill!

After doing alot of thinking, i decided that i wanted to try something different than full tones. I had a feeling that my targets were being blended with the near by iron and i wasnt hearing/seeing them and thus not digging them

My new program is as follows

Program name : 5-tones settings for 8khz only!
Disc 30 ( allows for use of iron vol will explain later )
Expert -> 5 tones
Expert-> set the tones as follows
150 from -6.4 to +30 (sub nickle range)
282 from 30 to 68 ( foil/gold/pulltab range )
541 from 68 to 76 ( zinc's/ super fine silver )
993 from 76 to 95 ( all good coins )
150 from 95 to 99 ( iron false sounds/ giant can slaw)
Sens 93
Expert ->TX PWR 2
FREQ 7.8
Iron Vol 2 or 3 your pref
Reactivity 2 ( set depending on local ground contamination)
Expert ->Silencer -1
Audio Response 3 ( good feel for target distance )\
Expert ->Overload 1
Notch 00-00

With this set up you still get all the iron sounds but you get the added benefit of good targets really popping up out of the headphones so you can investigate those tiny squeeks and hopefully get more targets.

Over the past 2 days i have over 9 hours of hunting time. Now, i think i must either be retarded, in bad spots or dont know what im listening for because i couldnt find very many good targets to save my life. Most of the places around here are 1 of 2 things. 1 - Loaded with tons of modern trash or 2 - invested with old rusty nails.

Even following the guidelines of some of the forum members i still dont see how you can pull targets when there is tons of iron around. finding a solid repeatable signal with iron in the area is really hard, and most targets audio/vdi jumps all over the place when iron is near or there is heavy contamination. Im sure there is a trick here im just not getting it yet. anyways, on to the hunt log

Alright so 2 days rolled into one. The tot lots on base are getting new sawdust so i had to hit them to get the clad out. Most of them only had a few coins each. dug a few bullets and after i was sure i had gotten the most out of those i moved to a nearby church that has been standing since the 1940's. i canvased the area and after about an hour the onlything i had to show for my effort was a 1964 dime and a few clad pennies. One thing i did find that was pretty cool was the Armed Forces Cross and Crown pin. i crossed the street and was hitting the median in the parking spaces and managed to snag my first wheat of the day.

After a visit to the house for refreshments i drove out to a school that had been build in 1921 to see if i could hunt the property. The school has been closed for a few years but the auditorium is still in use by the city. I had super high hopes as this was one of the oldest places i had found. I asked the superintendent and he said it was fine. the place was LOADED!!! with trash. every swing there was atleast 5 to 10 signals iron and old roofing copper nails everywhere. i managed to walk away from the place with 4 wheats for my 5 hours of effort. i will be back to hunt this area again once i get more skill with the xp deus

The family wasnt going to be home for a while yet so i hit up the area where i found the merc. the place is spase in both trash and coins but it was a nice change of pace. i pulled out 6 more wheats from various areas even finding my first spill of the season 3 wheats in one hole the oldest one was from 1932.

My new program worked pretty well, it kept things a little quieter in the headset and i could concentrate on trying to tease out the weaker signals. I still need to figure out how to start picking out targets that are intermixed with the trash though...

untill next time!
NavyDT


68b8149c4390831418665ee1e8d4372c.jpg


Sent from my Pixel XL
 
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If you are at NAS Pensacola I was looking on google maps at a number of places on base that I would hit. Saw a couple ball fields and some tot lots in housing area. I have never had any problem detecting on a Military Base.
 
NavyDT said:
After doing alot of thinking, i decided that i wanted to try something different than full tones. I had a feeling that my targets were being blended with the near by iron and i wasnt hearing/seeing them and thus not digging them

My new program is as follows

Program name : 5-tones settings for 8khz only!
Disc 30 ( allows for use of iron vol will explain later )
Expert -> 5 tones
Expert-> set the tones as follows
150 from -6.4 to +30 (sub nickle range)
282 from 30 to 68 ( foil/gold/pulltab range )
541 from 68 to 76 ( zinc's/ super fine silver )
993 from 76 to 95 ( all good coins )
150 from 95 to 99 ( iron false sounds/ giant can slaw)
Sens 93
Expert ->TX PWR 2
FREQ 7.8
Iron Vol 2 or 3 your pref
Reactivity 2 ( set depending on local ground contamination)
Expert ->Silencer -1
Audio Response 3 ( good feel for target distance )\
Expert ->Overload 1
Notch 00-00

With this set up you still get all the iron sounds but you get the added benefit of good targets really popping up out of the headphones so you can investigate those tiny squeeks and hopefully get more targets.

Over the past 2 days i have over 9 hours of hunting time. Now, i think i must either be retarded, in bad spots or dont know what im listening for because i couldnt find very many good targets to save my life. Most of the places around here are 1 of 2 things. 1 - Loaded with tons of modern trash or 2 - invested with old rusty nails.

Even following the guidelines of some of the forum members i still dont see how you can pull targets when there is tons of iron around. finding a solid repeatable signal with iron in the area is really hard, and most targets audio/vdi jumps all over the place when iron is near or there is heavy contamination. Im sure there is a trick here im just not getting it yet. anyways, on to the hunt log

Alright so 2 days rolled into one. The tot lots on base are getting new sawdust so i had to hit them to get the clad out. Most of them only had a few coins each. dug a few bullets and after i was sure i had gotten the most out of those i moved to a nearby church that has been standing since the 1940's. i canvased the area and after about an hour the onlything i had to show for my effort was a 1964 dime and a few clad pennies. One thing i did find that was pretty cool was the Armed Forces Cross and Crown pin. i crossed the street and was hitting the median in the parking spaces and managed to snag my first wheat of the day.

After a visit to the house for refreshments i drove out to a school that had been build in 1921 to see if i could hunt the property. The school has been closed for a few years but the auditorium is still in use by the city. I had super high hopes as this was one of the oldest places i had found. I asked the superintendent and he said it was fine. the place was LOADED!!! with trash. every swing there was atleast 5 to 10 signals iron and old roofing copper nails everywhere. i managed to walk away from the place with 4 wheats for my 5 hours of effort. i will be back to hunt this area again once i get more skill with the xp deus

The family wasnt going to be home for a while yet so i hit up the area where i found the merc. the place is spase in both trash and coins but it was a nice change of pace. i pulled out 6 more wheats from various areas even finding my first spill of the season 3 wheats in one hole the oldest one was from 1932.

My new program worked pretty well, it kept things a little quieter in the headset and i could concentrate on trying to tease out the weaker signals. I still need to figure out how to start picking out targets that are intermixed with the trash though...

untill next time!
NavyDT


68b8149c4390831418665ee1e8d4372c.jpg


Sent from my Pixel XL
Click to expand...

Hey there!!

I have been reading your post.

A couple things I need to mention.

Deus is a funny creature,,,it can separate and unmask coins and other nonferrous items and actually provide a meter reading of below disc setting.
Sounds strange uh??

With that being said,,,if you elect to run high disc as you have stated above,,,very likely you will never hear most or all of the heavier masked targets.

Try the following.

Disc level at 6.
This will get rid of most nails.
Bigger iron will still get through,,,you can listen and it will have different sound.
Try to use 3 Tone 4 and 5 is too many IMO right now,,with more experience 4 might do.

Set your highest tone break around 69.
8 kHz.
Iron volume off
Reactivity 2.5 if using Deus V4 or 2 if using other versions.
Silencer -1.

Now if you are looking for say an old house site or dwelling and you don't know exactly where it sat,,,running either iron vol on or full tones with -2.5 disc will find the site for you.

Once in the site,,,the less audio the better for you right now.
Again with more time on your unit,,running lower disc and full tones will be easier for you.
 
Target masking FRUSTRATION!

Ahoy all!

Well i went out today with TNsharpshooters advice from yesterday, with a 4 tone program disc 6 response 2. audio is cleaned up but this is one thing thats kinda eh.

The idea of the change from the original program was to be able to unmask some goodies that might be near trash. I went out today and said, if i hit anything that even if its choppy sounds in the good coin range im going to dig it. i HAVE to run into a coin burries near a piece of trash at some point. i dug 34 targets even though they sounded like trash, and not a single one had a coin near it.

this leads me to a conclusion.

1. i dont know what im listening for when masked targets are concerned.
2. targets are being masked so well, they are not triggering audio thus not triggering me to dig.

I did tests with junk objects near coins. there is just no way in hell i would miss a coin as long as its not completely covered by the junk. And even if it was in some cases you can still hear the coin rining out clearly in at least on direction.

At the lake the 4 coins i dug were clearly coins, i knew 100% before i dug that it was a coin. the other 34 junkers some i had an idea what it was before i dug. bullets will ringer higher in one direction and lower in another and have a sputtering ending. The 4 long cartrages really though me because they were clearly on the lower conduction on the larger part of the case, but a really nice clear high tone on the skinny part. every single one i dug i was thinking, wow, this could be it, a coin next to trash but as you can see they were all duds.

Anyways, i hope this journey im on can shed some light on some of you new XP Deus users.
Very Respectfully,
NavyDT

5207ab81f6c9cd4cb8c8c3f33cc19b2c.jpg
 
My kids are still on spring break, and the nefarious housing people decided to re-woodchip all the local play grounds. i guess i better hit them before everything is burried in a few more inches of chips.

Most the the tot lots around here are CLEAN i mean, there might be one coin hiding in the whole area, but i found one today that had me digging a coin every swing pretty much. it was nice to be in an area that hadnt been pounded before.

I think for my next few hunts im going to try and get some permissions. I really dont know how to go about it but if you know some tricks, id love them

I had a few firsts today, first i stoped worring about broken, choppy inconsistent signals. im not sure how to explain it but after about 25+ hours now i kinda get it. if it sounds like !!!!, all over the place and jumpy even though a part of that swing is in the right range, it most likely is junk.

I actually found 4 coins sharing the plug with nails. i mean, before i dug i knew there were coins but wow, the 4 tone program TNsharpshooter had me create was like the bastards wernt even there. i was using the pin pointer and i pulled out 1, 2, 3 nails and i was like damn maybe it was iron falsing, but nope, i re-scanned the plug with the XP and copper clearly showed up. after more poking around i had the target. It was a real confidence booster for sure.

I also had a copper penny siting in the same hole 2 inches away from a piece of can slaw. the tone was a bit choppy but in one direction it was just screaming coin. a nice succinct round tone. sure enough another first.

Just wanted to say thanks for all the advice out there!
NavyDT


1f3b484f58eb92e6425f30bc4a959a3c.jpg
 
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New Deus users,,I recommend they run disc level 6 and either 3 or 4 tones.

Disc level 6,, it takes a pretty big nail or pice of iron to sound off on detectors.

Iron volume off,,too,,makes for a nicer clean hint audio site.

Make no mistake,,running Deus like this,,it will hunt.

Just remember if in a lot of iron and nails,,18khz utilization will help you.

Actually when it comes to separation and unmasking,,,as you go up freq wise in your selection,,the better Deus unmask and separates.

Now when you have sites loaded with iron and nails,,and modern trash as well,,this is where things become very challenging.

Can slaw and bits of aluminum,,18khz loves it,,and can report pretty high Vdi On it too.

Some times in sites like this,,reduce your freq to 8 or 12khz,,and sweep slower,,to make up for the decrease in Deus capabilities in separating and unmasking uaing these lower freqs.
 
I like how you keep the tabs, wish everyone would not throw them back.

Sent from my XT1064 using Tapatalk
 
So i went back to the old school today. took the kiddos with me so the hunt was less that an hour and a half. i went to the spot where i had pulled 2 wheats on my exploratory mission. with in a 10 foot by 20 foot strip i pulled another 5! 1922 was the oldest out of the area.

Cool thing was i was pulling them in and around old rusty iron nails. in one of the plugs i coulnt find the coin until all 4 of the nails were gone. it was pretty awesome.

The new program im running on 4 tones is really getting the job done.

The head stamps were pulled with iron above them at 11 inches! I did some reasearch and they were both from 1911-1914! the whole time i was thinking i was chasing some pipe down deep or somthing but nope.

Here is a link to the website that has the remington headstamps and dates

http://www.headstamps.x10.mx/remingtonUMC.html

Oh yea, and the nickle was in a hole with 4 nails also, strange because it was ringing in the low 70's on the VDI. huh?

Thanks agi

4b6ae72fe60e7b5120e83aa1d26a001d.jpg
 
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Wow, what a day.

i finally hit virgin pay dirt. hit a swimmin hole that aint ever had a detector swung over its surface in its life. damn quarter signals as far as the eye could see. if i was drinkin less and swingin more i might have gotten more but F it, life is short.

This one is definitely in the records books as the most quarters in one day. 20! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT! 20!!!

The 4 tone program can not be beat... the signals were just screamin out. a deaf autistic kid with cerebral palsy and a bad case of gout could have hit those signals with no problem. im just basking in the accomplishment thinking back on it now...

Hope you enjoyed and see you again soon,
NavyDT

166848af31da609e8961b7b4040c5488.jpg


Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
 
NavyDT said:
Wow, what a day.

i finally hit virgin pay dirt. hit a swimmin hole that aint ever had a detector swung over its surface in its life. damn quarter signals as far as the eye could see. if i was drinkin less and swingin more i might have gotten more but F it, life is short.

This one is definitely in the records books as the most quarters in one day. 20! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT! 20!!!

The 4 tone program can not be beat... the signals were just screamin out. a deaf autistic kid with cerebral palsy and a bad case of gout could have hit those signals with no problem. im just basking in the accomplishment thinking back on it now...

Hope you enjoyed and see you again soon,
NavyDT

166848af31da609e8961b7b4040c5488.jpg


Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
Click to expand...


LOL no doubt! Congrats on the continued success! If I wasn't working and drinking I'd be out swinging come on day off Tuesday!! Anyhow glad other members have more opportunity! Happy Hunting!!


MetalHead
 
Went back to the old school today.

I just dont get it. im pulling coins, good older coins in the perfect range for silver and i havnt found a single piece yet.

The area is just LOADED with modern trash on the top and around 6 inches down is where the nails start. its slow, agonizing stuff. every swing has atleast 4 signals, and there are tons of little chirps along the way, all of which have to be investigated.

Most turn out to be nothing. some only sound good 1 in every 4 swings over the spot and the rest of the time they are broken. when you get a coin, you freakin know it because it might be loud in one direction only but its repeatable and never really breaks up alot.

the 10 or so wheats i found at this spot all have come from only one small part of the larger area.

Any ideas on how i could better narrow my search and hopefully get some silver?

3cfb1fb7d5efa55da8c7cb90576efd29.jpg
 
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