Noise and barking dogs next door woke me up at 3:30 this morning so I decided to check out some you tube videos since I couldn't get back to needed sleep. I didn't select anything specific, just picked on an older model to see what there might be and came across a fellow in NH who hunted old cellar holes and such in the woods a few months ago. He had searched there before with his Fisher F19 & 11" BiAxial coil, and this was is first time, ever, using a small 5" DD coil. Hunted or a number of years, but never used a small coil.

It was interesting to watch for a couple of reasons. One, naturally, was to see what he would find around that very old-use locations, and he did well with a couple of Large Cents and doo-dads. But the other was that I wanted to see how he hunted. See what he did right and what he did wrong, and I was rather surprised because almost everything was in the 'right' category and not 'wrong.'

Let me mention the 'wrong' group of things to not do.:

• Sweep the smaller coil too quickly.
• Fail to over-lap sufficiently.
• Not stop on any significant, questionable audio response.

Naturally, it's easy to figure out the 'right' things to do when hunting with a smaller coil, especially in the very ferrous littered site he was at, and that is to simply do what should be done:

• Work the smaller-soil more slowly and methodically.
• Overlap for better coverage an to help unmask non-ferrous targets close to the ferrous debris.
• Stop and investigate / recover every questionable audio response that is not dead-solid 'Iron.'

Through my many years of detecting I've enjoyed 'company,' hunting with strangers, with friends, and with others on organized outings like the WTHO's. And all to often I have watched people work a smaller-size search coil (any coil for that matter) at a much too brisk of a sweep. Way too fast, and things get worse when working a smaller coil in heavy iron because the detector needs enough time to process the ground signal, as well as the target signal, and deal with the rejection of the Discriminated target.

And because the search coil is small, and often the site is littered, it is very important to make sufficient overlaps on every left-to-right or right-to-left pass of the coil. Not just to cross the EMF with a desirable target, but to also handle the masking effects of all the litter, and that allows us to unmask a desirable target.

And we should rely too heavily on the visual Target ID or even the audio Tone ID to alert us to dig or keep on going. We should always stop and isolate the target then, most often, recover the object and then know if it was in-fact a good or bad target. It was fun to watch hi and how amazed he was at the number of smaller-size, non-ferrous targets, such as .22. cartridge cases, he was recovering from a place he had hunted with the standard coil. All of them were jumping out with very good, clean audio signals, and he'd been there a week or so prior and had no clue there was so much to be found that were higher-conductive / non-ferrous targets.

Yes, it was a learning experience for him, and for me it was fun to watch. While a lot of us are dealing with some wintry down-time, maybe it would be good to check out each of your detectors, with each of the smaller-size coils you have, using an assortment of coins and ferrous 'junk' and see how close you can get them and still hunt-up the good target. Find out how your detector and settings can work in your favor should you confront a challenging location with a dinky-size coil attached.

Just an idea for something to do.

Monte

"Your EYES ... the only 100% accurate form of Discrimination!"
Stinkwater Wells Trading Post
Metal Detector Evaluations and Product ReviewsI'm now located in Clyde, Texas monte@ahrps.org ... or ... monte@stinkwaterwells.com 325-481-8147Detector Outfit: A selection of my favorite makes and models, with the best coils mounted, for the tasks I'll take on.Pinpointers: Pulse-Dive & ProPointer AT .. Headphones: 'Hornet' & 'Wasp' .. MS-3 Z-Lynk .. N/M Green edition*** All working well today to make memories for tomorrow. ***