Getting really frustrated

[GA1dad]

I hit the local park again today. It was established in 1842 and was the center of everything in this Mayberryish town. I've spent a fair amount of time lately looking at aerial photos and walking without a detector just surveying possible spots. I narrowed down two spots that were possibly overlooked areas by other detectors. But beyond that I've decided to simply grid off the park on the aerial photos and simply dissect each smaller area looking for one old coin that might have been missed.

So my daughter and I hit it yesterday afternoon on a grid of roughly 100' x 100'. She uses the Ace 350 and retrieves anything less than 2 inches deep ( cause she still struggles with pinpointing and deep digging ),,,, and I would focus on deep targets only and dig anything repeatable on the BH Platinum. Well it sucked I tell you. I couldn't find a good repeatable signal to save my life. Every deep signal jumped around from the 50's to 90's. So I dug anything that had repeatable depth and ignored the bouncy VDI numbers,,,, and dug a lot a of crap. One of my big issues was mineralization and EMI ( I think ). The park soil is a grayish sandy material and is "wired" for a large Christmas decorating every year, ( which is another reason my daughter is limited to 2 inch deep targets ). From experience with the machine, I know to ground balance often,, and in this park the gray sandy stuff balances in the low to mid 50's. But the machine still seems to struggle in the park unlike other areas. Is the gray sandy stuff original? I don't know but the tree roots have all began exposing themselves through it. If it was spread as fill, it was done a long time ago.

Perhaps my problems are simply because of 150 years worth of trash bits,, I don't know. But it's pretty disheartening when two zinc pennies dug by your 9 year old is considered the finds of the day.:shocked01: Though as a Dad, I did make sure to celebrate that she was the champ that day.

Anybody have thoughts or suggestions. I would love to upgrade machines, but that simply isn't in the cards right now. One thing I do have in the plan,,, I noticed a backhoes scoop of the old sandy stuff behind a storage building. It looks like extra from a recent sidewalk project. I'm thinking about getting a bucket full of it for a small test bed.

[Digger Don]

I feel your pain. Persistence is the key. I've hunted plenty of parks where i have found absolutely nothing. ( Our town has a park that was dedicated in 1835. I have hunted it several times and have never found a silver coin there.) Although, I have found Silver at house across the street. Then you find that one park with some really good finds and your confidence is renewed. Have you ever tried door knocking at old properties? You may have better luck finding some virgin ground.
You can have the best detector on the market, but if the park is in an area thats been hunted to death, there may not be much left to find.
Keep swinging :detecting:and good luck.

[GA1dad]

After posting this I rode up and got 5 gallons of the pile that was behind the storage building. In the bucket it balances out in the mid 60's.

Thanks for the reply Don,, I have done some knocking but had poor success with permissions. Lot's of folks like to talk about the town history,, and they are more than willing to tell you who else to try,,,,, but not on their property. Oh well, the conversations have been historically educational.

[Digger Don]

After posting this I rode up and got 5 gallons of the pile that was behind the storage building. In the bucket it balances out in the mid 60's.

Thanks for the reply Don,, I have done some knocking but had poor success with permissions. Lot's of folks like to talk about the town history,, and they are more than willing to tell you who else to try,,,,, but not on their property. Oh well, the conversations have been historically educational.
I always start out with " I've been doing a lot of houses in the area lately" sometimes knowing that they're not the only house I've asked helps.
Also, I think it helps a lot when I go to the door with my son. People really seem to think it's nice that we detect together. Hey, what ever works!
Good Luck

[MangoAve]

You can see the roots of the trees but how old would you estimate them? It can mean just the area around those trees was filled before they were planted maybe as soon as 30 years ago. I haven't tried the platinum but I noticed anything deeper than 8 or so inches you will have an issue with stabiloty as with most detectors. If all the scratchy targets are less deep, than it's trash. Parks have a ridic amount of aluminum trash. I even pulled up a 6' mic cable and a cell phone once. I found a park with trees over 100 years old plus houses older near by. I only hit it once but only came up with a few clad and a dog fob. Remember your detector should be acurate to 4 or 6 inch depth and I think it's independent of mineralization at those depths. At least it doesn't specify that in the manual. I can't correlate here cuz we have the red shale dirt mostly And when it's really compact with larger stones seems to be the original dirt. The easier stuff to dig seems to be fill. Also realize too that even like my BH having really good separation, sometimes you can get fooled with scratch signals. At an early 1700 place where a few early 1900 silver were pulled I wasn't finding much. Just some random things until I dug a scratchy target. A merc was next to a piece of brass. If it would have been iron next to the merc it would have been easier actually cuz the machine might be confused more with two good signals near each other with different readings. You must be using the all metal mode to hunt. Not sure how you do that continuously. Most of the time the modes with a little discrimination are for continued swinging and the all metal modes are when you hunt places with not much trash. Altho, yes, you lose depth in program modes, I wouldn't use that at a park. I believe as well the machine is capable of its own ground grab that is automatic in regular search modes. Not manual ground balance.

[freemindstuck]

In a park hunt most of the easy signals have already been dug. It's the bouncy signal that you are actually looking for. I don't know what to tell you in order for you to be able to distinguish a sketchy signal that may be a coin next to a piece of trash from a sketchy signal due to an actual piece of trash. I learned this ability after digging huge amounts of trash and several hundred hours on my detector. So be patient and good luck!

[Dan]

It can get really frustrating, but stick with it. Your going to have good days and not so good days, I've had .06 cent clad days and still do. It's all about location and researching. Find the old schools/parks in town or in neighboring towns, don't give up on door knocking. Farm land and abandoned home sites are great hunting areas.
Make sure you have your machine set right, I still learn from rereading my manual and watching videos.
HH & GL, Dan

[Skamaniac]

There's a section in one the parks close to me that is terrible for detecting for the same reasons you pointed out above. But's just that one section. The rest of the park is fine for hunting. I don't know if it's mineralized soil, trash from dirty fill, or what, but I learned to steer clear of that one little section.