IF IN DOUBT DIG
     Welcome to my page about my favorite hobby, metal detecting. I have metal detected for years but started this page as a place to keep records. You will find my log books here and pictures of most everything I've found as well as field reports.

     -Ken



Ken's TH'ing Site
Neat Finds

Coins found: 
$108.81
Since 2/2/02



Most Recent Find

  
Push button

5/23/04










Past Field Reports
  • Reports



    Jan. 5, 2005
    Learning the ropes

     What happens (or has happened in the past) above ground is a good indicator of what you will find underground. Just because you don't know what is underground doesn't mean the ground has the upperhand. Digging for three minutes to find a penny is frustrating, yes. Ten minutes and it becomes intollerable. Screw caps must ocasionally be dug. Foil blobs as well. Pennies must and will be dug. It comes with the territory. All good detectorists have one important rule and that is to identify the target. Sometimes this means following your gut and not the indicator. Detector users dig everything that meets their criteria of a good signal. Because those criteria may become too stringent you start to miss targets. I for one am sure I have left more than one gold ring or pendant in the dirt. That is because my criteria for a good signal was tainted by ignorance and an unwillingness to dig. Once I started digging more I left the insecurity of not knowing what was beneath the ground behind. I started to let my probe and trowel do the talking. When I started to dig up rings, pendants, gold and other items that previously had been discriminated out by either me or my detector I was very surprised . I had learned to rely on discrimination only when I needed it in trashy areas. I had learned to listen for possibilities where before I saw none. I learned that an iffy signal is sometimes (not always) the best signal.



    • My metal detector


    Radio Shack Discovery 2000




    The discovery 2000 is made by bounty hunter for radio shack it has 3 tone target ID and a visual target ID as well as notch discrimination. The auto notch setting can discriminate out zinc pennies but still detect nickels and gold items. It can't however discriminate against square pull tabs and still detect nickels. The discovery 2000 will find things very deep but you must be directly over the target and going very slowly to get any response. A good target will not be detected with a normal swing or pass if it is deeply buried. The discrimination on the discovery is wonderfull it is so quiet compared to the classic III.






    My old detector


    White's

    Classic III



    The classic III is a pretty straight forward, simple, discriminating detector, just turn it on and go. It is functionally the same as a classic I or II in operation allthough the classic III gets a little more depth, has frequency adjust and a black sand switch. I like to hunt with this detector and I am allways finding things of interest with it. When I hunt I have to mentally tune out the trash and tune in the good stuff as I listen and interpret the sounds in my earphones. (Its allmost impossible without earphones). There is no target id of any kind save for the difference in sounds of a single tone. Sometimes my strategy is to hunt fast and look for really solid signals, mostly just stuff on the surface. Sometimes I won't dig I'll just poke around with my probe. I figure recently lost items won't be any deeper than an inch or so. I know this sounds like a lazy way to do it but I find stuff this way and I don't work too hard. Another strategy I use is to really hunt an area well and dig numerous holes practically to china, and I love to pull out a cool old coin once in awhile. In some places just one pass by with this detector isn't sufficient to find all the signals. In those hard to hunt areas the ones with the clicks, skritches and errant beeps, I develop a keen ear for that very specific signal thats good. The sound I listen for is a tone that signals good from certain angles, it is a very soft signal but repeats every pass with the detector. If I find one of these I dig. I cut a plug and see if the item is in the plug, if it was that shallow I know its not a iffy coin signal but a real trash signal. All in all this metal detector has proven to be very efficient even with its simplicity.






    Wizard Probe
    Electronic pinpointing probe.







    Detecting News

    3/29/03     First Gold!

    I was hunting a lot in Sisters with my discovey 2000 and got a strange signal that sounded like a zinc penny and a coin together. I dug and out came a gold necklace dangle. Its a gold panda coin from china. My detector was set to autonotch and the disc/notch was set very low.


    3/14/03    Cash in time!

    I cashed in all the clad coins I have found since February 2002. I got $69.00 for my coins and $20.87 for my pennies. I lost $7.54 in pennies that had to be thrown out because of corrosion. The loss has been factored in to all my totals.

    1/19/03     First silver!

    Found my first silver, a 1947 Roosevelt dime. Found it at the vacant lot over behind subway in Sisters. The ground at the lot is polluted with metal debris but the discovery 2000 was calm, cool and collected and pulled out this dime at about 4".

    1/18/03     New detector!

    Took my Discovery 2000 to the school to try it out today. Had fun. I thought I found a sprinkler head but it was a quarter, the signal was huge and I allmost didn't dig it. The discrimination worked as its supposed to but the target ID bounces around a lot of the time. I just pass on those for now. When it gets a good target it sounds solid and repeatable, a lot of the targets I ran into dissapeared or moved around on me. I definatly need to give the detector a chance before I start poo poo'ing it though. Atleast now I no longer have to dig zinc pennies, hurray!

    1/14/03     Recap of the year

    I think the best thing I found last year was the wishing well site. I dug a lot of coins there and about 2,400 of them were pennies. I also found my first ever ring wich was gold plated with a lead crystal. I confronted harsh detecting conditions three times and was unable to find anything valuable in any of them, but I'm willing to go back and try again. I stayed close to home last year and for the most part hunted locally. Maybe 2003 is the year for traveling, there is that old gas station site in California I've been wanting to detect...