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Guys, anyone who's been on here for longer than 5 minutes (lol) knows I'm infatuated with the question of what's the bigger problem, masking or depth. Obviously, both present a challenge to us, however, based on my own digging experiences, and the types of places I hunt, IMO, depth is the critical factor. Further, maybe you guys care to take a crack at this one...

If masking is a bigger problem over depth, why is it that out of thousands upon thousands of holes I've dug, the percentage of secondary targets in the hole below the initial target is minuscule? Meaning...

The times that I've dug a quarter for example, and then dug another coin below that which was being masked by the quarter is almost non-existent. Same goes for junk. It's a terribly rare occasion when I dig a pull tab or other piece of trash, only to find a 'good' target in the hole with it. Now...

If masking was the bigger problem, why don't I find MANY more holes with multiple targets in them?

Keep in mind, I'm NOT suggesting that masking doesn't exist, or isn't a problem, it IS, I'm simply trying to convey that in my experience, I think the bigger problem is depth, ie; the older coinage/relics being out of current detector capability range.

Finally, if any of you had a choice, would you rather have less surface trash to contend with (which would reduce masking), or, have 12" to 18" of top soil removed from your hunting spots? As for me...

I'd definitively opt for the removal of top soil Yes

Joe
i am by far no expert, but in my opinion.
I would have to say that having greater depth would be more useful in the majority of my hunting locations. i do have many areas that are iron loaded where better ability to see around the iron or through the iron would really help, but for the most part those are patchy areas and few and far between, greater depth would reveal much more of the deeper more desired objects.
on the other side of the coin, i have had many times ( daily ) where i will get multiple signals or a bouncy ID, and due to the fact i am new to my machine and unsure, i will dig and pull a few trashy items to reveal another better target either below or very very close .
but i would still have to lean towards greater depth being the better pay off .
Un masking is key.  You ask if we would rather remove all shallow trash or remove 12-18" of soil.  If you remove the top soil you will remove all surface trash with it.  I hqve pulled alot of non ferrous targets out of holes full of nails with the T2.  The T2 sucks in the slag pits though.  Now when I use the TDI I dig alot of stuff that I think would have to be masked.  I almost always have the TDI set for high conductors only.  I have pulled quite a few pull tabs and even a couple small bullets from holes with other targets.  Those low conductors don't give a peep from the TDI when set on high conductive.  I also use the small 5x9 folded miner john coil.  I love that coil just like I almost always use the 5" on the T2.  I have done way better with small coils than big ones.  It's unmasking.  Another thing I think if you remove 12-18" of soil around here alot of places you will hit solid rock or hard clay.  Different places different conditions.  I deal with too much junk to not prefer unmasking.  Of course I want depth too.  Who said we can't have both?
(10-22-2014 12:07 AM)IndianaBones Wrote: [ -> ]i am by far no expert, but in my opinion.
I would have to say that having greater depth would be more useful in the majority of my hunting locations. i do have many areas that are iron loaded where better ability to see around the iron or through the iron would really help, but for the most part those are patchy areas and few and far between, greater depth would reveal much more of the deeper more desired objects.
on the other side of the coin, i have had many times ( daily ) where i will get multiple signals or a bouncy ID, and due to the fact i am new to my machine and unsure, i will dig and pull a few nails to reveal another better target either below or very very close .
but i would still have to lean towards greater depth being the better pay off .

I hunt in all metal, Bones, so, I'm not discing anything out. I like to hear it all. I also dig VERY fringe, borderline signals that are trashy/jumpy. It amazes me that out of the thousands of bad targets I've pulled out of a hole, only then to resweep the area after retrieving said junk target, that there wasn't many more times that a good target was found afterwards. This is why my position is so strengthened on depth being a much bigger problem. Now...

Bear in mind, I'm NOT talking about 'carpet of nails' types of spots. In these areas, yes, there's going to be significant masking issues. The needed ammo here would be a fast machine to pluck the goodies from amongst the trash. Depth isn't the over riding concern...at least at first. Rather...

I'm talking about spots like the one you mentioned above, with fairly moderate patches of junk/iron, then open areas with less junk, then dead areas devoid of signals, so on and so forth.

I can almost guarantee that, if I dug 50 easy, straight iron or pull tab signals tomorrow, that there might only be two or three holes (if I'm lucky) where there's a 'good' target hiding in there, too. Why? Wouldn't masking logic say there should be more? Yet...

Give me the same area, but let me get another 6" or 12" deeper, and I'm certain my keepers would drastically increase.

Joe
I do believe in the open cleaner ares ( where i hunt ) . if i could get another 6 inches of depth i would recover way more desirable targets. the area i hunt can change foot to foot from dense shell middens under the top soil where objects don`t sink much to soft powdery dirt where the objects have sunk quite deep. i think if i could get better depth it would help me much more than unmasking . but as said, location and type of each persons hunting area would determine what would work best for them.
(10-22-2014 12:17 AM)PittsburghWill Wrote: [ -> ]Un masking is key.  You ask if we would rather remove all shallow trash or remove 12-18" of soil.  If you remove the top soil you will remove all surface trash with it.  I hqve pulled alot of non ferrous targets out of holes full of nails with the T2.  The T2 sucks in the slag pits though.  Now when I use the TDI I dig alot of stuff that I think would have to be masked.  I almost always have the TDI set for high conductors only.  I have pulled quite a few pull tabs and even a couple small bullets from holes with other targets.  Those low conductors don't give a peep from the TDI when set on high conductive.  I also use the small 5x9 folded miner john coil.  I love that coil just like I almost always use the 5" on the T2.  I have done way better with small coils than big ones.  It's unmasking.  Another thing I think if you remove 12-18" of soil around here alot of places you will hit solid rock or hard clay.  Different places different conditions.  I deal with too much junk to not prefer unmasking.  Of course I want depth too.  Who said we can't have both?

Then let me ask you this...

Why not dig EVERY signal, especially the pure junk signals (iron range, pull tab range, foil range, etc.)? If masking is THAT huge of a problem, everyone's finds would be out of this world! Yet, that's not the case. If each of us went out tomorrow and HAD to dig every signal, yes, we'd surely find additional stuff due to masking. But, it's not as much as others think is out there.

Shit, if I could find busts, reals, seateds, colonial coppers and all that on a regular basis, and all I had to do was dig iron hits or signals in the pull tab range, because they were being masked, it would be a no-brainer. Very few people do this though, because it doesn't work this way. Think about this...

Do you think it's more plausible that a 250 year old real hasn't been found because it's lying an inch deep, yet is masked by a nail, or, because it's sunk more than a foot in those 250 years? Both are possible, however, I think the ODDS are going to fall in the coin being deeper. Of course...

It can also be deep AND masked, and in that case...

We're fucked Rofl

Joe
i have no doubt, i am missing a lot of other coins and relics that have sunk deeper than my detector can see im dealing with coin sinkage of almost 450 years for the 1500`s reals. the majority of areas are relatively clean of iron and therefore i think depth would yield better results .
I think BOTH are a problem depending on where you're huntin

that being said

I tend to lean towards "depth" as being more of an issue.

I feel a machine that could punch another 6" beyond anything currently on the market with fairly decent ID'ing would certainly bring to light a lot more finds for a lot more hunters more so than unmasking does/can

but as Joe said - sometimes "both issues combined" are present too and that's a real bummer!

Around here - I'd settle for the top 6 to 8" of soil being removed

I know certain areas where it would open the floodgates on seated coins!

Beer
There are so many factors. This conversation can go on and on and on. Like the deeper something is the more chance it will be masked. Objects can be masked by ground minerals alone. The more space there is between a good target and the surface, the more chance for some junk to be there too. When I use a target ID machine I do purposely dig alot of junk. But not all of it if it is overwhelming. If there isn't a pulltab on every swing I usually dig them. Like I said before I have big problems with the slag too. I'm sure that stuff is masking all kind of stuff. 2 or 3 weeks ago I took the old 5900 I just got out to a new spot to try it out. I thought there was something wrong with it. I couldnt get a good ground balance. It was sounding off everywhere and the ID needle wasn't even moving most of the time. I went back and tried the T2 there and I found out why. Slag once again. A blanket of it. Should be a good place to find coins, but between both machines I think I got 3 clads. Only shallow targets are heard and that is mostly tabs and caps. I gotta try the TDI there. Of course more depth would be useful too, but I don't know how useful it would be to me. I just wish I had more time to detect instead of just talking about it. I never have much luck with big coils. More depth requires bigger coils. Bigger coils are more prone to masking. Bigger coils are also affected more by ground minerals. I might just stop using vlf machines all together. First Texas is supposed to be working on a new PI machine. It will be interesting to see what they do. They have to at least one up the TDI to make it a success.
All you guys are making me dizzier than normal. How about a machine that has an 11" DD coil with a 3 inch power coil in the middle that you can switch to and fine tune a target using either PI or VLF? Of course the 3" would have to have the same depth ability as the 11" but that would solve some of the iron nuisance we run into. The engineers will eventually come up with a machine that is both PI and VLF with one multi configured coil and where one can choose what to use by the press of a button or menu control. Until then, take two machines with you, a PI and a VLF and really double check a target. Masking is an issue, depth is an issue. It's a double edged sword because the technology has not melded the two into one unit.

Bahhda BOOM!

Ed
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