On 2/3/2011 4:33 AM, Sunworshipper wrote:

My cheap metal detector in Vegas would beep loudly over a penny, up
here the penny doesn't ever beep at all. Matter of fact, the thing
has a tone and goes blank over something metal and back to a tone
here unless it's an anvil.

I'm not an expert with metal detectors, but have owned a couple low end
models. Typically they do not do well in highly mineralized soil. I've
experienced the same thing with a cheap Garrett detector.

I was out in the ruins of You Bet, a gold rush era mining town just east
of Grass Valley many years ago, with the Garrett. There's an
unbelievable quantity of flattened tin cans out there, just below the
surface. I couldn't tell one of them from an axe head, or any other
large signal, and the ground itself was mineralized enough to cause
problems. There was another fellow out there that day with a state of
the art detector. We didn't even speak to each other, just sorta warily
worked around a pit that had been the cellar of a long departed house.
I got disgusted digging up flat tin cans and started only digging up
things that gave a much shorter and sharper tone. Finally gave up and
left. Next day ran into a friend that knew I was into detecting, and he
tells me about a guy he knew finding a mason jar full of silver dollars
out in You Bet. I described the guy and he asks how the heck I knew.
Told him I was there. Always wondered if that jar was one of the large
vague signals I'd ignored...

Cheap detectors are find for finding lost rings and coins at the local
playground, but really are next to useless for anything approaching
serious work.

Jon