OK Tom,I’ll tell you this...and I’ve paid ALOT of attention to what you describe because I have noticed this WITHOUT A DOUBT!
My biggest enemy is EMI...ANY kind of interference of an electronic/magnetic nature. I have noticed that hunting at/after dusk,when I do which isn’t often due to “life”,is more productive. Less solar interference,less automobile ignition interference,less power going through lines,less cellular usage,wi-if routers....WHATEVER IT IS,it’s better in the evening,and very early in the morning for that matter.
Attitude and your own mental acuity is very important. You must be relaxed and letting the machine do the work! Especially with the CTX,if you have a coin under the coil,it’ll tell you. Running manual sensitivity is getting to be a habit for me,because even in Auto+3,the machine can be too “jacked up”. Sure,I can dial down the Auto level a few notches, but I keep it in manual now for the most part,and run it so there is no “burping and sputtering” when the coil is motionless. That’s what I have gravitated toward,not saying it’s the best all the time! Other things are at work “under the hood” when in Auto,so I hear but don’t know what they are,it’s just something I’ve read places. We all know how THAT goes!
I have found that in a place with KNOWN bad EMI during the hours you’re able to hunt it,a smaller coil is more productive. Getting into that state of mind where you are working thoroughly,keeping good control of the coil and incorporating the basics of detecting is sometimes hard to do,especially when you’re pressed for time. I tend to hurry sometimes, but then have to force myself to revert to my “method”,and that is what I’ve stated above.
I ALWAYS use channel 6 if the site allows. If it does NOT,I let the machine choose the channel. As I understand it,channel 6 is the “uncorrected” channel...if it did NOT have the ability to frequency shift,this would be the exact frequency range it would use. Magically enough...when I do a noise cancel,MOST of the time it picks...6! Things that make you go “Hmmmm.”..Hmmm ? The other favorites it picks are 9,which seems to find me stuff,and 2,which is just “OK”,from an actual “found stuff” perspective. It matters not what others use or why...whatever works for YOU and seems to make your machine stable and accurate,that’s the key to clean targets.
When things are off,EMI is rampant or you start really tweaking up the sensitivty in hopes of finding more coins but all you do is to enhance the nail falses...a person needs to literally TAKE A BREAK. Go to the car,make a call,slide behind a tree and drain the dragon...take a break. When things are “funny”,many more times than not the sensitivity is set too high for what the surrounding EMI,junk concentration and soil conditions will allow.
A nice rain certainly helps my COPPER count, but it does basically NOTHING for my silver count. I’ve found very deep silver in bone dry ground and in sopping wet ground. That aspect,for ME,doesn’t seem to change much.
Finally,(thank GOD,right?) if you FEEL something isn’t right and you’ve done the basic tweaks and nothing good is happening?...move on. Go to a different site,or maybe the other side of the park. It’ll be there for another day,as long as it’s not a “one and done THAT DAY” permission.
TRUST what the CTX is telling you,even if it’s telling you that on that particular day you’re hunting a complete dud of a site. Because it knows..
