Metal Detecting Glossary form A to Z

A

  • Air Test: A test performed to give an indication of a detectors depth capabilities when a target is passed over the search head. This test is not an accurate indicator of ground depth penetration capability.
  • Alkaline battery: Alkaline batteries are non-rechargeable batteries. Recommended for most detectors by the manufacturers. A type of battery able to sustain longer periods of current drain with greater storage life when compared to the standard carbon-zinc type.
  • All Metal: A user mode that allows the acceptance of all metals as a positive signal, allowing all metallic objects to result in signals. All metal means that you will be digging a lot of junk targets.
  • Archie, Arkie: An Archaeologist.
  • Artefacts: Man made objects found whilst detecting. Usually refer to buckles, buttons, bullets and other finds, but not coins.
  • Audio Gain, Gain: A setting on many detectors that increases or decreases the volume for deeper targets. 
  • Audio ID: The ability of a detector to produce a different tone for differing metals. 
  • Auto Tune: Auto tune is a metal detector feature that shifts the detector’s operating channel to reduce the effect of environmental noise. Circuitry which continuously returns the detector’s threshold to the initial manually tuned audio level. 

B

  • Back Reading: A false signal, when operating in the discriminate mode, caused by a rejected target coming within one inch of or contacting the searchcoil bottom.
  • Barber: The Barber dime (named for its designer, Charles E. Barber, who was Chief Engraver of the U.S. Mint from 1879 to 1917. The design was shared with quarter and half dollar of the same period.)
  • BBS (Broad Band Spectrum): simultaneously transmits, receives and analyses a broad band of multiple frequencies to deliver substantial detection depth, high sensitivity and accurate discrimination for a wide range of targets types.
  • Bench Test: An air test to determine at what approximate discriminate settings various metal samples are rejected or accepted. The test is conducted in a non- metallic area.
  • BFO: Beat Frequency Oscillation, an older detector which uses the induction balance principle. Often used in very cheap metal detectors and rarely used in coinshooting anymore. Often associated with “old school” detectorists who don’t want to give up their machine.
  • Black dirt: Organically-rich dirt common in very old sites, especially in the Eastern US. Desirable hunting grounds.
  • Black sand: Negative ground minerals consisting of magnetic iron oxide. This is one of the highest mineral conditions that a detector has to contend with. It will cause a VLF coil to overload, making metal detector penetration poor at best. A PI detector will work in black sand however, some false signals may result if the coil is held very close to the ground.
  • Bling: Fancy jewelry, which may or may not be precious metal. “Here’s my bling for the day.”
  • Body Mount, Hip Mount: The detector unit is attached to the belt and not to the stem.
  • Bottlecap magnet, pulltab magnet: A machine that indicates bottle caps as a good signal such as coins. 
  • Bucketlister: A very special, once in a lifetime find.
  • Bust coin, Draped bust: A very old US coin minted from the late 1700s through early 1800s. Quite rare to be found by detectors.

C

  • Cache: Any intentionally buried or secret hoard of valuables. Often buried in a jar, box or can. Any type of concealed treasure consisting of a quantity of money or other valuable metal objects.
  • Camp lead: melted lead often indicative of a campfire during the US civil war.
  • Canslaw: Shreds of aluminum cans left after being hit by a lawnmower. These give a wide variety of signals due to their size variation and can make for a difficult hunting environment.
  • Carbon-Zinc: The most common standard dry cell battery type.
  • Chatter: the sound a detector makes when it’s badly tuned, or sometimes when running with high sensitivity for maximum depth: a sort of static. You’ll often see more advanced detectorists running with a lot of “chatter” to find deeper targets.
  • Choppy: The sound a detector makes when it finds an object that is almost discriminated out. Often used to describe a questionable signal.
  • Clad: Coins that are still in circulation.
  • Clad magnet: after particularly difficult hunts where only new coins were found, you may refer to yourself as a “clad magnet.”
  • Coil (Search Coil): The part of the detector that senses the target.  A circular (or other shaped) plastic housing containing single or multiple transmit and receive windings (wire coils) in a specific configuration. A search coil emits and receives signals from the ground and metal targets. 
  • Coin Depth Indicator: A visual indicator used in conjunction with calibrated circuitry to indicate depth of buried coins in inches or millimeters.
  • Coin Shooting: Hunting for coins regardless of location or era of coins targeted.
  • Coinshooters: A metal detector enthusiast who look mainly for coins.
  • Coinball: A chunk of dirt with a coin inside. Often the last moment of anticipation before discovering the coin’s type and age. Sometimes, the edge of the coin is visible.
  • Composite Digger: Trowel usually made of durable plastic that helps prevent coin damage during recovery.
  • Concentric coil, mono coil: A search coil configuration using one or more transmit and one receive windings having unequal diameters aligned on a common center. The search pattern is cone shaped and can be useful for accurately pinpointing targets. Concentric coils require more sweep overlap for thorough ground coverage. They are also noisier in highly mineralised ground and therefore might not be the best choice for gold.
  • Conductivity: Refers to how well a target allows electrical current to flow through it. In other words a highly conductive target has low electrical resistance and therefore allows current to flow more easily.
  • Continuous wave: is a type of metal detecting technology. Continuous wave metal detectors create an electromagnetic field that is applied to the ground in a continuous sine wave.
  • Control Box, Control Housing: A metal or plastic box which holds the various controls, displays, the speaker, batteries and electronics.
  • Copper: referring to a US large cent or colonial equivalent. 
  • Crusty: Used to describe a target that is in bad shape. 

D

  • Depth Penetration: The greatest measure of metal detector’s ability to transmit an electromagnetic field into the soil matrix and produce a target signal.
  • Detectorist: is a person who regularly uses metal detectors professionally or as a hobby.
  • Digger: the tool used to dig your targets. Also used to describe a person who detects.
  • Dighole: an indentation left by other metal detectors who have previously hunted an area.
  • Dirt fishing: Metal detecting in the dirt (versus beach/sand/underwater.)
  • Discrimination (DISC): The ability of the detector to ignore the response from a specific target range, allowing responses only from targets with a higher conductivity.  A high discrimination setting will filter out trash, but also reduces depth. Discrimination is not perfect and may filter out good targets, as well.
  • Double Blip: A signal characteristic common to elongated ferrous targets such as nails or coins lying close to the surface detected in the All Metal no-motion mode.
  • Draped bust, draped coin: American coinage design from 1795 to 1808. Highly desirable and rare.
  • Drift: A loss of threshold tuning stability caused by temperature change, battery condition, ground mineral content or detector design.
  • Drop: a dropped bullet often associated with the US civil war.
  • DVT (Dual Voltage Technology): is Minelab’s advanced Pulse Induction technology that uses pulses with two voltage levels to further enhance MPS.

E

  • Eddy currents are tiny electrical currents that are induced into targets when a metal detector’s electromagnetic field is present. These eddy currents then generate an electromagnetic field around the target which can be detected by a metal detector.
  • Electromagnetic Field: An electromagnetic field is a magnetic field that has been generated electrically. Metal detectors radiate an electromagnetic field from the search coil. This influences buried targets, which then affects the signal recieved back by the detector.
  • Elliptical Coil: A searchcoil with an ellipse shape. This coil can be either concentric or widescan type.
  • EMI: Electromagnetic interference 

F

  • Faint Signal: A sound characteristic of targets that are sometimes deeply buried or very small in size.
  • False Signal: An erroneous signal created by over shoot, ground voids or highly mineralized hot rocks. These can be caused by junk, loose leads on the coil, stubble or hard soil.
  • Fattie: A thick indian head penny or flying-eagle cent minted between 1859 and 1864. The coin is noticeably thicker than newer indian head pennies.
  • FBS (Full Band Spectrum): simultaneously transmits, receives and analyses a full band of multiple frequencies. This provides the detector’s electronics with even more information about a target and the surrounding environment than is possible with single frequency or BBS technology.
  • Ferrous: Any iron-bearing target. Ferrous objects / targets contain iron and therefore are attracted to a magnet, for example; horse shoes, nails and tin cans. Many natural and man made objects contain iron, most of these are junk targets, however some can be valuable relics.
  • Fill, fill dirt: dirt that’s been brought in, effectively increasing the depth of old objects/coins. Not a good thing for coin hunting.
  • Flag and bag: Finding and putting objects in Archaeology bags, and leaving a small flag where found. Usually done as a part of an Archaeological survey.
  • Freestyling, door-knocking: Driving or walking from property to property asking permission to metal detect without a rigorous plan.
  • Frequency: The number of complete alternating current cycles produced by the transmit oscillator per second. Measured in cycles per second. VLF Very Low Frequency = 3 to 30 kHz; LF Low Frequency = 30 to 300 kHz;MF Medium Frequency = 300 to 3000 kHz; HF High Frequency = 3 to 30 MHz.
  • Frequency Shift: A feature which suppresses the audio interference (cross-talk) between two detectors using identical transmit frequencies in close proximity.
  • Friends: additional good targets in a single hole. 

G

  • Gold prospecting: is the activity of searching for new gold. Gold prospecting metal detectors have superior ground balancing abilities to operate in highly mineralised ground and can detect targets at greater depth.
  • Grand slam: finding four of the same coins from different eras in the same hunt. With dimes, for example, finding a Seated, Barber, Mercury and Roosevelt variety on the same hunt. Very uncommon.
  • Gridding, gridded: detecting using a pattern as you walk along, most common is “straight” or “circular”. Sometimes it means doing a rough check of a location before careful detecting. 
  • Ground Balance, GB:  Adjusting the detector to the mineralization in the soil at the current location to be hunted. May be done manually or automatically depending on your metal detector’s model.
  • Ground mineralisation: refers to how magnetic the ground is. There are two main types of ground mineralisation, one is due to iron particles and can be identified by its red colouration. The other is due to salt, such as salt water beaches. Metal detectors see mineralised ground as one huge target, which makes detecting buried targets in mineralised ground difficult. 
  • Ground noise: is the false signalling caused by a metal detector that is not ground balanced to the soil. The ground noise occurs when the unbalanced detector’s search coil is swept across ground that varies in mineralisation, soil type, rocks or has dips and holes.
  • Ground Tracking: The ability of a detector to continuously measure the ground’s mineralization and automatically adjust the detector’s ground balance setting for optimum performance. This ensures perfect ground balance and full detection depth, eliminating the need for the operator to stop and manually adjust the detector as ground conditions change.
  • Growl, grunt: the sound many detectors make when they’re detecting iron signals.

H

  • Halo Effect, halo: Certain metals, when buried for long periods, oxidize and leech into the surrounding soil, resulting in a metallic halo around the buried object. A detector will see this area of high mineralisation and give a detection response indicating that the target is larger than it really is.
  • Hand Held: A metal detector configuration whereby the operator holds a shaft or handle which supports the searchcoil and control housing. Also called pole mount.
  • Harmonic frequencies are components of a signal or wave that are multiples of the fundamental frequency. For example a 15 kHz signal will have harmonic frequencies at 30 kHz, 45 kHz, 60 kHz, 75 kHz and so on. 
  • Heartbreaker: A high quality coin or artifact that is found, but something bad is wrong with it (such as a digger scratch, or damage from a plow.)
  • Heartstopper: An impressive object when first viewed in the hole. Often used to describe something that looks great that turns out to be junk (such as an amusement park token or junk gold-colored ring)
  • HH: “happy hunting”: often used in emails and forum posts to sign the end of the note. “GL/HH”
  • High tone: A sort of squeal made by many multi-tone detectors when high conductivity targets (such as silver) are found. Typically desirable. 
  • Hockey puck: a very small metal detecting coil, often used to metal detect sites with a lot of junk.
  • Honey hole: A spot that produces good finds hunt after hunt. Often kept secret.
  • Hot Rock: A rock which contains a higher concentration of nonconductive ground minerals and makes detecting difficult. A metallic (positive) response will be heard in the motion and non-motion modes and a null or negative drop in threshold is heard in the all-metal, ground balance mode over these rocks.
  • Hunted out, hunted to death: A metal detecting site that has been heavily metal detected over time.

I

  • Iffy: A signal that is difficult to interpret, but hints of a good target. 
  • indian: A US indian head cent (1859-1909)
  • Isolator: A nonmetal stem which attaches the search coil to the control shaft eliminating metallic interference in the detection pattern. On some detectors, the entire lower shaft is made of a nonmetal substance.

J

  • Junk,  trash; refers to unwanted ferrous or non-ferrous metal targets. Nails, paperclips and wire are examples of ferrous junk and bottle tops, ring pulls and foil are examples of non-ferrous junk. 

K

  • Key, semi-key, key date: A coin of low mintage numbers that has higher value.
  • kHz or Kilohertz: 1000 cycles per second. 

L

  • LCD, Liquid Crystal Display: Used on a metal detector as a graphic visual indicator same as a meter/needle indicator.
  • Low tone: An audible signal that typically represents low conductivity targets like gold or pulltabs.

M

  • Magnet fishing: Using a high powered magnet on a line to pull ferrous objects from the bottom of a creek or lake. A common “side-hobby” of detectorists.
  • Masked, masking: When a piece of iron is nearby a desirable target and alters the way the detector responds. May also describe a mode on a metal detector which temporarily removes all/part of discriminating.
  • Matrix: Refers to the total volume of ground penetrated by the transmitted electromagnetic field, which may contain varying amounts and combinations of minerals, metals, salts and moisture.
  • MDing: Metal Detecting
  • Memorials: A US one cent piece with the Lincoln memorial on the back. (1959 to present)
  • Merc: The US Mercury Dime (1916-1945): 90% silver
  • Metal: Metallic substances such as iron, foil, nickel, aluminum, gold, brass, lead, copper, silver, etc.
  • Metal Detectorist: A person operating a metal detector in the field. This name is preferred by many over Treasure Hunter.
  • Meter: A detector component that provides visual information to aid in target identification. Meters feature either an LCD or needle indicator which may display intensity of signal, target depth, target identification, type of metal, or battery condition.
  • Mineral-Free Discriminator: Any metal detector that can reject or ignore trash metals while simultaneously balancing ground mineralization.
  • Mineralized Ground: Any soil that contains conductive or nonconductive components.
  • Mode: A condition of operation, selected by the operator, for specific desired function.
  • Morgan: The Morgan Silver Dollar. (1878-1921): 90% silver
  • Motion: A mode of operating for most metal detectors, requires a movement of the search head to trigger a response from the target
  • MPS (Multi Period Sensing): is Minelab’s advanced Pulse Induction (PI) technology that transmits pulses of different time periods. MPS also samples the receive signal at multiple time periods allowing target signals and ground signals to be separated. This effectively removes the ground signal from even the most highly mineralised ground while still being sensitive to both small and deep gold. This achieves superior depth in extremely mineralised ground.

N

  • Narrow Response: A target that produces an audio response so short that pinpointing is almost not needed.
  • Negative Ground: Soil that contains non-conductive minerals which have a negative or nulling effect on an air-tuned threshold. Usually consisting of small particles of iron or ferrous minerals occurring naturally in the soil.
  • Neutral Ground: Soil that has no nonconductive or conductive mineral properties. Lacks mineralization.
  • Neutral Response: Indicates no change in the detector’s threshold tone.
  • Newbie: Someone new at the hobby
  • Ni-Cad, Nickel-Cadmium: A rechargeable type of battery cell.
  • Nicked: To hit and damage the coin/object with your digging tool. 
  • Nighthawk: someone who detects illegally at night.
  • No-Motion: A mode of detection that does not require the movement of the search head to trigger a response from the target. Also called non-motion.
  • Noise Cancel: is a metal detector feature that shifts a metal detector’s operating frequency or frequencies to reduce the effect of environmental electromagnetic noise, from sources such as power lines, cell phone towers and other metal detectors.
  • Non-Ferrous: Non-Ferrous materials do not contain iron. Metals of the precious class (i.e., gold, silver, copper, etc.)
  • Notch Discrimination: Filtering circuitry which allows user to reject a specific range of targets whilst still accepting targets below and above this setting. This circuitry can also be adjusted to reject all metal targets while accepting only a specific conductivity range.
  • Notch Level: A control used to select the target level or target conductivity which the notch filter will act upon.
  • Notch Reject: Operation whereby all targets within the notch width at chosen notch level will be “tuned-out.”
  • Notch Width: A finite discrimination range of target conductivities (“window”) at the chosen notch level.

O

  • On-edge: A coin that is buried in the ground oriented up and down, rather than flat (parallel) to the ground surface. This can make detecting the coin more difficult.
  • One-way signal: a detecting signal that works when you sweep one direction, but not the other. Often an indicator of a junk target, but not always.
  • Overlap: The amount of searchcoil swing advance not greater than the searchcoil’s physical diameter.
  • Overload: when there is too much metal under the coil for the machine to be useful. 
  • Overshoot: A common false signal heard as the searchcoil passes over a rejected target when using a no-motion All Metal mode in conjunction with automatic returning. 

P

  • Peep, squeas, squeaker: A high pitched sound at high depth. 
  • Permissions: a place to hunt where you have permission to be. 
  • Phase Response: The length of time between eddy current generation sustained on a metal’s surface and the resultant secondary electromagnetic field effect on the search coil’s receive winding. Related to target conductivity.
  • PI, Pulse Induction, pulse machine: A mode of operation where the transmitter circuit pulses an electrical current into the ground before it quickly shuts down. The eddy cur rents dissipate immediately from poor conductors such as wet salt sand and ground minerals. Metals hold eddy cur rents because they are better conductors. When the receiver circuit comes on, it picks up the returning signal from metal; the eddy currents in the ground minerals have already disappeared.
  • Pinpoint (Electronic Pinpointing): A mode of operation that allows the hunter to determine the precise location of a target.
  • Pinpointer, pin: A small, hand-held metal detector used inside of the open hole/plug to help locate the target
  • Pinpointing: Finding the exact target location with respect to a search coil’s designated center. 
  • Plowline: the area that’s left relatively undisturbed in agricultural fields deeper than plows can reach. 
  • Plug: A hole carefully dug in the ground so that dirt and grass are not harmed. Diggin a good “plug” is the mark of an experience and ethical metal detectorist as it reduces the impact on properties being hunted.
  • Pocketspill, coinspill: A bunch of coins lost from ones’ pocket or purse. Often found in places where people sat in the grass.
  • Positive Ground, Positive Mineralisation: Soil which contains conductive minerals or moist salts which have a positive or upward effect on an air-tuned threshold.
  • Probe, poker: A small tool, often made of brass to locate coins before digging by touch. 
  • Prospecting: Hunting for valuable metals such as gold, silver or coins.

Q

  • Quick Response:  A short time period between metal sensing and peak audio/ visual indicator indication usually associated with all frequency ranges of TR detectors.

R

  • Reeded edge, silver edge: The groved edge of many silver coins. The opposite of a smooth edge. A reeded edge is often the first clue of the type of coin found in the ground.
  • Rejection: An indication of target nonacceptance by a null in threshold or broken sound while operating in a discriminate mode.
  • Relic Hunting: Hunting for targets with historical value.
  • Repeatable: When the metal detecting signal can be repeated in several directions of coil sweeps. Repeatable signals increases the chances of a good target.
  • Return: The process of getting lost jewelry back to the owner. 
  • Rosie: A 90% silver Rosevelt dime (1946-1964)
  • Round ball: a musket ball from a muzzle loading gun.
  • Roundness: A coin or button in the hole.
  • Rubar: Rusted beyond all recognition.

S

  • Salt Elimination: The detector’s ability to eliminate the interference of salt mineralization, which adversely affects detection depth and target identification capabilities.
  • Screamer: A super high quality signal that is loud in the headphones. Often results in a high quality find, such as a large silver coin or artifact.
  • Scrubbing: The search coil is pressed and held in contact with the ground while searching to maintain even audio threshold. With newer detectors, this technique is used to gain depth.
  • Scuff Cover, coil cover, skid plate: A protective cover for the search coil bottom. It is cheaper to replace a coil cover than it is to replace a coil so these are highly recommended.
  • Search Coil, head: A circular (or other shaped) plastic housing containing single or multiple transmit and receive windings (wire coils) in a specific configuration. A search coil emits and receives signals from the ground and metal targets. Also called loop, coil or head.
  • Search Coil Cable: An electrostatically shielded cable of conductors (wires) which convey signals to and from the search coil and control housing.
  • Seated: A US coin minted between 1837 and 1891 in half dime, dime, quarter and half.
  • Seeded hunt: A hunt where the the finds have been scattered or planted
  • Sensitivity: The capacity of a metal detector to perceive changes in conductivity within the detection pattern. Generally, the more sensitivity a detector can smoothly provide, the more depth it will achieve in sensing targets.
  • Shaft: The adjustable stem that connects the control box and the search coil.
  • Signal, target Response: An audio response or visual indication alerting the operator that a target has been detected.
  • Silent search, silent operation: Refers to detectors capable of producing a target signal while operating below the threshold audio. Also called .
  • Skunked: Hunting and finding nothing of value. 
  • Slow Motion: A description of search coil speed required to operate the motion discriminate mode.
  • Smartfind: is Minelab’s unique two dimensional scale of discrimination. Smartfind graphically represents a target’s ferrous and conductive properties on the same display.
  • Smoothie: a coin that’s highly worn, often difficult to see details.
  • Square nail: A very old nail, often hand forged. An indicator of old construction (more on square nails.)
  • Stability: The ability of a metal detector to maintain manually adjusted tuning thresh- old under the effects of outside interference. Instability can also result from outside electric interference such as power lines or from chatter created by small pieces of iron on mineralised ground.
  • Stingy site: Sometimes used to describe a metal detecting site where very little is found.
  • Strip hunting: metal detecting on the street side of sidewalks.
  • Surface Area: Refers to the area of a target closest to the search coil where eddy current generation can take place.
  • Surface Elimination: The metal detector’s ability to ignore all targets located on or near the surface, very useful in heavy trash areas.
  • Sweep, sweeping, swinging: The motion employed in moving the search coil across the ground. Often side to side as the detectorist is moving forwards.

T

  • Target: Refers to any object that causes an audio or visual response in a detector. Target refers to any metal object that can be detected by a metal detector. A target can either be valuable such as coin, or junk such as a bottle top.
  • Target ID: The ability of a detector to recognise a target by its conductivity and to then display a likely target ID by means of bars, numbers or an icon via a meter. 
  • Target Masking: When large sizes or high concentrations of trash metals drive the threshold into the null zone suppressing weaker, positive responses from deeper or smaller targets.
  • Target: Refers to any object that causes an audio or visual response in a detector. Target refers to any metal object that can be detected by a metal detector. A target can either be valuable such as coin, or junk such as a bottle top.
  • Tear-outs: when sidewalks or parking lots are removed for repair or construction. This is usually a good time to metal detect.
  • Ten-Turn: A control which can be manually rotated ten times to cover the full electrical range of the function. Usually associated with tuning or ground balance function.
  • Test garden, coin garden, test plot, test bed: A mapped plot of buried targets at various depths to aid in learning characteristic target responses and in comparing metal detector performances under a given ground mineral content. 
  • TH’er, TH’ing, metal detectorist: Universal word contractions for treasure hunter and treasure hunting. 
  • Three ringer: a three groove Minié ball bullet, often from the civil war era.
  • Threshold: Continuous tone that establishes a reference point for tuning the detector to ground balance it. The threshold tone also establishes the minimum sound level for deep targets in the discriminate mode.
  • Toasty, toasted: A coin that is badly corroded because of a long period of time in the ground. 
  • Tone ID: Different sounds identifying different target’s sounds on many modern detectors. High tones usually indicate high-conductivity targets such as silver or copper, while low-tones are for low-conductivity targets such as gold.
  • Tones machine: a metal detector that requires you to learn the sounds rather than looking at the display to successfully classify what you’ve found before digging.
  • Tot-lot: Areas of parks designated for very young children. Often the location for newer lost jewelry. Frequently filled with wood bark or rubber pellets to prevent injury, lost items are frequently just below the surface.
  • Tot-lot-tour: Ariving from park to park to quickly detect the children’s area for valuables. Especially popular on Monday mornings.
  • TR or Transmitter-Receiver: Term describing method of operation of early detectors. Some manufacturers still produce this type of detector. 
  • Trash pit: an area where everyday trash was put in the past. Often used to describe the regimental trash area of a civil war site.
  • Trashy ground: is ground that has high levels of junk.
  • Trifecta: when three same-denomination coins of different eras/types are found. e.g. A Barber, Mercury and Roosevelt dime all found in the same hunt is a “trifecta of dimes.”
  • Two-tone-ferrous, TTF: A mode of detecting on the Minelab E-Trac detector which is used when there is heavy iron content present. Iron targets give low tones, good targets high tones.

V

  • Vehicle: the word used for “car” when detectorist is ashamed they don’t have a cool 4×4 truck.
  • Very Low Frequency (VLF): Most detectors today are based on the VLF technology. The VLF detector combines two coils: the outer coil acts as a transmitter, using alternating current to create a magnetic field that is distorted by a metallic object and the inner coil acting as a receiver, reading the secondary magnetic field created by the conductive object.
  • VFLEX: is Minelab’s metal detecting technology used in the X-TERRA range of detectors. VFLEX uses state of the art digital electronics to enhance standard single frequency detection technology. This has the advantage of providing dependable performance and improved immunity to outside interference. VFLEX technology also has an added advantage that changing the detector’s coil also automatically changes the detector’s operating frequency. This means that an X-TERRA detector can operate at different frequencies allowing the detector to be easily modified to suit different detecting conditions.
  • Virgin site: a location that has not been metal detected.
  • Visual ID: A feature in which a visual indication is produced to help identify the target.
  • VLF/DISC: Term associated with detectors capable of mineral-free operation in both the Discriminate and All Metal modes.
  • VLF/TR: A class of detector that can operate in both the All Metal, Ground Balance mode and the No-Motion Discriminate, Non-Ground Balance mode.
  • Voltage: is electrical potential and is measured in volts. Voltage is used to energise a metal detector’s search coil, which in turn generates the electromagnetic field.

W

  • Walker: US Walking Liberty Half Dollar (1916-1947)
  • Whatzit: Unknown object of curiosity
  • Wheatie: US wheat back cent (1909-1958)
  • Whispers, peeps: Barely audible tones, often an indication of depth.
  • Wide Response: A target that produces an audio signal over an area wider than the search coil diameter.
  • Wrap up: laying out the finds for the day for a photo or at the end of a detecting video.

Z

  • Zero Discrimination: Used to describe detectors whose discrimination control allows the acceptance of all metals at zero setting.
  • Zincoln: A zinc-formulated Lincoln Cent. Often in poor condition. Not a desirable target.

References