Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
I'm going to report on an experiment I did this morning. It is a two-part experiment, but I'll only report on part 1 today. First, though, here is an interesting chart that you might find useful.
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| Submitted by JamminJack. |
Here is an interesting chart submitted by JamminJack. If you want to find out more about that, here is the link. circulating_coins_2_1110x555.jpg (1110×555) (usmint.gov)
Thanks Jack.
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I was back at the railroad site last night after a couple days off. I went to look for bottles Friday evening, and that turned out well.
I cover up pretty heavily (long pants and long sleeves) when I visit the railroad site now because of the mosquitos, and as a result I lose a couple pounds of sweat and my clothes are soaked when I come back.
Anyhow, last night I took out the Equinox after several visits with the Ace, and I found five more spikes, some in areas that had been hit a few times before - mostly with the Ace. And I pushed into some thicker brush to hit some areas that were barely detected before.
For the short hunt, overall I found five spikes, one rail anchor, one big bolt, one shot gun shell brass, one small electrical connector, one huge bar, and what appear to me to be parts of a wire carrier of some type, as well as some unidentifiable rusty bits.
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| Finds From Saturday Evening. |
I suspect the wire carrier must have been something like the one shown below.
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| Wire Carrier From Internet. |
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| One Piece of What Might Be a Wire Carrier. |
I started working this site because it was there. It was available, and I was curious, but also I wanted to illustrate some things, including how difficult it is to really work out a site. I didn't know that I picked a site that just wouldn't quit. It isn't a very typical site, so in some ways is not the best illustration.
The Pepsi bottle is what I would describe as a double-dot swirl bottle that dates to around 1958. It was dug in a part of the site (near north border) where more modern junk is found. There are a couple of definite junk piles on that side of the site.
Now to the experiment.
I took the three-foot-long heavy iron bar. Placed it in area that I know is clean of other metal items and placed a dime beside it. Originally I placed the dime at one inch from the bar and planned on moving it out one inch at a time. I found that the small increment was too small. Half foot and foot increments turned out to be more appropriate.
I used both the Ace and Equinox metal detectors to compare how they separated targets.
First I used the Ace and moved the swept the coil across the bar and over the dime, which was one inch away from the bar. The dime was not detected in either the all metals or coin modes. Continuing with the experiment, I found out that when sweeping across the bar (not shown in the above illustration) at a fairly normal speed, the coin was not detected when it was closer to the bar than a foot and half. That was true for both all metals and coin modes. The sweep speed did have some effect. A fast sweep speed resulted in a bigger shadow and a confusing signal far from the bar. A slower sweep speed gives the detector a better chance at separating targets and the coin could be detected slightly closer to the bar. Most of that is what you would expect, but I wanted to see how much the bar would mask nearby coins.
I repeated the procedure with the Equinox and found no big difference between the two metal detectors. The Equinox gave a 16 or 17 reading on the bar but failed, to detect the coin in the foot or foot and a half range at a fairly normal sweep speed. I've seen the Equinox advertised as being able to separate targets well, but saw little or no advantage over the Ace when using the in Field 1 mode with multi-frequency. I really expected the Equinox, which is very sensitive to small targets, to perform significantly better than the Ace in this experiment. In the field I have found the Equinox conductivity numbers useful and have found that in some situations it will pull good targets out that the Ace will miss, but the Ace will also pick out targets that I miss with the Equinox. I've talked about that sort of thing before.
If you sweep the coil parallel to the bar rather than across the bar, both detectors could detect the dime at between a foot from the bar and maybe a little closer when the sweep was ideal. Within a half foot, neither detector detected the coin even with the slowest most ideal coil movement.
If you think you have a site "worked out" but have not removed the junk, you don't know how much you missed. Masking is a real phenomena and even metal detectors that have a reputation for good target separation will not find all targets when there is junk masking those targets.
This three-foot iron bar could mask coins a foot or more on each side, meaning that it would mask something like six square feet. So far I've removed hundreds of large iron targets from the site. That means, if the targets were left in place, a large part of the site would be masked. If you think a site is worked out but you left a lot of junk in place, the site is probably not as worked out as you think.
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The sure sign of a false proposition is its inability to stand up to alternatives. A point of view can not be tested and therefore can not be confidently accepted if it can not be considered in free and open discussion. Censorship only shows the weakness of the censor's point of view. It also shows shows the intolerance and insecurity of those who feel compelled to censor.
Some people these days react to free expression like a vampire reacts to sunlight.
Did you see the Faux-xi emails? And I once thought that maybe I was too hard on him!
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| Source; nhc.noaa.gov |