Discrimination capabilities...
Metal detectors are designed to detect metal, however we are not always interested in all the types of metal which it can/will detect. As an example, did you know that soil and sand contain trace elements of minerals/metals? (see also ground balancing / ground mineralisation) Also, if we are treasure hunting for old coins / treasures we don't want to be digging up every nail or discarded soft drinks can. So in order for us to cancel out the signals from metals we don't want to dig up we can use a function on most modern detectors called 'discrimination' or 'discrimination pattern'.
What happens is the detector 'sees' what type of metal it is, if it falls into a metallic range we have selected not to hear it will cancel it out so we don't waste our time digging it up. A lot of metal detectors come with pre-programmed discrimination patterns, this basically means that depending on the pattern of discrimination you chose depends on what the detector will tell you about. Obviously, discrimination capabilities are technology and cost based, so the more discrimination you need/want, the more you are going to pay. As an example, the Minelab Xterra 305 which is a good treasure detector has 12 segments of discrimination (as shown below); however at the top of Minelabs treasure detecting range the CTX3030 has 1750 segments. However, you pay substantially more for the CTX3030!!
Basically, the more discrimination you have, the more accurate your readings will be and the less 'junk' you will dig up.
What happens is the detector 'sees' what type of metal it is, if it falls into a metallic range we have selected not to hear it will cancel it out so we don't waste our time digging it up. A lot of metal detectors come with pre-programmed discrimination patterns, this basically means that depending on the pattern of discrimination you chose depends on what the detector will tell you about. Obviously, discrimination capabilities are technology and cost based, so the more discrimination you need/want, the more you are going to pay. As an example, the Minelab Xterra 305 which is a good treasure detector has 12 segments of discrimination (as shown below); however at the top of Minelabs treasure detecting range the CTX3030 has 1750 segments. However, you pay substantially more for the CTX3030!!
Basically, the more discrimination you have, the more accurate your readings will be and the less 'junk' you will dig up.
As you can see below the number 40, there is a set of markers with gaps between them and to either side. These shaded areas are the segments of discrimination where the detector will ignore signals from this range and tell you about signals in the blank areas which are more likely to be things you are looking for.
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