the Sensitivity Blurse 1

[troyston]

The sensitivity of a detector usually refers to an ability to pick up tiny objects. If you're searching for such tiny objects then sensitivity is a blessing. If you're looking for small objects that aren't tiny then it might be a curse. It is a blurse (tm) and I will explain why I think so.

A fool unwittingly went detecting in steel reinforced trainers. It wasn't clear why his detector malfunctioned and he found very little but at the same time I noticed a higher than usual proportion of targets was non-ferrous.

I found out that the trainers were culpable and this made me more curious. Why should you detect less iron with them on? I thought the ground tracking must have tuned to the trainers, but this is unlikely, because it wasn't a ground tracking detector.

My guess was that it was to do with the obvious loss of depth caused by the trainers. I took a different machine (for the sake of scientific rigour) to the same site and searched at minimum sensitivity. That machine had a large range on the sensitivity control - some are not so extreme. It gave the same result: fewer targets all-round but a high proportion of non ferrous.

Can you work out what was happening?

It took me ages. I guessed that it might be to do with the size of targets but this made no sense as I couldn't see why ferrous targets should be bigger or smaller than non-ferrous. Critically, I couldn't see how sensitivity should be able to grade targets in this way.

[gaz1969]

The sensitivity of a detector usually refers to an ability to pick up tiny objects. If you're searching for such tiny objects then sensitivity is a blessing. If you're looking for small objects that aren't tiny then it might be a curse. It is a blurse (tm) and I will explain why I think so.

The sensitivity does NOT refer to the ability to pick up tiny object,thats the frequency that determines this,the higher the frequency the better they are at finding tiny objects.like your gold staters etc.
The lower the frequency the more depth they generally have.
The sensitivity governs the "depth" also,or how sensitive it is to finding things lower in the ground,but then this isn't always true,as sometimes i have found it does a better job when set lower,this depends on the ground minerisation and iron content.

[troyston]

Agreed Gaz. The control alters the depth, what I mean is if someone says a machine is sensitive they usually mean good on small objects. That's what I thought it meant, anyway.

[gaz1969]

..