Today's survey saw us visiting our second largest landowner which happens to be in Lincolnshire. It would also be another opportunity to test the V4 software upgrade, the new HF coil and our latest acquisition; the XP MI-6 Probe.

We met up with another detectorist who also has permission here and has been detecting this patch for over 8 years and uses a Déus V4.
We had a look at a field drilled with winter wheat which was quite advanced but had only been disked previous to seeding.
A few pieces of Medieval pottery, lead and a hammered short-cross were recovered.
We moved to the field next door which was also drilled with winter wheat but had been ploughed. Unfortunately, the crop growth was too advanced and therefore made it impossible to fieldwalk and detect effectively.
Even so, we recovered quite a few Medieval artefacts here despite the crop height.

We arrived at another set of fields about 4 miles away which had been rolled but not drilled as of yet.
2 more hammered coins in the form of cut-halves and a gold half soveriegn of Queen Victoria dated 1860 came up, oh.... and tonnes of tiny lead fragments!

Overall, we recovered; 3 hammered coins, a gold half-sovereign, 2 Jettons, 3 Medieval mounts, a Medieval book strap, lead artefacts, skillet leg, Medieval dagger chape, 2 Medieval thimbles and a lovely lead bag seal with an intricate design.
What may be surprising is what coils found the main finds! See below to find out which found what.
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V4 & HF Coil 
The Three machines ran the new V4 software and fitted with the 13" x 11" coil and the 11" coil. The third machine ran the V4 software with the new HF coil. All machines were in GMP Mode and Manual tracking, 18khz for the first two machines and 29khz with the new HF coil.

The results show that no matter what coil or frequency you use, you've got to walk over it for the coil to register it. This is a statement I've made several times and is supported by several surveys we've conducted using identical machines, coils and frequencies. It all comes down to which line you are on!
The 13" x 11" coil recovered all three hammered coins and the 11" coil recovered the gold half-guinea. It was a matter of bad luck that the new coil had missed these four particular recoveries as the HF coil connected with all targets that the other machines had identified.

Again, the battery life was excellent for the HF coil. Whilst the Control Unit was showing 1 bar, the coil was still showing fully charged after 9 hours use.
At switch-on we've noticed that the coil LED only flashes twice, we wonder if others had noticed this?

XP MI-6 Probe
Moving on to the XP MI-6 Probe; these were holstered in the probe pocket attached to the finds bags. The supplied holster wasn't used only for the simple fact that we're used to using the attached holsters.
The new holster does appear to be quite tight but this may be due to newness. I'm sure at some point they will be used.

We think the MI-6 may have been designed with left-handed people in mind as we both thought that the button is on the "wrong" side and kept having to turn over the probe to access the on-off button. But however, thinking about it, you would normally have the detector in your right hand leaving your left hand free. Using the harnesses leaves both hands free, I suppose we'll have to start being left-handed. I guess that you could use a trowel in your right hand whilst simultaneously using the MI-6 in your left hand.
The on-off button is quite firm and took a little getting used to, this was probably due to the constant turning the probe over 180 degrees and locating the button again.

When switching on, the button had to be held for about 1 to 1.5 seconds for the probe to connect to the Control Unit and 'phones. This results in a double-tone alert in the 'phones and the probe display appearing on the Control Unit.
A dozen times, when switching on, the probe display appeared on the Control Unit but the 'phones were still connected to the coil. This may be due to the on-off button being pressed in one quick press/stab action instead of holding the button for  the 1 to 1.5 seconds delay.
Holding the on-off button for 3 seconds accesses the probes program mode. 
The probe should remember the last probe program that was used, ie program 7 for connection to a Déus. The other six programs are for use with machines other than the Déus.

Once successfully connected to the Control Unit, the top of the display shows which search coil program you are on ie; Prog 2 GMP etc.
The probes battery condition is displayed to the left and the central area is taken up with the pin-pointers proximity to the target.
Below this is the menu access allowing you to alter various aspects of he probes performance.
The two main changes from the factory settings for me was setting the sensitivity from 30 (factory setting) to 50 (Max) and Audio to Pulse instead of Pitch (factory setting). I found the pulse tone very loud but seemed precise when locating targets. Rob on the other hand preferred the Pitch setting and left the sensitivity at 30.
No doubt I'll be playing about with these settings.

Switching off the MI-6 returns the Control Unit display to the coil settings and results display. 

The XP MI-6 is of the highest build quality and despite any foibles, it is a winner over the Garrett AT Probe especially for Déus users. This is not said lightly as the Garrett AT is a great piece of kit without doubt.
For us, the main advantage is the audio coming through the 'phones. It's a really odd feeling having been used to the familiar bleep and buzz of the Garrett over 7 years of use.
The next advantage is the battery saving as our probes are in constant use as you may understand and we go through quite a few batteries over a season.
We found the MI-6 extremely sensitive to the smallest of targets, perhaps I may reduce the setting over the coming weeks?
There are certainly enough settings to fine-tune the probe to exactly what you require, both in performance and individuality.

High Definition images of the days finds can be seen here.

Apologies for the wry grammatical anomaly, a tongue-in-cheek title to reflect the humour regarding the current theme and concerns regarding the Déus V4.0 software update and the new XP 9" HF coil.
Apologies also for the delay in reporting back as I've been on Jury Service so it's a case of juggling the time in court, writing the blog, cleaning the finds and photographing them! Quite a few members have pm'd me asking when we're going to give feedback on the new coils and software.

This report is going to be slightly different to our usual posts as it involves two extra important aspects; the initial assessment of both the V4.0 update itself and the new 9" High Frequency coils.

The test area is part of a 40-acre, newly drilled, spring-wheat field with the seeds just about germinating. This meant that the surface was covered in fine linear tracks showing where the drilling machine had deposited the seeds with no seedlings showing.
We have surveyed this particular area several times since 2013 so it will be interesting to see what other items are recovered, especially using the new software and new HF coils.

Firing up the Déus using the new V4.0 update resulted in a new three-tone start-up sequence tone.
The start of the exercise saw the new coils set to the GMP mode, 28.8khz with one on Manual GB and the other on Tracking.
Both machines appeared to be equal in terms of performance. 
I've used Tracking several times in the past (sorry) and found it satisfactory, if a little erratic. The new set-up appeared to be very stable with the Tracking GB settling at between 68 and 71 on our site. 
What was apparent was that the mineralisation indicator now appeared at 3 and 4 bars, which was expected as this is a well established Romano-British settlement. Using V3.2 the mineralisation only appeared every now and again. There appeared to be no difference in recovery levels at all between the Manual and Tracking settings.
The 28.8khz setting was chosen as we would normally use the 18khz as opposed to 12, 8 or 4khz frequencies.

The new ​discrimination level of 6.1 instead of 6.8 may only appear to be a slight move, but the ferrous separation is excellent. In a 10.5 hour session only 2 large ferrous items were recovered and this was when using the 13" x 11" coil. No large ferrous masses were recovered using the new HF coils.
​The new coil discriminated all large ferrous items with ease and left you in no doubt in which signals to dig with full confidence. 
Another note was that there were hardly any "iffy" signals at all, just dig-able signals.
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Excellent ferrous separation was also experienced with the 13" x 11" coil and it must be said that the V4.0 update was indeed enjoyed by both sets of coils used today. Both Rob and I agreed that V4.0 was a step in the right direction and that there were no aspects of the upgrade that were detrimental to the performance of the Déus.

What was a pleasant surprise that, after 8.5 hours, the control unit battery level showed 66% whilst the coil was still running at 100%, testament to the extra HF coil battery capacity.

The Deep and Hot programs also had a run-through, although at a much reduced length of time. The Hot program was similar to the one used on the V3.2 but with the added oscilloscope display, that may take some getting used to. As in the V3.2 version, it is quite "noisy" with several differing  tones coming through in quick succession.
Both the "Deep" and "Hot" program signals were double-checked with the GMP program using the HF coil and the 13" coil and no signals were missed by the GMP mode. Again, the oscilloscope in the Deep program may take some getting used to as it is quite unique compared to the numerical readout.
 
The new HF coil is a lot lighter than the previous 9" coil and this is evident in the amount of effort required to actually swing it!  

Initial Summary
Both the new V4.0 software and new HF coils performed flawlessly with no issues to report on the first outing.
The general thoughts were that both the software and the HF coils are an improvement with targets coming from an increased depth, improved target separation regarding ferrous and non-ferrous items and precise tight signals.  
We will have more to report hopefully on our next outing during the Easter break when we will also have the new XP MI-6 probes to test out too.

Recoveries
As mentioned, this area has been surveyed several times over the last 4 years with the majority of finds being Romano-British. 
16 Roman coins including a denarius of Septimius Severus, 4 fibula, Roman mounts, 3 Roman pot mends, Samian Ware fragments, various Roman rim sherds and 2 knapped flint blades.

We met up with the landowner and had a great catch up as we'd not spoken since September last year.
He'd had a new shed built and added 36,000 hens and 1,500 roosters resulting in loads of eggs to be collected.
More land is to be drilled over the next few weeks so we may end up back at this permission soon.

On the way home we called into a local Indian restaurant and enjoyed some superb food with onion bhaji's to die for and the lightest garlic naan bread ever!

The sky was clear and we'd sussed that the International Space Station was due over at 20:26hrs and sure enough it appeared right on cue.

We're on another break this weekend but we'll hopefully back on track over the Easter weekend.

​High Definition images of the day's finds can be seen here.
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