Detecting with the MXT at Local Schools

School No. 1: Swope Middle School HUNTING THIS SITE WITH THE MXT: I think the soil here is underlain with river gravel, the soil is about 3-4 inches deep, with pretty much a solid layer of pebbles below that. This gives a lot of hotrock responses by the MXT, which chatters quite a bit here. As far as trash, there is some, but it is not excessive. My prefered setting on the MXT is to use the relic mode, alternate mode trigger forward, discrimination setting at just under 4. The 6x3 DD is preferred over the standard 950 because of its ability to pick coins out between iron junk, foil and hotrocks. Because coins do not sink down too far here (the Mercury dime was found at about 1 inch, and the 4 wheats no deeper than 2 inches), I have only set the gain at about 9. Because the trash is not excessive, you could use the coin / jewelry program, I just prefer the relic mode for easy hunting in this type of place.

School No. 2: Wooster High School This site is also only about 5 minutes from my office, it adjoins to Wingfield, and I've been going here during my lunch hour as well. This park covers about 3-4 acres. Though they are all in the same general place, this park has far fewer coins than the Wingfield site across the river. Total change is about $5 bucks. HUNTING THIS SITE WITH THE MXT: I think the soil here is underlain with river gravel, the soil is about 3-4 inches deep, with pretty much a solid layer of pebbles below that. This gives a lot of hotrock responses by the MXT, which chatters quite a bit here. As far as trash, there is some, but it is not excessive. My prefered setting on the MXT is to use the relic mode, alternate mode trigger forward, discrimination setting at just under 4. The 6x3 DD is preferred over the standard 950 because of its ability to pick coins out between iron junk, foil and hotrocks. Because coins do not sink down much (the Mercury dime, a 45-s, was found at about 1 inch, and the 4 wheats no deeper than 2 inches), I have only set the gain at about 9. Because the trash is not excessive, you could use the coin / jewelry program, I just prefer the relic mode for easy hunting in this type of place.

School No. 3: Hunter Lake Grammar School This is the largest older park in town. I think the park dates from sometime in the thirties. The park covers about 100 acres, and is triangular in shape. I have in no way come close to fininshing off the opportunities in this place. There are picnic areas, playgrounds, ball fields, walking trails, meeting halls, monuments, a swimming pool and a number of other attractions. The playgrounds have been pounded by others to the point that there is virtually nothing there. In this park I have averaged about 50 cents in modern clad per hour of detecting time. Total change is about $10 bucks. HUNTING THIS SITE WITH THE MXT: Here is a tip for hunting around playground equipment: the DD coils for the MXT do detect off the edge, but the detection pattern for these coils is blade shaped and goes along the long axis of the elipse. So if you need to get in around playground equipment poles, use the mini DD, and and sweep with the narrow axis of the elipse toward the pole (this is sideways to the way most people detect normally). With the narrow axis toward the pole, you should be able to get within about 2 inches of the pole, where as with the long axis toward the pole, the pole will sound off about 6 to 8 inches away. As far as trash, there is some, but it is not excessive. My prefered setting on the MXT is to use the relic mode, alternate mode trigger forward, discrimination setting at just under 4. The 6x3 DD is preferred over the standard 950 because of its ability to pick coins out between iron junk, foil and hotrocks. Because coins do not sink down much (the Mercury dime was found at about 1 inch, and the 4 wheats no deeper than 2 inches), I have only set the gain at about 9. Because the trash is not excessive, you could use the coin / jewelry program, I just prefer the relic mode for easy hunting in this type of place.