Tag Archives: V3i

The ever-changing state of affairs

25 Jun

Another Compadre

My youngest child has asked that I take him metal detecting. The problem is, when one wants to go so does the other. To solve this problem, I have ordered an additional Tesoro Compadre.

One Metal Detector to rule them all!

In a fit of madness, I have decided to trade my three current detectors for an XP Deus. Lately, I have come to appreciate the joy that is swinging a light weight detector. Plus I still want the power of a flagship machine. The XP Deus fits the bill to a T.

top view of XP Deus metal detector

Presenting…Defiant

Another thing that I look forward to besides the power of the XP and its under two pound weight, is the fact that I can collapse the unit and put it in a bag and carry it with me into the house or into the office. No more leaving my expensive detectors in the car so that some loser can steal them.

I LOVE my V3i! Especially now that I am beginning to understand it. I am going to miss the three frequencies and the analysis tools. I am going to miss the 22 KHz frequency for micro gold. Alas! I think the XP Deus will deliver equivalent power with the added conveniences of no wires and lighter weight.

I will miss my beloved AT Pro. The Pro is the detector I became a proficient hunter with. I found more stuff with it than with any other machine. We were like one me and the Pro. At three pounds, it was my lighter detector but again, the XP is less than two pounds! I may yet regret giving up the AT Pro but the XP may work better in some of the iron infested sites around town.

Last I say good bye to my newest machine; the CZ-3D. I got this machine to get the hard-to-detect coins that I know are there. I have found many coins now that didn’t read like coins at all. The CZ-3D was designed for just this kind of scenario. I didn’t count on the weight of the unit however, especially once I put the 10.5 inch coil on it. Man! I even tried hip-mounting the unit which helped but then I had to adjust my digging style. Nonetheless, this machine quickly earned a spot in my heart by finding nickels missed by everyone else.

So I am counting on the XP Deus to deliver all the things I am giving up and it yet may. I’ve heard the following about the the XP:

1) It works great in iron infested sites.
2) It goes deep
3) It can find nickels , which are notoriously hard to detect
4) You can swing it all day!

All of these things are important to me but the weight issue was what drove my decision. I hunt during the hottest months of the year and I hunt for gold so I dig more targets than other people. It was very important that the machine I use be light and easy to carry.

The ProPointer is NOT dead! 

Reports of the Garrett Propointer’s death have been greatly exaggerated! It turned out that the thing just needed a new battery. Special thanks to my hunting buddy Patton from the Friendly Metal Detecting Forum for lending me his spare propointer which led me to discover that my propointer was not ready for the trash can.

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Father’s Day – Silver Coin #15

17 Jun

For Father’s Day, I was given the whole day to metal detect.

I started my hunt at a tear out at Planeview park. All I got there were four wheats but one was a 1912 S. Throughout my hunting day, I kept running into people from the Friendly Metal Detecting Forum. It seemed everyone was finding silver today!

Eventually, I got a call from Patton (also from the FMDF) and we hit several parks with little success. We finished the day at a spot both of us have hunted. Almost as soon as we got there, the police showed up. After a  brief exchange with the officer lady, she told us it was cool for us to hunt, wished us good luck, and left.

After a couple of hours of finding only clad, I wanted to call it quits but Patton was of the opinion that if we had the blessing of the beat officer, we should make the most of it. What he said made sense so I agreed to hunt some more and boy! am I glad I did. Soon after we resumed our hunt, Patton struck silver in the form of a beautiful silver quarter. He followed that with a silver Rosie. My efforts netted me a 1944 Mercury dime.

Various coins and metal objects

I worked really hard for this!

1944 Mercury dime, obverse

Silver for daddy!

Eventually it was just too hot and we were too dehydrated to continue. We drove to the nearest QuickTrip to rehydrate and we both went home.

I started my hunt with my trusty AT Pro but I found the Merc with Big Bertha. Despite all, the V3i is a powerful flagship detector. I began to remember all the things I learned to do with it for maximum performance and it did its job well today.

I think I will hunt more with it in the coming months so I can be ready for the Chisholm Trail Hunt in September.

Thank you for looking!

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The Return of Big Bertha

13 Jun

Big Bertha, my White’s Spectra V3i, was on leave while I decided what to do about the terrible chattering that I experienced the last few times I used it.

Since I have two other excellent detectors, I was in no hurry to tend to the problem but last night I finally tackled it. First, I suspected that some dirt had gotten in between the coil cover and the coil. I took the cover off (a big challenge!) and indeed, there was quite a bit of detritus in there. I’ve decided to leave the coil off and hunt with the naked coil.

Second, while I was removing the coil cover, I noticed that the cable was lose at the control box! That was probably the real cause of the chattering. Oh well, the cable connection is tight now and the cover is off. I took Big Bertha for a spin at lunch time today and the process of re-acquainting myself with it has begun.

A have a few words about owning and using multiple detectors. When you are using several detectors, the mastering of them is going to take longer. I get a little confused with the VDI’s when I switch detectors. Plus, I have to remember the quirks of each one. So I may not be as effective a hunter as I would like to be. I am not worried however, I know eventually I’ll be able to switch detectors with no problem.

The one good thing about hunting with different machines is that I am learning all the things that are common to all of them. Indeed, many of the things I learn with one unit can be applied to the other ones. This includes all general issues about metal detecting. By using three different detectors from three different companies, I know what is universal to the hobby and what’s particular to each brand.

So in theory anyway, in the future, the learning curve for any new detectors will be a lot more gentle.

Thank you for looking!

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The Very Definition of Masochism

27 May

I have gold fever. I can’t deny it. I want gold and lots of it. To that end, me and another hunter, Stevouke, have vowed to dig pull tabs until we both find another gold ring.

The problem is that the very goal seems infinite. There seems to be an endless number of pull tabs and this makes the job seem unmanageable. Maybe I am over thinking this but I thought one way to make the task less daunting was to set boundaries to it somehow.

Stevouke is doing this by keeping a count of the pull tabs he digs. Me, I decided I needed something more tangible and visual. Here is my idea:

plastic jar

If you ever wonder what pain looked like…

I am going to see if I can find a gold ring before I fill this gallon container with pull tabs and foil.

Thank you for looking!

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The Wheat-tab

15 May
1928 Lincoln cent reverse

I see a mean moon rising…

What you are looking at here is an oddity that I have encountered several times before. This wheat cent gave a VDI of 50 on the V3i during my lunch time hunt. Just so you know, nickels read 52 on the V3i. The signal was solid and repeatable.  And it was shallow too! Three inches under the ground! No other signal was forthcoming after I extracted this coin.

Why does this creature exist? My guess is that it has something to do with the Dirt Matrix. And what is that you ask? Well the Dirt Matrix is the conglomeration of variables in the soil such as minerals, EMI, moisture, bug poop, and the price of tea in China. All of these things came together and when the signal from my detector hit the coin, the signal returned did not report a Wheat Cent but rather something else.

And it doesn’t only affect Wheat cents. Silver dimes and clad coins have come in as something else on the V3i and the AT Pro. Once, I dug up a clad quarter a couple of inches under the ground that gave me a solid iron grunt on the AT Pro.

So what are we to make of this? Sadly the answer is obvious and painful: Dig Everything.

Thank you for looking!

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Another site downtown

1 May

This was a nice city park back in the day but by the time I was a senior in High School (1982), the place was a favorite with hobos and winos.  Before it was a park, in the early days of Wichita, this site may have been a city dump. I know exactly where to dig and how deep to get to trash from the turn of the century.  My brother and I explored the trash a long time and we got some pretty neat stuff from there.

These days it is a nondescript grassy area in a busy intersection in downtown Wichita. I first hunted here with my Ace 250 but I knew next to nothing about metal detecting so I went home with a pocket full of pull tabs and rusty nails. Later, I hit the site with my AT Pro. Turns out I wasn’t ready then either.

Today, I took Big Bertha with me. My V3i is custom made for a place like this. I lowered my Recovery Delay (Recovery speed) to a fast 45 to deal with all the trash and away I went. There were lots of interesting and promising signals but I only hunted for 30 minutes because I actually wanted to eat some lunch. In that time, I found two relatively recent drops and a lipstick case made of brass copper with red lipstick still in it. I’d like to think that the lipstick case dates to the 40’s or 50’s, back to the days when this was a park that people used. I wish I knew when copper lipstick cases stopped being manufactured.

various metal objects

30 minutes worth

I will return for sure.

Thanks for looking!

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Mysteries

30 Apr

The location has seen human activity for thousands of years but only since the 1860’s did Americans of European descent began dropping coins there.  For almost 150 years, coins made of copper, silver, and gold met with the dirt and sank into the depths. Eventually, at the large lot where I was hunting at lunch, a neighborhood with hundreds of houses  was built and hundreds of children and adults carelessly lost their change for me to find many years later.

So why am I not? The area changed dramatically in the late 1970’s. Where streets once ran, now office buildings stand. Where homes stood, streets now run busy with traffic. Did the old coins get tossed around by the construction equipment and now lie beyond the reach of my V3i?

Or did the old timers with their BFO (Beat Frequency Oscillator) machines hunt the place out?

More than likely, the coins are being masked by the incredible amount of metal debris in the soil.

Whatever the reason, I only found clad today. Clad and a small piece from a vintage cap gun. The metal scrap bears the word BULLDOG. All the vintage cap guns named BULLDOG I found on the Internet were replicas of snub-nosed 38 caliber revolvers.

various coins

Where are the old coins?

Where are the silver dimes? Or the wheat cents?

Stay tuned…

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Number Ten

20 Apr

I found my tenth silver coin of 2012 while hunting with my hunting buddy today. I found it at the Kingman County Fairgrounds. Hopefully I’ll get to hunt there again soon.

This beauty was at seven inches down. The V3i gave me a consistent VDI and tone. Here’s to many more to come!

1944 Mercury dime

Number 10!

Thank you for looking!

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Back to the V3i

19 Apr

I have been very busy these past few days but still I have managed to detect for a few minutes here and there. I have found nothing worth of a post. Besides coming down with a cold (at least I hope it’s just a cold), the only other meaningful metal detecting news is that I’ve put the CZ-3D away for a while.

I like the CZ-3D a lot. I never dug up so many nickels in my life! But I am afraid the legendary depth claims don’t hold in my soil. I contend that the effective depth of the CZ-3D, with the 10.5 coil, IN Wichita, on a US Dime, is about eight inches. I use the dime as a gauge because more silver dimes were dropped than any other silver coin. And although eight inches is a respectable depth on a U.S. dime, I can achieve the same with the AT Pro and get the iron discrimination feature. Plus, the AT Pro is way lighter. Incidentally, I can detect a U.S. dime at ten inches with the V3i, using the ten inch coil.

Still, the CZ-3D has a unique talent that no other machine out there has and that is, it can detect those weird coins that register as trash in other detectors so I am keeping it in my arsenal.

My personal philosophy is that Depth is one of the major pillars of the hobby and one of the Holy Grails of metal detecting along with iron unmasking. There is lots of stuff at around 15 inches of depth, including gold coins and old gold jewelry.

Thank you for looking!

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War nickel

5 Apr

I’ve been using the CZ-3D lately and I am happy with the unit except that I haven’t yet reached very deep with it. As a result, my finds have been less than interesting.

So today, I brought out the big gun. I hit a couple of places this afternoon with my V3i and finally I got some silver out of the ground. The signal was not a signal that I would have dug a couple of weeks ago but since using the CZ, I’ve developed new instincts. The nickel was a 1945 P Jefferson nickel and it was between seven and eight inches down. The signal had wrap-around and the VDI was jumpy but the high tone was consistent all around.

The other coin I dug today was a 1912D wheat cent. I may be turning into a snob because anymore, I don’t brag about wheats unless they are in the 10’s. This signal also wrapped around but now and again, I got a clean hit with a VDI of 72 so I dug it and I am glad I did. The coin was six inches deep.

Anyway, I am still eagerly awaiting the arrival of the 10.5 inch coil for the CZ. I expect great things from it just as I expect great things from my V3i.

old coins

Big Bertha comes through!

1945 Jefferson nickel obverse

Nice detail

1945 Jefferson nickel reverse

Love that big P atop Monticello

1912 D Lincoln cent

Old wheat

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