DetectingWales.com

I went out the other morning first light... Watching the sun come up over the hill, the mist disperse into the air and the field covered in due, I hiked up the hill looking back at my footprints in the wet grass.

When i started out sweeping the ground i were chuffed that i could see a 4ft wide band behind me... left by my metal detector ;D . After 10 meters or so i turned and done the same. this was great as i could see where i had been very easily.

Now when it came to going horrizontal i were shocked to see how much my overlapping had slipped over time, and what i could have missed :o ???

I found these articles whilst surfing and thought it may be of some help with fellow's new to the hobby like myself, its surprising how little ground you actually cover going only in a straight line

http://www.thetreasuredepot.com/issue5/coinshooting.htm (http://www.thetreasuredepot.com/issue5/coinshooting.htm)

http://www.thetreasuredepot.com/issue7/coinshooting.htm (http://www.thetreasuredepot.com/issue7/coinshooting.htm)

Hope this helps... flip (not that it increased my finds that day :P)

Went out and did a bit of detecting this morning. Couple of copper grots, some unidentifiable scrap lead...another flaming Yale key! Three from this field.And enough ring pulls to sink a battleship...flamin kids....

Took a nice pic and had a lovelly walk in beautiful weather. Saw a Goshawk and aome other wildlife.

I think my photography is overtaking my metal detecting. :P

NICE ONE  PHIL   ALSO  LOVELY PIC ;D ;D   I TOO  AM INTO PHOTOGRAPHY BUD

Nice one Flipper. I went out detecting with Hedgehog a while back and did a grid with trees as markers and found a few pieces of lead and a George shilling. Moving on I noticed still the dew on the ground and realised I had quite a few missed spaces. As it was tea time I moved for me cuppa and went to a different part of the field on the return. Hedgehog redid the trees a few days later and if my memory serves me correct. TWO HAMMERED. We live and learn.

For best ground coverage and if the site allows is to walk backwards then you can see what you have missed or tie string to your ankles so your step cannot be to long.

Tafflaff had the best idea and I to now have one and that is a GPS tracker. You will be surprised what it reveals and I for one will definitely return to some of my fields having seen the early results.

Nothing to do with your methods Paul, it happens all the time , sometimes when the ground has been cleared of other signals and you hit it at a slightly different angle the finds come up.
The method used is supposed to be in a union jack pattern but hell it gets boring if nothing turns up, many times I have gone off at a tangent and picked something nice up within minutes of giving up on the search pattern.

The thing we would do having (hopefully) found a hoard or purse loss was to knock in a round post then tie a thin rope from machine to post and use all metal none motion mode.

Trundle round in a circle and the rope winds round the post pulling the detector head in as you move but only by a fraction so the hottest/deepest centre of the coil covers all the ground and not a square inch is missed. This was especially helpful with detectors that only had concentric coils.

personally i find it impossible to keep
walking in a straight line and not missing
ground when you look back at the dew you
can see you have been all shapes i dont
think our brains corispond with our legs

Walking in a straight line is difficult if you don't have a fixed point to walk to,i have used sticks as markers when i have been grid searching it does help a bit.Brian your method sounds brilliant i never would have thought of that,and i can think of a few sites where that will be of use,thanks for posting it  ;D

Trouble is with that one Simon you go dizzy and fall over  ;D

One little tip from me would be to try swinging the coil to your side as opposed to in front of you in certain circumstances, especially when you want extra coverage.

When you swing in front, the coil takes a Zig Zag line as you move forward, leaving ground uncovered. Swing to the side and at the backstroke, the coil gets great overlap even when you are moving forwards and then as the coil comes back towards you it only 'un overlaps' for the very last part of the swing. You can still keep walking at a reasonable pace but you won't miss much. Machines like the T2 work better and deeper with a faster sweep speed so you don't want to end up at a crawl, in which case a side swing works a treat.

This also works Very well when detecting on long stubble and maybe following the tyre tracks as the swing is not so wide but you get the coverage between rows of stubble.