10/4/2014 Report - Tuning A Pulse Induction Metal Detector For Gold. Permit To Take Photos In Florida. Higher Surf Coming.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.BlogSpot.com.


First off, if you did not see the amazing silver shaker box shipwreck treasure that I posted yesterday you should take a look at that post.


Yesterday I told you how the Ace 250 performed on the beach.  Yesterday I also had a White's Dual Field PI with me and did a little testing with it too.

You might remember that the Ace did not perform well at all in wet sand when using the default settings.  In dry sand, however, the little inexpensive Ace detected the thin gold test target ring just as well or better than the PI when the ring was on the surface of the dry sand.  I did not investigate how the results might change if the ring was buried at different depths.  Signal strength does give a good idea of  how deep an object will likely be detected though.

Although not all pulse detectors are just like the Dual Field, many are similar and you will get similar results.

One very important thing to know about the pulse detector's response to the thin ring is that the threshold setting is VERY important.

If the threshold setting is either too high (loud) or too low (quiet), the signal from the ring was much less clear and distinct.  That was true to the point that the ring was no longer detected at all when the threshold was either way too high or way too low.

Best results were obtained by turning the gain way up (I could do that at the beach where there was no electrical interference or any other problem that prevented using near maximum gain.) and setting the threshold well above silent but not too loud.

The optimal threshold level can be determined by putting the test target on the ground where you intend to hunt and turning the threshold up and down until you find the level where you get the most clear and distinct signal from the item.

I highly recommend using a target that is like what you want to find, but small.  If you tune your settings to small items, you will not miss larger items.

When tuning your settings, use the most relevant test target (gold if you want to find gold) in the environment you intend to detect.

If you don't tune for the best settings on your detector, an expensive high end detector can end up performing more poorly than a much less powerful detector. 

In the dry sand, if you set the threshold either too high or two low on the Dual Field, it did not perform as well as the Ace 250 using the Ace's default settings.  In the dry sand the 250 with the default settings actually gave a better signal on the thin gold ring on the surface of the dry sand than the Dual Field using the Dual Field's best settings.  

I know there are people with expensive high-end detectors running around with way less than the best settings, and as a result, getting performance that is no better than what they would get using an inexpensive low end detector.


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Today I discovered that it is possible to buy emergency rain  parkas for under $1.00 each.  They can be found in sports departments.  They are so compact that they can easily be carried in a shirt pocket.  They are light weight and probably won't last very long, but could be very handy to in a pinch.   They would be ideal for a hiker or someone that just wants to be prepared for an unexpected rain.

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While driving yesterday, I heard on the radio that a permit would be required to take photos or make videos on state lands.  The way I understood the part that I heard, there was a new law that would be going into effect.  What next, a permit to breathe?  I didn't get all the details at the time, so looked into it a little when I got home. 

Right off the bat I found that there could be something to this.  I got some of it wrong, but was not far off.  Not only does it seem that there is proposed legislation to that effect, but there are already existing Federal laws that could be interpreted and enforced to have a similar effect.  At least that is what I gathered from what I quickly found.
 
Here is a link or two if you are interested in looking into this. 

http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2014/09/is-the-forest-service-requiring-permits-for-photography-yes-and-no.html

The author of coyoteblog does a lot of interesting posts on topics such as park over-policing.

Here is another blog post on photography permits for public lands.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Forest-Service-Media-needs-1500-permit-to-photograph-wilderness-277077291.html

I don't think I have to spell out how all of this can relate to metal detecting.


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While detecting yesterday I found a near solid line of bottle caps in shallow water  running along drop-off ledge in shallow water.   It just goes to how once again how similar things tend to accumulate in certain areas.  Knowing how things are accumulating is one key to efficiently hunting with a detector.  That is why seldom use discrimination.  I attempt to figure out how the water is moving and accumulating things and then move away from the trash accumulations and to the areas where the good targets are likely to be.

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On the Treasure Coast tomorrow we'll have a three to four foot surf.  The wind is supposed to be from the North and the swells from the northeast.

I suspect we'll have some scattered very small cuts.  Nothing that would significantly improve beach detecting conditions.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net