I don't get it !!!

[Dirtangler]

Ive just purchased my first MD....an XP Deus, lovely piece of kit. However I understand the theory behind discrimination but when you read the threads, you seem to find someone always finding something of value at every desc level, so whats the point. Im starting to build up a phobia of missing something and dig up everything? i know a lot of people are going to say it comes with experience but if something of value is giving the same reading as tin foil, then why did i pay so much for the machine i ask myself. Yes i am very un experienced in fact 3 weeks to be precise, had my first silver on my first day, in a total of exactly 6 hours detecting between pasture and ploughed fields I've found
a cartwheel penny, 6 george 4th pennys and a couple of queen vics. I'm really enjoying it, but it does frustrate me a little. B-)

[Blackadder43]

It gives the same reading as tin foil or a pulltab because it has the same conductivity
The machine does not see targets as tin foil or pulltabs, they see them as conductivity readings.
Hope this helps

[GREGGOWREX]

Well your topic could fall into soooo many threads ...best stick it in the Deus one ....there are loads of them ...trouble is ...your question may only answered by a few in the know .....I would say out of a 100 deus users that regulary post questions ...there are about 7 that have the answers . ...I posted a topic about discim and depth the other day ...and I dont think one deus user answered it .....well i dont think they did ...but Im with you on your OP ..

[Westcoastdetector]

Don't get too disheartened ...it takes time and practice to really get to know what a machine is telling you . You will always dig up the odd lump of iron or a pulltab , but that is inevitable in this hobby . The fields are not full of gold & silver coins ( well , not mine anyway ! ) , but with a bit of patience , and trial & error , you WILL start to find the good stuff .
I know finding worn coppers & buttons can get a bit monotonous , but at least it points to plenty of human activity on that particular field , & could be an indicator of better finds .
Keep the faith !!

[Blackadder43]

I wasnt actualy answering for the Deus...
I was trying to put his fears at rest in general...
The only almost 100% signal from any machine is iron
Once you dig a few bits you will know what it sounds like....
But i read his post as pointing towards things like silver foil and maybe pulltabs, even possibly lead as the different metals that can be discriminated out.
Discriminating these metals/targets out will cause you to miss good targets that fall into the same conductivity range...

Small bits of silver foil can be worked out to be what they are before being dug with the help of a numbers screen.
For instance on my machine they will come up as 01 or 02 conductivity, but on the flip side of this the conductivity number on bigger pieces of silver/tin foil will be well above the 01 or 02, this puts the target into small Roman coins, Broken Roman brooches area etc
As you know Greg i run in all metal mode, i use 4 tones on the machine and i only ignore one of them and thats iron.

So silver foil will give me a tone that i will dig, but the numbers could be used to decide whether to dig or not in some cases.
I just dont take the risk of leaving something.

The same with pulltabs, they give the exact signal and exact numbers as some hammered coins, on my machine
The machine doesnt see a pulltab or a hammered coin , it responds to a conductivity level.
It seems that hammered coins and pulltabs are in the same conductivity range, which means the signal will be the same....

[yellow]

Why discrim anything?,there are plenty of various machine users that run their detectors in all metal mode,just leaving their ears to do the choosing.Even when you have a machine with a display on it,generally speaking the ears will be more correct than the display.

Yellow

[hammyman]

It's like learning to play a musical instrument!The more you use it,the more proficient you will become.I still dig pull tabs and occasionally compressed tinfoil.The reason being,the signal/tone is too near to hammereds to ignore.Ninety nine times out of a hundred,I'll call it and be right,but the hundredth time I'll dig a hammy.

[Verulamium]

Hammymans analogy of a musical instrument is spot on. Given enough time your machine becomes an extension of your arm, ears and your brain. It's almost becomes part of you. I've dug thousands upon thousands or targets with my Deus and I reckon I'm pretty good at telling what I'm going to dig each time I analyse that sound (I don't use the ID numbers/control unit at all whilst detecting) but I still dig ring pulls and shotties all the time. To be properly successful at this game, regardless of what machine you use, you still have to play the numbers game and dig the trash.

Hope your early experiences don't put you off this fabulous hobby! Good luck Alex

[Dirtangler]

Thanks for your replies, but it does now make me wonder, why spend so much on a detector, when really discrimination isn't all that accurate. I do agree with the sound issue though aim starting to predict a positive find when I hear a particular sound. I think it's my in experience and perhaps ignorance that expected trash to be permanently discriminated.

[Hampshire Hound]

Hi I can see your frustrations and I will try my best to answer your question, first of all why pay so much for a detector to find the discrim is not as black and white as you would first expect??

I will try and put this in a way that is easy to understand for you, some of the processes I describe may not be technically correct but simplified so hopefully its easier to grasp.
Well as some have already pointed out, discrimination is worked out by the detector by it sending a signal into the ground and when it finds a metal target it reflects the signal back to the detector.
Depending on the conductivity and size of the metal it will reflect a bigger or smaller signal back to the detector, which is then turned into a number on your screen and or a tone in your headphones, this is pretty much the same for most makes of detectors with discrimination no matter the cost, obviously some are more accurate than others, but there eventually becomes a point where you can only gather a certain amount of information with the wave that is bounced back.

To help understand what I mean, imagine your my human detector and you are blindfolded and someone put a marble in your hand, without seeing it you could tell me its round, you could feel the size and weight of it and you could feel its probably glass or similar and probably guess its a marble.
All this information you could relay to me , which is quite good information and very useful to me and I could say ok thanks I like marbles I will take a chance and put that in my finds pouch.
However what if I then said I only want a marble with a green swirl inside it no matter how cleaver you are or how much I paid you for the day, you could never tell me what colour the marble was as you cant actually see it.
So... back to your detector, it can't tell similar conductive items of similar sizes apart as it cant actually see the target, your discrimination will work in certain situations such a if your on a dry beach looking for pound coins you can wack up the discrim and just find pound coins, I have done this myself, but on a site with hammereds and modern objects together its just like trying to find your marble with a swirl among a bunch of other marbles, so sometimes you may have to dig a few items that are similar to actually find the one you really want, again as stated there will be very small differences that with time you will be able to recognise to make the discrimination far more accurate by you being able to assess what your detector is telling you to a far greater degree.

I know this all sounds stupid but I hope it helps you understand why there is a certain element of guess work with discrimination. As for the price, don't forget you are paying for wireless technology, a very light detector and probably the fastest recovery speed on the market, many other cheaper detectors will give you the same level of discrimination as there is currently no more ways of improving it beyond the level it is without paying stupid money for more radical technologly.

Regards Hampshire Hound

[Hampshire Hound]

Greggorex, in answer to your question about discrimination and depth, in all tests I have done, the answer is yes you do loose depth, not huge amounts but you do loose some, you will also get target masking which will lose you finds, for example on the Deus with the discrim set at 10 you discriminate the whole range of iron, so if you had say a cut half for example in the same hole as iron, the iron would mask the target, however if you had it set lower at 4 you would still get the iron volume but you would also get a good tone for the cut half, just something els to bare in mind with discrim.

Also ground balance is very important i have found that getting this wrong will loose you lots of depth too.

Regards HH

[Deanicuss]

Simple really mate set your disc to 5 dig everything over 30 if its iffy still dig it if it reads 98 with a slight iron tone dig it as it could be something small like a cut quarter