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Offline BlackXTopic starter
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« on: October 12, 2006, 12:12:50 am »
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As mentioned in the Specific Brands thread, given insufficient information to make an informed choice, I ended up choosing the Tesoro Sidewinder uMax over a Whites Coinmaster Classic III.

Picked it up on Sunday and immediately stopped at Cotichuate S.P. w/ the kids to try it out.  Since I really had no clue how to use it yet, we found an awful lot of foil before it got too dark but not much else.  Managed to lose my reading glasses in the process.  Net gain -$15.

Got back home and read through the manual and played around a bit.  Started hunting in the front yard w/ my daughter.  Found a rusty bottlecap, multiple pieces of an old can scattered around, a strip of brass, and a big-*** piece of aluminum siding.  Took a break, read some more on techniques, and hit the opposite side of the yard with my son's buddy.  After a few false starts found my first coin, a 1966 penny that looked like it had been there most of the time since.  Worked my way down to the front of the yard and subsequently found a 2001 quarter and a '73 penny.  Net gain: $0.27 and some practice not messing up a lawn.

Woke up the next morning and my daughter was all excited to try it out so we headed for the back yard.  After trying to explain what I'd figured out so far, she took off and hit a quarter w/in a few feet.  After a bit more searching and some iron scraps--darn those halos!--she found an odd piece of bronze that I still have no idea what it is.  Net gain: $0.25.  (A ways to go to replace the reading glasses.)

Later in the morning while dropping off my son's friend headed to his back yard--house built about 1880--after clearing it w/ his mom.  Lots of targets but kept finding big iron things down deep.  First was what might be a giant electrical connector.  Went from there uphill by the fence.  12" down found a half a cylinder w/ a lip on one end.  Still have no idea what that was.  Still was getting a signal from the hole but, after going down a couple more inches, I gave up.  (The kids were in the house playing by then so weren't much help.)  Then tried next to a very old apple tree only to never be able to find the signal source.  Then had to drop the kids off at the almost-ex's.  Net gain:  more experience, including two holes that couldn't tell where I'd been and one that I could have done better at.

Went home, grabbed a beer, then headed of to a beach on the Upper Mystic Lake and spent a couple of hours at it.  At least it was easy digging.  I managed to find a tiny staple at 4" down!  Along w/ msc. bottlecaps, pulltabs, including an old style one, nails, screws, foil, and what might be a zipper pull that looks like a surfboard w/ a fake gem on it.  Came to the conclusion afterward that someone who knew what they were doing had probably been there before me.  Net gain:  Yet more experience and a pretty strong sense that I really didn't know what I was doing.  Searching w/ DISC on but at minimum wasn't working very well.

Next chance I got was after work last night.  Headed to Harvard Sq. to Charlie's for a beer and a burger and noticed the cobblestone sidewalk was ripped up completely in a couple of places.  Visions of old coins dancing in my head, I searched for a policeman after supper to see if there would be any issues searching there.  Found one and he amusingly said he thought it would be fine.  After going back to the Jeep to pick up the detector, headed to the removed sidewalk only to realize after a few steps that I didn't have my headphones.  Aaargh!  Oh well, I thought I'd use the audible.  But, given that there were dorm windows open and I didn't want to bother anyone, that made it kind of hard to work when I'd switch the DISC off.  Found a bunch of things that disappeared as I dug them.  Reading since, I'm guessing they were rust halos.  Did find a bunch of old broken cast-iron pipe at one point.  Came to the conclusion that there probably wasn't much old there and that it had been worked on too much (a lot of sand rather than dirt) and gave up.  Net gain:  Yet more experience and getting yelled at twice about finding gold, including a "There's gold in them there hills" comment from some passing twerps.

Tonight, with it raining out, I spent some time doing what I should have done before, which was passing a variety of coins, both clad and silver, a gold and a silver ring, and numerous trash (bottlecaps, pulltabs, screws, etc.) that I'd pulled from the beach on  Monday in front of the coil and figuring out where they cut out and trying to train my ears to hear any differences.  Interesting to note that while some of the pull-tabs would cut out pretty cleanly at about 6.2, there were a few that would inconcistently give a signal up til 8 or 9 similar to a coin but perhaps w/ more chatter.  The bottlecaps were all over the map but I think there might be a correlation w/ the amount of rust on them and how far up the DISC scale they went.  For some reason, a Morgan silver dollar seemed to give a weaker signal than both clad and silver quarters.  Couldn't figure that out.  Net gain:  hopefully a better sense of when to dig.

Also spent some time the past few days looking at old maps.  Found that there's one part of a local river that I thought for sure would have been a well-used bank going back into the 1800s but it was filled in more recently than the turn of the century.  But there is another part looks to have been there since at least then and has likely been well used by folks relaxing on the shore.  That's one of my next targets.  Was going to head there over lunch today but was too busy and it was raining by the time I got out of work.  At least I had the headphones and a headlamp ready this time.

Also over the past week, I've found out from the town counsel via a selectman that there are no town bylaws regarding metal detecting, so I should be good to go near the courthouse and library.  There's also a building in town that has some significant Revolutionary War history that got me thinking about contacting the local historical society and seeing if I can work with them on that location and perhaps some similar ones.  I was thinking that, if we can work something out, plotting the finds in some of those areas of battle could be quite informative to them as well as giving them any relics I might find from that time period and that, besides the historically-related enjoyment, I might find an old coin or two in the process.   Anyone else done anything similar or have any suggestions?  If I get a go, I need to figure out how to do an accurate plot.  From what I've been reading, it sounds like the archeological/historical communities and treasure hunters are starting to work together more, particularly in England. We'll see.

Also thought of where there are some fairgrounds on occasion (though those have probably been hunted).

But my best prospect currently is someone I work for that has an 18th-century house.  He and his wife are both fine with me detecting their property and, as far as they know, the soil has not been disturbed, at least since they remodeled it about 5 years ago (except for where they put in a garden and another spot or two).  Given that it--a 3- or 4-story house--had been multiple apartments for likely most of the 20th century at least, there's a good chance of undisturbed soil and some nice finds there.  I'm dying to find time to hunt there.  I'm still a bit leery about my ability to leave no trace in their lawn but, given that they have a sprinkler system, I'm thinking if they'll water beforehand (and perhaps after), that will promote any necessary root growth and the increased conductivity could help me.  I'm excited about that one.

I'd still like to find some local THers to do a little digging with.  The closest club I've found online is a few towns over and a bit inconvenient for me.

  _Rich_  (this was very likely the longest post I'll ever do here)



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Offline stringfrenzy
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« Reply #1 on: October 12, 2006, 12:58:39 am »
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That was a long post. Cheesy

You are on the right track though with the practice, research, manual reading, and "bench testing".  With more practice comes more experience and the better you will get to know how your machine will operate.

Keep up the good work and good luck to you.

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« Reply #2 on: October 12, 2006, 06:49:30 am »
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keep practicing i own a sidwinder and it is real easy to use and a great coin machine i use several tesoros and never found a bad one.you will soon learn the language of it and get many goodies.

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« Reply #3 on: October 12, 2006, 07:47:12 am »
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i truly relate to your story was like that for me with my first metal detector...nice story and  good luck finding a hunting buddy..gregg

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« Reply #4 on: October 12, 2006, 08:00:44 am »
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It's basically a learning process.  Each machine is a little different and takes some getting used to.  You're doing great and you'll be fine.  Your on the right track and before you know it the finds will start coming.

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« Reply #5 on: October 12, 2006, 09:59:38 pm »
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Stopped at the lawn between the library and the courthouse on my way to work.  Decided to set the disc high and scan pretty quickly since I didn't have much time.  Halfway over to the apple tree I got a good solid hit.  1984 Red Sox Pepsi can about 8" down.  I figure that there has been fill put in there.  Sad  There go my fantasies for that spot.  (Although thinking about it now, if they just dropped some dirt on top, if it's not too thick, I still might be able to get some deep finds.)  Scanned around further in other areas and found a new penny on the surface, a 2" metal square--no idea what that was for, and some hot rocks (which I'm finding are far too prevalent).  At least the some of the small rocks I pulled out were hot but I never could get down to what was giving me the strong signal.  3 really big rocks were in the way and I couldn't squeeze my hand between them to get down further.  By then I was kind of late to work.

Ran across the river to the spot I'd seen was old from the map for about 30m before I came home, again with disc set pretty high.  One battery, one bottle top, some trash I can't remember, and a 1999 quarter.  I'm starting to recognize the sharp edge of a surface coin.  I think.

Kids were over tonight so I asked my daughter if she wanted to detect the back yard while the burgers were grilling.  She found some odd sort of pipe to hose of some sort coupling.  Then she was getting distracted by all the blips that make it through the disc so wanted me to take over.  Shortly after found my first toy car.  A Porsche w/ a '69 copyright.  She was very excited about that and immediately ran inside to clean it thoroughly.

After they left, went out to the front yard to practice some more.  First find I thought was trash but was kind of round so I didn't just throw it away.  I just cleaned it and it turns out it was a "Rememberence of my first holy communion" pin, w/ a chalice and plants on the front.  Kinda neat.  I wonder if I can track down who used to live here in case it might have some sentimental value for them if they're still alive.  After finding a nail--rusty things seem to be my nemisis because they seem to read all over the map--I found my first deep coin, a 1926 wheat head.  I'm happy.

The penny sounded kind of "jittery".  Is that a usual signature for anything?  Also, any thoughts on recognizing rusty objects better?

  _Rich_




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« Reply #6 on: October 12, 2006, 10:18:29 pm »
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correct me if im wrong guys but it depends on the way the coin is laying also, might of been hard for the detector to register the penny, also if it was highly corroded the rust may have been more noticeable..gregg

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« Reply #7 on: October 13, 2006, 03:23:08 am »
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Great story...Smiley...I'm sure it reminded all of us of our start at metal detecting...lol

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« Reply #8 on: October 13, 2006, 10:59:34 am »
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Yes it does toolbox.  And in the course of all this we can see the experience starting to build.  It was a great story and you're getting along quite well starting to learn the machine.  Sometimes if you are having trouble trying to figure out what signals are what after benchtesting then it helps to just make sure that you dig everything for awhile to get the hang of the signals.  It's a lot of work but it helps learn the machine quickly, and I see from your stories that you've been doing that.  You are on the right path nothing to stop you now...just keep up the good work, and keep practicing.

You are already "honing" the skills...stay at it. Smiley

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« Reply #9 on: October 13, 2006, 11:00:58 pm »
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One thing I read last(?) night was where someone had set up a test field and had a number of folks of varying experience w/ a variety of MDs go at it.  It was interesting to note that while the majority of them could guess accurately whether it was trash or a goodie, the accuracy of what actually was there was pretty low.  And that's w/ folks w/ quite a bit of experience.

More saga and questions:

Last night after my post I went out again and found my first nickle.  Yea!  As well as another memorial cent.

Then tonight after work, and after a few brews, I hit the riverbank again near where I tried the other night.  It started out really well, with a penny, my first dime, and then a silver ring!

So I thought that I was starting to figure out the settings.  But after that it went all to crap, all I could find were pulltabs and bottlecaps and I had the disc set about 8.5-9.  Do most people get pulltabs and bottlecaps registering up as far as disc 8.5-9 (out of 10)?  In my air tests at home, if I max it out to 10, it pretty much cuts out everything, so I was trying to set it as high as possible and still get quarters and such. At times I'd try to set it to just cut out just above pulltabs, so I can get pennies and above, but it seems like I can't get stop hitting pulltabs and bottlecaps.  Some of the signals were on the weak side so I thought they might be pennies but I kept getting what I thought were good signals only to find mainly those two trash items, along with a big rough disk of some sort of metal and a *really* hot rock. Also, even w/ my disc set that high, I get all kinds of small chirps coming through that I presume are lower-level items bleeding through.  Is this normal?  Since my readings tend to be at least 1 number higher than the manual states, I wondered if my Sidewinder is out of adjustment of some sort or if that's in the normal range of readings.

My goal is eventually to be able to get a better guess at what's there by where it cuts out but tonight's latter experience--along w/ the first part about the staged hunt--was making me wonder how much I'll be able to do that.

At least, if tonight was any example, I'm getting better at not digging iron.

  _Rich_






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« Last Edit: October 13, 2006, 11:02:33 pm by BlackX »
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