I'm eagerly awaiting the release of the extras - the big headphones, the Go Terrain app, hopefully an elliptical coil, then I'm going to send in my $1600. It's a no-brainer and a done deal for me considering all the wonderful finds I've had in just three years with my Deus. Recently I've changed my detecting technique on sites I've dug hundreds of coins from, and now I'm still digging hundreds more, along with jewelry and other good stuff. This metal detector is like the iPhone and MacBook Pro of metal detectors. It simply can't be beat if you really know how to maximize its value. I expect the same and more when I get my Deus II rig next year. Until then, up comes more and more and more every time I am out with my Deus "classic".
I received a private message regarding the above message, so I'll elaborate on it here.
The field I dig in is what I call "The Money Pit" and is a sports field that has been in use for 50-70 years or so and flooded by the river and rebuilt many times over the years.
I first hit the field with a little Minelab Go Find 60 as I was just starting to get back into the hobby since my first detector was a $50.00 Bounty Hunter I got from my parents when I was 13 or so, and it finally struck me that I forgot to get back into the hobby 35 years later.
I used this field as a spot to test since it was close to home and covers many, many acres of ground and I knew it would have some stuff in the dirt due to all the annual fireworks festivals, sports fields, picnic grounds, and generally being a place where people hang out, drink, etc., for 50+ years.
The little Go Find 60 lasted about a year until it got wet, but it got me several coins and bottle caps, all the while I was studying what to get when I decided to take the plunge on a real metal detector. After the Go Find 60 crapped out, I was able to find another better, but still no-name !!!! used machine called a "GroundFX" locally, so I bought it for $100.00 to at least have something to use until my research was finished and I knew how much I needed to spend to get the right detector for my use case.
With my research finished, I got a used full Deus setup with the original 11" coil in April 2019 and went work learning it to the maximum. I started pulling hundreds of coins out of the field with little effort and visited it every week at least one to three times. I used only my own custom programs based on what I had learned from Gary Blackwell's and Grant Hanson's (and other's) YouTube videos to maximize my knowledge of the Deus. All the programs I find most useful for this field (and definitely usable on all kinds of inland dirt) were/are based on the Deep, Fast, and Hot programs for the most part, but don't discount any of the other "pro" programs to customize either, such as Gold Field. Know how to mix and match settings you find online into other programs, because each program is not just a different set of settings, it also has special filters and hidden settings we cannot see, so learn each program carefully and know what to adjust for each program. It's not easy to learn, but at least try to think of your Deus this way and experiment with other programs when possible.
My Learning Journey :
1. The first thing I learned is that ground balance is very important. Always balance and always check your balance and adjust accordingly throughout your dig. It will make a huge difference in your finds rate because it eliminates ground feedback, which can be very confusing when using full tones.
2. Full Tones is awesome. I've been using full tones since I got the Deus, because I understood the power it holds. I also tested a bit with Gary Blackwell's Sonar programs and found them helpful, but then reverted back to my full tones programs after a few weeks because it suits me better. Full tones will find you more good things if you spend the time to learn how to appreciate it.
3. I replaced my 11" original coil with the HF 9x5 elliptical coil in April of this year because I wanted the higher frequencies, smaller footprint and elliptical shape to help in stubble, forests, and in general make my rig more transportable in my backpack, because I walk / hike or take a train to all the places I go detecting. (I should drive more to get up into the old and less accessible mountains, but I don't need to since public transportation is so easy, and I'm often pretty lazy, so I detect mostly within a few hours train ride distance - beaches, city parks, mountains, rivers).
4. I used the 9x5 to clean up loads more coins just due to the depth and versatility of the smaller coil, and use 74Khz and 31Khz almost exclusively on any sites I've visited since I got the HF 9x5 coil. This helps increase the finds rate amazingly for my type of hunting for coins, jewelry, relics. This doesn't mean you should not use the lower frequencies, but you'll need to judge for yourself. The best thing to do is cover the same site using all frequencies, though of course this is not practical unless you can visit the same spot hundreds of times.
5. I finally started draining "The Money Pit" and nearby areas of the field this year just by using the elliptical coil to show me what I missed with the original coil. I'm well over 1,000 coins (and jewelry, and other fun things) out of this field now, and hundreds more from all the other places I dig.
6. I know there is still more in the field, so I changed my style and settings again to help me really get into the dirt and find the deeper targets and things I missed and now I am digging up plenty more in the same areas I've visited many times before. These changes are :
A. My new favorite program (for this area, but it works great in similar conditions for coins, jewelry an typical hunting anywhere) :
DISC - 25, FULL TONES
SENS - 96, FREQUENCY 31.3 or whatever you prefer
IRON VOL. - 1
REACTIVITY - 4
SILENCER - -1 to 4, as desired
AUDIO RESP. - 4 (helps bring up fainter targets without causing too much loss in target depth perception)
NOTCH - 00-00, or as desired
B. Use the “Slow and Methodical” technique
After you’ve gone all willy-nilly over a site loads of times, it’s good to go zen and start over. Always ground balance as close to the current conditions as possible. This is extremely important to pick up faint signals. I’m amazed when I see YouTube videos of people not ground balancing - it’s just crazy to not balance. (I’m guessing these are the same people that don’t read the manual and post silly messages on Facebook groups.) Always watch your ground phase and adjust accordingly during your hunt.
Sweep in front of you at the speed needed to match the reactivity as much as it suits you to do so without getting overwhelmed by the full tone audio, ground falsing, moisture falsing, junk contamination falsing.
Sweep several times over the same area and listen carefully.
Step forward six inches (yes, only six inches or so - this is a slow process) and sweep a few more times and listen carefully.
Repeat this and you will be able to cover a good strip of dirt of about 80-100 feet in front of you in roughly an hour, including digging a target every few minutes.
When you get to the end of your row, turn around, take a three foot step to either side and start over, making sure your swinging technique covers a wide enough arc to be comfortable and let you move at a decent enough pace to cover the ground. Change your arc from narrow to wide as desired, as you may get tired of maxing maximum arcs doing this.
This will certainly bring up things you’ve missed before.
It is also a good way to start a dig in a new location, by carefully examining a small area using this technique for 30 minutes to an hour to survey the land and see what comes up in this target density survey.
Go ahead and loosen up and swing around here and there and have fun hunting if you’re feeling too bored with this technique and just want to find “stuff”, but this is guaranteed to pull up those items you’ve missed before if you go slow and methodically.
Also remember to dig those 95-97 (your IDs may vary) signals with a straight horizontal line that have at least one crispy chirp in full tones. These might be coins on edge, gold jewelry, or too deep for a good ID, but a little sharp, high chirp among the full tones signal is a good indication that there might be something worth digging there that you’ve missed before because it was too deep.
I hope you find this helpful in some of your own digging situations.
