Day 2 on the F2! Have questions

rhendry17 said:

Today I briefly scanned the same area and found a penny, and then tried a small park a few miles from the house and spent about 1 1/2 scanning around the pond and tot lot. I found several pennies in close proximity near the pond as soon as I started and then hit a wall. We kept pulling junk, tabs, bottle tops, and cans. Then when we switched to the tot lot we finished with several finds. Total for the day was .66 cent, one quarter, and oldest coin was a 1970 penny. Wife and I had a blast!

Nice!
It's only just begun!

My question is on the signals I'm getting. For the most part I ran on nickel, dime, quarter only and discriminated everything else. Every time I found pennies it showed dime. I assume because zinc is rated right next to dime and I had zinc descriminated.

Don't think so.
Check those dates...most copper pennies from 1982 and earlier will show up about 70-71 and dime.
Zinc pennies can come in anywhere from 48-61.
Also, there usually is a slight difference in that high tone sound between a copper penny and a dime, but you are going to need many more hours digging a ton more of these to be able to hear it.

The quarter find hit really nice and sat on 80. I could definitely tell it was a different detection then I had been getting.

78-82 on most quarters, 82 most of the time, and you will eventually learn they sound different than other high tone penny dime or silver signals, too.


But I got so many signals for nickels which were junk,

Decent size pieces of can-slaw, and also several tabs will show up here, among other trash, but so will gold.


and a ton of quarter readings which were junk also.

This is rare if it is at those 78-82 numbers.
86 can be 2 quarters, 88 can be 3 quarters, high 80's or low 90s could be large coins like dollar coins or halves, but but as stated in that earlier post anything over 83 raise the coil and if you still get a loud solid signal it will usually be a big piece of metal like a big piece of iron or aluminum.
You can also hit the pinpoint button and move the coil over these type of signals.
If the lowest number you see on the bottom of the display stays there for more than an inch or so...not going to be a coin size object

Yesterday evening I had a lot of junk that read higher than quarter, in the upper 80s/90, so today I just passed those by.

A couple of things might be going on here.

1. You can get false high tone "ghost" signals from large pieces of metal up to a foot away from where that metal sits in the ground.
Those signals will never repeat in exactly the same place, however.
Moist ground will magnify this effect.

2. You actually do have some large pieces of metal under your coil.

3. Heavy EMI could also cause this, like hunting right near high power lines.

If I'm running with iron, foil, tab, and zinc on discrimination and still finding these things left and right why would I ever leave them on?

These are mostly ghost signals or junk, turn down your sense a bit and see if they go away at this site, some.
As you get better you will be able to tell which are good solid signals and which are bad when this happens.

If you disc out most of those segments, especially foil tabs and zinc, you will never find gold and a whole slew of other great stuff.


Does anyone on here hunt with these features on?

Since I started using the F2, I have rarely hunted with anything less then max sensitivity and mostly with only iron knocked out.
I learned to ignore all false signals and zero in only on the solid, repeating good ones.
You should see all the great stuff I have found at all of these levels, including a bunch of gold rings.


Thanks for reading and helping!

Click to expand...

rhendry17 said:

Guys, thanks for all your advice and quick replys. On the discrimination, maybe its just where I'm hunting but even with iron, foil, tab and zinc off my F2 is going non-stop. Perhaps this is because my first hunt was near home which obviously has been cultivated by machinery and lots of trash is inevitable.

You could also have high EM near your house.

My second hunt was a small park that has a pond and isn't the cleanest of parks. So the amount of tabs, beer tops, etc that I was finding was in my opinion expected.

Common sense.

But If I were to turn off descrimination almost completely, and say run with everyone except iron wouldn't I just open myself up for more signals?

Tons more, good and bad, but unless all you're ever interested in finding is stuff that come in under that dime and quarter setting, this is something you will eventually need to do.

You know very little at this point, there is something called "The Language" that you will learn given enough time.
Understanding this language more and more will enable you to have better and better ideas of what you are really scanning and what is going on under that coil.
You know very little of this language right now, and we all dig trash no matter how good we get, but you will eventually know enough to dig less, and all of these tones you hear will make more sense.

I didn't dig half of what I was getting signals on, mostly skipped the nickels and everything that peaked above quarter but it just seems like with everything I discriminated I wouldn't have gotten as many signals.

Ghost signals from large pieces of metal can and will "bleed through" your disc settings from time to time.
EMI can make that thing go absolutely wonky.

Seemed like I got a nickel signal every two steps.

Tons of trash come in at that nickel signal, but there are ways to tell the difference.
Nickels can come in anywhere from 29-34, but most of the time 33 is usually a nickel..or a coin shaped compacted piece of foil, or a certain size piece of can, or a pull tab.

Here is a tip..a bit of that language thing I mentioned above.
Good signals like coins will usually stay solid in their tone, the numbers on the screen should be steady or jump no more than 2 at the most, (if there is no trash in the vicinity), and the depth bars on the right don't change.
When trash like odd shaped foil, can slaw or or pull tabs are under your coil, as you move that coil around over that trash, the numbers on your screen could be very jumpy, like 6 or 10 numbers, and look at the depth bars on the right side of the screen...they jump a bunch too.
It seems different parts of the coil try to lock on but can't, and those numbers and bars just usually jump on trash.
I used to dig a lot of these signals, sometimes I still do, but 99% of the time it has been trash.
Once in a while I can hear something solid in that tone and I dig these jumpy, iffy signals and find something good, but again, that is rare.

You are a newby and all of this confusion is normal.
Soon, after several hours of practice, you will laugh at all this stuff and also at some of these questions you asked in this thread.
Just keep swinging and digging and learning!

Click to expand...

rhendry17 said:

Thank you so much Digger! I will start making those adjustments. Does Rosetta Stone have a program for metal detecting? lol I definitely didn't realize just how in depth the language aspect goes. I originally assumed it was simply the pitch of the tone, but now Im seeing its a board depth that has a much wider range then I realized.

But that's one of the things that gravitated me into the spot. It's so complex, yet simple and fun. Finding a location, learning the history/best spots to target, learning your device/the language, tools/strategies, digging styles, what to bring along and what not to pack. Awesome sport!

Click to expand...

rhendry17 said:

CDN,

Your reply sparked a few other questions I have. 1. I noticed that the bulk of my tones were not registering on my left swings, only the right. What causes this? Is it my swing technique, speed of the swing, or the target itself?

Im also trying to trial and error my swing technique. I find myself picking up speed every few minutes when I get in a zone and stop thinking about it. Then I slow back down to a steady level speed. Im sure this will come in time.

2. Pinpointing, I know I have a lot to learn with this technique. Sometimes it seems to work, when I press and hold it will show a number and as I move the coil it around it will show anything from 2 to 11. But it hasn't seemed to pinpoint so to say, the object seems to be off a few inches. This could also be due to the size of the plug Im digging. I've been digging plugs about 5-6 inches in width. Maybe I should expand this. I'm using a hand trowel so thats why my plugs aren't large.

3. I'm using the 11" DD coil and it appears that the center of the coil is actually not the center of coil. What I mean is, it appears to me that the center of the coil is where the rod connects to the coil which is a few inches back of the actual center of the D's. Is this correct? Because my ears and eyes are telling me the tones are coming from that spot but maybe thats my minds perception and not the actual case.

Click to expand...

rhendry17 said:

Thanks CDN,

I notice that sometimes when I i.d. a target, say a nickel reading 34, the display stays and if i keep swinging and keep walking it does not go away. If I hit pinpoint and release it goes back to searching for the next target. Why is this?

Click to expand...

rhendry17 said:

Digger,


Thanks again for helping us beginners!

Click to expand...