61 silverman;
The best spots to hit at a festival site like that are where they had the food booths, on the outside of the counters or windows. And also any other sales or ticket booths. If there is a sports field there, that would be the hottest place for jewelry. All this stuff will never see the light of day again unless you detect it.
You can get a false signal at the end of your sweep if there is trash there just below your discrimination level---you pick it up with just the edge of your coil instead of the center, which is non-optimum for generating a phase shifted return from the target which is truly representative of the targets conductivity, and that plus the sudden reverse in direction can fool the discriminator. Try readjusting the ground balance, and if it still has that problem reduce the sensitivity a little at a time. Make wide smooth sweeps, with the coil always about one inch from the ground. Changing your discrimination level a little can help, too.
When you have located a target, pinpoint it exactly using the "X" pattern with your coil, then pass your sweep directly over where you have pinpointed it to get the most accurate descrimination and depth readings.
A coin laying at an angle will give a better signal from its flat surface than from its edge, so it can give varying signals as you sweep it from different angles, sometimes even a "double beep." Also, if it's on angle, it might pinpoint off center, as the return signal will be at an angle. Trash will usually sound harsh, if it tries to break through the discriminator.
Aluminum trash and gold jewelry have amost the same conductivity (equal same discrimination level), however. Also, Rings give a nice sounding signal because they are a completed circuit, but so are the finger holes on pull tabs!
Different types of targets will produce diffenent patterns of the tones, too.
If in grass, dig a three or four inch horse shoe, leaving the one side of sod still attached, like a hinge. Lift it up, use your handheld pinpointer, retrieve the target, backfill any additional soil you dug out if the target was deeper, and flip the sod back down then step on it. Nobody can accuse you of "damaging our park."
This part is very important---Have fun!
