Slow hunting with Elite

[LaRoper]

For those of us who own a Sov Elite. Do you seem to find more with a slow sweep speed or a fast? I find that with a slow sweep, I find lots more items. I mostly use my elite in the woods, or areas that have a large amount of iron.
I seen somewhere where someone said if you sweep over something and the threshole blanks out that it may be something extremly deep. Anyone ever hear of this?
Thanks

[LaRoper]

Sorry Chuck,
I guess I should have explained it a little more. By slow I mean slow, 2-3" per second. My normal sweep is around 12 to 15" per second. With my Whites, this doesn't seem to work very well. With the Sov Elite it works really well.
Any Idea about the blanking?

[John's Detectors]

Hi Roper, I have never used the Elite but do have the GT. The iron content of my soil is enough to cause continual blanking of the threshold. I have to swing extremely slow to make sure I don't miss anything. In discriminate mode I leave the Disc. knob wide open so it is not knocking anything out. Also I leave the notch off too. So I rely on the sound of the threshold to determine what I should dig. I have the digital meter on my GT also but I don't really look at it. I find the GT is slow to respond thus a very slow swing is needed at least for me. It is always a possibility if your thresh. blanks you might have a deep target. Ok I hope I have helped you somewhat Roper and enjoy the hobby. God Bless and hope to see more from you Roper.

John Tomlinson,CET
John's Detectors
Blackwell,Tx.
Best Little Detectors Shop in Texas!

[LaRoper]

Thanks John,
I had noticed that the Solv was slow to recover after a blank. But it sure does punch down deep. I was pulling old shotgun brass from 14" down.
Thanks again for the help.
LR

[Mephysto]

Slow is the right way for a sovgt. You've to give time to the processor to manage all the frequencies. I use it on the beach quite infested by iron junk. I sweep from side to side in about 5 seconds; when I hear a target I concentrate the sweep closer to the origin of the signal so that I don't need to pinpoint at the end. It goes very deep: 20c euro down to 35/40 cm. When I hear a null sound followed by a rising tone threshold I often switch to all metal mode and dig the signal: sometimes it reveals good stuff and I think this is the only way to find gold chain.

[bill(de)]

I finally decided to give my Sov GT another try at a trashy park today after reading this thread. I just recently bought an S-5 coil and wanted to give it a try.

I must say VERY SLOW is the only way to go on a Sovereign and even with a small coil the recovery speed is much slower than i'm used to with the Whites and the Minelab Advantage. The Sovereign is not only a walk slow, swing slow detector,but found i have to slow my mental approach to hunting also which is probably a good thing.

I pretty much setup the Sovereign as John does and he's right on the money but i did rely on the meter for the 144's and the 177's vs the 180's. Didn't find many keepers but a few nickels, clad and picked up 2 wheats at about 6" with a 179, 180 ID mixed in with pulltabs and bottlecaps , had sensitivity set at a modest 1 o'clock using a 5.5"coil. I honestly don't think many detectors would have ID these wheats and certainly see where the Sovereign can reward a patient hunter. Just a few thoughts from a brief hunt. HH Bill

[LaRoper]

I have found some nice stuff with my elite. I haven't tried diggind the null with rising threshole signals yet. But I will have to give it a try. It can really pull out the coins in trash infested areas. Good luck, LR

[bill(de)]

Thanks LR,
I noticed a few times a brief threshold null followed by a slightly elevated threshold tone but only checked out a few and one appeared to be bits and pieces of an old toy gun about 7"to 8" deep. The Sovereign seems very capable of pulling deep coins out of trashy areas for someone with the patience to go slow and allow for the threshold reset. HH Bill

[John's Detectors]

Hi Bill, nice to run into you again and I think patience is one of the best qualities of a good detectorist. Of course I am looking for those old deep coins or relics and I don't like to rush it when I'm looking for good stuff. I am also constantly analyzing the different machines that I sell. So I use most every instrument at one time or another. I want to be able to give the true and honest lowdown on these machines. That is why I won't hardly say anything about an instrument that I don't have a good amount of time on it. I still haven't used a Musky yet Bill but I will as soon as I'm able to. I hope all is going your way Bill and I hope that Musky is making some good finds for you. Ok Bill you take care and God Bless ya Amigo and happy hunting.

John Tomlinson,CET
John's Detectors
Blackwell,Tx.
Best Little Detector Shop in Texas!

[bill(de)]

Hello John,
The Advantage isn't getting much play on the forums as it was hot for a while and probably a relatively small core of folks who use them. From your posts i gather you must not get many calls for them and for the past 6 months or so i've been focused on real trashy areas with an M6 and now going to keep trying the Sovereign with the small coil, LUV the Tones The Advantage will get some use later this spring when i hunt a few acres further downstate as it does a good job of ground coverage and still hit some deeper targets at a quicker pace. Thanks John. HH Bill