I metal detected my front yard, which has been heavily pounded with my Fisher F2 and Vanquish 540.
Currently, I detect with my 540 in a modified coin mode, where it's basically the stock coin mode, but I've notched out some lower number. Basically, if it doesn't hit 16 or so, I won't hear it.
All day Saturday it had been raining, although most of Sunday was sunny and dry. So the ground today was nice and moist, but not wet or soggy at all. When using my 540, it seemed like my entire yard came alive with a bunch of targets hitting 17 or more. Some of these were solid and some were iffy. To put it in perspective, normally when using my 540, I rarely get any strong signals in my front yard over 17 due to heavy hunting done so far.
However, when I dug the strong signals, about half the time it was a medium-size rusty nail and half the time, it was a penny.
So I have the following questions:
1. What's going on here? I've heard that wet or damp soil can improve the depth of your detector. But I went from barely any 17+ signals to tons of them. I was even able to find a dime in the curb strip in front of my house. Normally, unless I'm in all metal mode with my 540, hunting that area results in ZERO signals; pure silence. Now, I get a dime and some solid targets? It's almost as if I had never hunted that curb strip before.
2. Whatever is going on here, will getting an Equinox 600 help me handle it? On the one hand, getting 4 pennies and 1 dime in a heavily hunted area is great. On the other hand, I was digging up more iron than normal. My first thought was that my soil had mineralization whose effects were amplified by the recent rains. So would the Equinox's ability to ground balance make a difference here and if so, how much?
Currently, I detect with my 540 in a modified coin mode, where it's basically the stock coin mode, but I've notched out some lower number. Basically, if it doesn't hit 16 or so, I won't hear it.
All day Saturday it had been raining, although most of Sunday was sunny and dry. So the ground today was nice and moist, but not wet or soggy at all. When using my 540, it seemed like my entire yard came alive with a bunch of targets hitting 17 or more. Some of these were solid and some were iffy. To put it in perspective, normally when using my 540, I rarely get any strong signals in my front yard over 17 due to heavy hunting done so far.
However, when I dug the strong signals, about half the time it was a medium-size rusty nail and half the time, it was a penny.
So I have the following questions:
1. What's going on here? I've heard that wet or damp soil can improve the depth of your detector. But I went from barely any 17+ signals to tons of them. I was even able to find a dime in the curb strip in front of my house. Normally, unless I'm in all metal mode with my 540, hunting that area results in ZERO signals; pure silence. Now, I get a dime and some solid targets? It's almost as if I had never hunted that curb strip before.
2. Whatever is going on here, will getting an Equinox 600 help me handle it? On the one hand, getting 4 pennies and 1 dime in a heavily hunted area is great. On the other hand, I was digging up more iron than normal. My first thought was that my soil had mineralization whose effects were amplified by the recent rains. So would the Equinox's ability to ground balance make a difference here and if so, how much?