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By no means am I highly qualified to
give tips but this helps me for nickels
(If I state the obvious I'm sorry)
First off let me tell you I hunt in
local parks that are trashy (Beaver Tail Infested)
And only dig Nickel sounds that are 5 inches
and more. I can hear you already!
But when I get the nickel signal
In pinpoint (sizing for me) I listen
for the loudness of the pinpoint
If its overly loud normally its not
a nickel Its aluminum.
What is your nickel tip?
HH
BIG JOHN
I don't dig nickel signals in the hope of finding a nickel. I dig in the hopes of finding gold, so I don't over-analyze the signals too much. If it beeps, is solid, I dig.
I see this is the Minelab forum but what machine are you specifically using? I recently started using a 305 with 18.75 conc coil. Nickels seem to be its specialty. If it shows to be a 12, and not dancing around, it is a nickel. Also the nickels sound off louder than tabs and foil, unlike your experience...
Hey Big John. I think your strategy is a good one for your situation. You will be missing some gold rings though. But you will dig a thousand less pull tabs too lol I would dig the nickle signals that are deeper too, since I would only be interested in the older Buffalo and V nickles. You may want to keep track on how the pull tab readings you ignore register. If they always bounce around, and you get a reading that is solid you may want to dig that one. That way you have a chance of finding some gold or other items that may slightly register different than the common tab does.Quote:
Originally Posted by bigjohn070
I always dig 4+ nickel like signals. I say nickel like because while surface nickels tend to hit a fairly solid FE CO of 12-13, the deeper ones do not. My experience has been that the E-Trac doesn't hit on nickels nearly as well as it does silver. That's not to say it can't find them deep, it does. What I mean by that is that nickel signals tend to be very erratic on both FE and CO. This is especially true for war nickels. It's almost as if the E-Trac is confused by the silver in the war nickels and the low conducting nickel metal itself. There may be settings in the E-Trac that may help or even make it worse. I really haven't been able to test this and the sad part is, I just don't find many nickels in my neck of the woods.
Like Dale said nickels hit very solid and clearly on the E-trac, with a solid 12/13, unless they are a bit deep, then the numbers can be all over. I can distinguish the shallower ones from pulltabs, although I'll dig it all to get the gold :) I have not found a wartime nickel with the E-trac yet so I can't comment on that.
I generally dig all solid nickel hits especially if they are deeper signals. You dig a few beavertails here and there but for the most part I have been able to dig some nice old nickels. I have not dug any really deep ones (deeper than 7 inches) so I cannot really comment on how they come in on the Etrac.