GOOD HUNT, GREAT TIME!! Well, our Spring Hunt and Terry’s Annual Free Hunt have come and gone and all I can say is if you were unable to attend, do your best to make next years. Once again, it was a great success, well attended and I believe everyone had a great time with lots to find, very nice prizes, plenty of tasty food and a great chance to visit and get to know our fellow members. A comment sticks out in my mind from one of our newest members was I go to many hunts, but this was the best yet. I agree with this member. Over the years, I have been to many, and although seeded hunts are not my thing, I anticipate this hunt as much as any. A huge THANKS to Terry for all he does to make this event a success. With the chance of missing someone, I must also say thank you to all those that help Terry in preparing the hunts and hunt fields. Actually, a big thanks to all our members that attended for your donations of items for prizes, for those that procured donations, for all the fine food and drink that was brought and for taking part in this one of a kind hunt. A little rain dampened the free woods hunt but most of the items and prizes were found and for those that stuck it out, a great time was still the order of the day.

The June monthly meeting was another to remember. The Show & Tell finds were fantastic. A special thanks to our volunteer judges, Greg Miller and Doris Smidl, you did a super job. From Silver Half Dollars, Terry’s Super 14K Ring with 17 Diamonds, Joe’s 671 Coin Display, Janice’s very rare Civil war Rifleman’s Button, Indian Head Cents, plenty of silver and many other one of a kind finds too numerous to mention, the evening’s displays were another positive example that there are still many finds to be made. Often I hear that there are no places to hunt anymore or everything is hunted out but if you do some research, perfect your skills and especially put in the field time swinging that coil, great finds are still there to be made and will be for many years to come. Many of this month’s finds were made in previously hunted areas, which help to support the point that no spot which had at least a moderate amount of past activity is ever really hunted out

A lot more of great activities and hunts are in the works for the remainder of this year. A brown bag hunt will be scheduled at a park in Armstrong Co. sometime after the July meeting. The owner has granted permission and the scheduling of a convenient date for as many of our members as possible will be decided at the July meeting. Anyone knowing of a site which would be a possible club hunt site, please check it out with the land owner or if you are uncomfortable with asking, get some contact information and I will be glad to see what I can do to work something out.

Well, till next month, good health to all and the best of luck in all your endeavors. Swing that coil as often as you can a be aware of hotter temperatures and keep your fluid intake up as needed.

THOUGHT

Plan as though you’ll be living for a century,

Live as though you’ll be leaving tomorrow.

Best Wishes & God Bless,

  Jack Barrett

        BCTH PRESIDENT

 MINUTES OF the JUNE 19TH  2008 MEETING

OPENING

Jack Barrett called the meeting to order at 7:15 P.M., followed by the pledge and a moment of silence for the troops. Thoughts & prayers go out to Paul Kramer & his wife.

GREETING

35 members & 2 guests--Ron Smith & Joe Bettenhauser (our newest member)

MINUTES

The minutes weren't read due to time restraints.  Motion to accept was made by Doris Smidl, seconded by Boobie.

STRIP TICKET WINNER

Harry Bowser #709

WEBSITE

$95.40 to operate the new website by EasyHost. Motion to approve was made by Andre LaStrapes, seconded by Doris Smidl.

HUNTS

The 50/50 raffle at the spring hunt provided $83 toward the fall hunt. As a thank you to Terry Taylor for hosting the spring hunt, the club donated $50 for all his hard work. Motion to accept was made by Larry Miller, seconded by Gary Waddell.

TREASURER’S REPORT

Payments:

$15.98 to Harry Neimeyer for stamps and the newsletter.  Motion to accept was made by Larry Miller, seconded by Red Craft.

Greg will have a complete report at the July's meeting.

GUEST SPEAKER

Jack Barrett gave an indepth talk on search coils, coil size, depth, search patterns, grids & search speeds.  Very informative for old & new members alike!

RAFFLE TICKETS

$67 donated for the 50/50--$33.50 to the winner Joe Guerre.

$51 donated to Vic's Silver drawing--1891O Silver Dollar--winner--Don Young

DISPLAYS

12 displays

BEST DISPLAY--Joe Novastat--671 coins, 14K man's ring & 6 silver coins.

BEST COIN--Red Craft--1943 Walking Half Dollar.

BEST JEWELRY--Terry Taylor--14K woman's wedding ring set with 17 diamonds.

BEST ARTIFACT--Janice Barrett--Civil War Rifleman's button.

OLDEST COIN--Gary Waddell--1901 Indian Head.

MOST SILVER--Perry Smyda--10 silver coins.

CONSOLATION WINNER--Larry Leathers

Judges:  Greg Miller & Doris Smidl.

Attendance Winner--Perry Smyda--silver half.

Motion was made to buy 10 sets of strip tickets.  Motion to accept was made by Vic Kamer, seconded by Bob Smidl.

MOTION TO ADJOURN

Bob Brown made a motion to adjourn the meeting, seconded by Joe Guerre.

Bob Brown made the motion to adjourn the meeting at 9:05, seconded by Janice Barrett.

WORKING TOGETHER

On June the 30th I received a phone call from Jackie Walker, a member of the Butler Treasure Hunters and the Monroeville Area Metal Detecting Club. Jackie was asking for volunteers to help with a metal detecting demo at the North Hills Junior High School for a summer school class of challenged children. I immediately emailed the Butler club members and received a reply from Red Craft who volunteered to help on this short notice.

On July the 2nd we all met at the school at 8:00am. Those present were the following:

Jackie Walker, member of the Butler County Treasure Hunting Club and the Monroeville Area Metal Detecting Club..

Donna Walker, member of the Butler County Treasure Hunting Club and the Monroeville Area Metal Detecting Club.

Alexa Walker, member of the Monroeville Area Metal Detecting Club.

Ron Foster, member of the Monroeville Area Metal Detecting Club.

Red Craft, member of the Butler County Treasurer Hunters and President of the Beaver County Detecting club.

Harry Niemeyer, member of the Butler, Monroeville, North Pgh past Finders clubs and Secretary of the Beaver County Detecting club.

All are also members of the Federation of Metal Detector and Archaeological Clubs ( F.M.D.A.C.).

Jackie gave us a rundown of what we would be doing and what to expect. We than set up several hunt areas for the students to use.

We than went into the school to meet the class of 11 students that would be hunting.

We introduced ourselves as;

Jackie Walker

Donna Walker

Alexa Walker

And for fun we spontaneously did the following,

Ron Walker

Harry Walker

Red Walker as ‘Just Red’.

They all loved it and after the laughter died down we introduced ourselves with our real names.

There was a short description of metal detecting and the detectors. After which we all went to the ball field to search for treasures.

We had plenty of targets. Thanks to the many donations of coins and trinkets we were able to seed the field every time we changed students. Everyone had a full field of targets every time they started to hunt. each student had at least two periods of hunting which lasted until they found all the targets. Of course they were allowed to keep all finds which really excited them.

Each of us had two students to work with; my two were Katie and Ryan.

I soon learned that I needed to hold their hand on the detector and to guide them through the hunt field to locate the targets.

After about two hours of teaching, hunting and enjoying a beautiful morning we all went into the school library for a period of show and tell.

Ron Foster had a gold nugget that he had found to show the students and he than held a raffle for the nugget. There were eleven pieces of blank folded paper, with one having a drawing of a gold nugget on it. The student who drew the drawing of the nugget won the gold nugget.

The lucky winner was a young girl whose name was Kala. Congratulations kala

We than went to the snack room where there were several trays of homemade cookies. After a short while we bid them goodbye and left the school feeling very humble and proud of the morning’s events.

It was very nice to see members of several clubs working together to make someone’s day a bit happier.

GO TO AWARDS AND PICTURES.ON THE 2008 JULY NEWSLETTERS PAGE

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How deep do detectors go?

The answer to this question comes in two parts. The first part has to do with the detector circuitry and coil design. Environmental factors make up the second part of the answer.

Coil and circuitry design determine the overall ability of a detector to find targets. During the design phase of any detector, the engineers decide which features to include. The things that they consider are the type of hunting and who will be using it. A beginner’s model may not have the bells and whistles of the more professional models, but it will be easier to use. The more specific a detector’s design, the narrower set of features it will have. Some detectors designed for the ultimate depth will be hard for a beginner to use or may be too sensitive to use in trashy areas. Coil size will affect the depth of the detector but may not be suited for a particular type of hunting.

Environmental factors include just about everything except the detector and coil. Just a few of the things to take into consideration are the following: size and shape of the target, soil conditions, orientation of the target in the ground, content of the target, and any outside interference, such as electrical wires and radio or cell phone traffic. Weather conditions, such as rain-soaked ground or even an incoming thunderstorm, may also play a part in the depth and sensitivity of any detector.

With all that being said, an average detector using a stock coil in moderate ground should see the following targets with these ranges:

Target size Depth Dime to nickel: 4 to 8 inches Quarter to half dollar: 6 to 12 inches Dollar to fruit jar lid: 8 to 16 inches

Knowing your detector and using it properly are the two most important things that you can do to get the best depth and sensitivity out of any machine.

"Courtesy of Tesoro Electronics"

WHAT IS SUPER TUNE?

Super Tuning is a technique to get better depth and sensitivity out of any machine that has an adjustable Threshold control.

The Threshold control is normally used to set the level of hum in the All Metal mode. A light steady hum is usually desired so that any small or deep target will cause a change in the audio sound. To Super Tune a detector put it in the Discriminate mode and turn the Threshold knob all the way to the clockwise position. At this point, the All Metal mode will no longer operate correctly, but you will see an increase in depth and sensitivity while hunting in the Discriminate mode.

What is High Output Technology?

Most metal detectors work by sending out a signal, receiving it back, amplifying the return signal, and deciding whether or not to beep. One way of making the detector more sensitive is to increase the amplification of the return signal. This works well up to a point but can cause a machine to overload the circuits and become chirpy. Another way is to increase the initial signal going out, but once again; too much power and the signal will become unstable.

High Output Technology combines the increased transmitted signal and the high gain amplification of the return signal to get the best depth and sensitivity out of our lightweight, compact detectors. When a detector becomes chirpy, the most common reason is the noise to signal ratio. Signal refers to the information being passed through the circuitry and noise is any type of other interference. As the signal is amplified, the noise gets amplified as well. At Tesoro, we use high tolerance components and design them into the circuit to create a lower noise to signal ratio.

What is Target ID and how does it work?

Target ID is a feature that will give the metal detectorist more information about the target while it is still in the ground. It cannot tell you exactly what the target is due to the many variables present in an unknown target. A short list of these variables are as follows: the metal content of the target, the size and shape of the target, the target’s orientation in the ground, the mineralization matrix of the ground itself, depth of the target, detector settings, and outside interference such as weather conditions, cell phone traffic, and electrical lines. All of these things can cause changes in the meter readings.

A basic detector works by transmitting a signal and receiving it back. This creates a field of electromagnetic flux lines around the coil. As metal passes through the field, it breaks or distorts the flux lines. A simple discrimination circuit measures the amount of distortion or shift and beeps or doesn’t beep based on the settings of the machine. During the design phase of any metered-style machine, the engineer measures the amount of shift that the most common targets cause and programs a microprocessor to respond with a meter reading for those types of shifts. The testing can include simple air tests, field tests in a controlled environment, such as a test garden, or even complex reports from several different field testers. But at some point, someone decides that a type of target shift represents a specific meter reading. While this information can give a detectorist a basis to dig or reject a target, it is in no way perfect.

"Courtesy of Tesoro Electronics"

The above article was taken from the Treasure Hut Forum