How to Operate a Metal Detector

Metal detecting is a great hobby, although it is also used in commercial applications.

Metal detectors are used by hobbyists, engineers, anthropologists and treasure hunters to find metallic objects underground. The treasure hunter or hobbyist may be able to find lost coins or jewelry. The engineer may be searching for an underground pipe or wire. Anthropologists use metal detectors to find metal artifacts like buttons and bullets. Although there are many different models of metal detectors, they operate in much the same fashion. Using your metal detector can make your job easier, or provide an interesting and potentially lucrative hobby.

Things You'll Need

• Metal detector
• Nail
• Bottle cap
• Nickel
• Penny
• Piece of gold
• Piece of silver

Instructions

1. Fully charge your metal detector. A metal detector that is low on power may not work properly. Depending on the model, this can take several hours.

2. Take your metal detector outdoors to a piece of ground that you are relatively sure does not have any pipes or wires running underground.

3. Turn on your metal detector. This should be a knob marked on/off or volume. On most models, the on/ off knob and the volume control are the same thing. Your model may have a separate on/off switch. Turn the volume knob fully clockwise to reach maximum volume. Lower the volume if this is too loud for you.

4. One at a time, place the test objects on the ground and pass the detector over them. The noise of the detector will be different for each type of metal it passes over. Familiarize yourself with the different tones.

5. Turn up and down the sensitivity knob on your metal detector while using the test objects. This adjusts how deeply the detector will detect. When the knob is fully clockwise, you are detecting as far down into the ground as the detector can go. This is not always the ideal setting though, as minerals in the soil can give you false signals when the sensitivity is too high.

6. Adjust the discrimination/ rejection knob. This is sometimes called DISC. Your model may have a display with keys to press. This adjusts the metal detector to only pick up signals from certain metals. The scale usually goes ground minerals, iron, aluminum, nickel, copper, and silver. Your model may use numbers instead of names, with one being ground minerals and six being silver. Test out the discrimination on your test materials. As you go up the scale of discrimination, you will not detect things that are lower on the scale. If you are set to aluminum, you will not detect iron and ground minerals, if you are set to copper you will not detect nickel, iron, aluminum and ground minerals.

7. Take your metal detector out to the area you would like to survey. Adjust the sensitivity so that the salts and minerals in the ground will not give you false signals. If you are getting noise everywhere, you may need to lower the sensitivity. Adjust the discrimination to search of the types of things you would like to find. Gold is usually found under the nickel setting.

8. Sweep the metal detector slowly and close to the ground, without touching the ground. Listen for a signal and dig in that spot.

References

• Metal Detector Reviews: Manual
• Gold Price: How to Use a Metal Detector