This looks to be the last outing of the 2016/2017 season and it was to be conducted on a newly drilled pea field of 19 acres.
The conditions were very dry after the recent rain with a stiff breeze from the south.

Today we were joined by one of our forum members as a first-time guest on a site we'd not been to since March 2015. This was a site that produced four hammered coins; one being a gold quarter noble of Edward III on that visit.
Sadly no silver hammered coins were found, the nearest being a jetton.
Oddly, three Roman coins were recovered. one was pierced.
A nice heart-shaped Medieval mount and a nice Early Medieval strapend were found too, along with other finds.
We couldn't believe the amount of buttons we found, this image shows just a few of them!

Whilst we were surveying this permission a police vehicle passed by and stopped about 150 metres away. It stayed there for 5 minutes or so, then carried on along the road. 
I sent the landowner a report of the finds and images and mentioned the police presence. He said the two men in a large white Iveco van were parking up and detecting anywhere they fancied without permission.
These nighthawking lowlifes are the scourge of our hobby. Nighthawkers are one of the the main reasons why permission can be hard or even impossible to obtain.

Two machines were running V4 13" coils whilst the third was running V3.2 and the 11" coil, all machines were using the GMP mode.

The link to our High Definition images are here.

Today saw the second visit to the field were we recovered 87 Roman coins last Monday. 
The first signal was a dupondius in a worn condition and was amongst masses of coke, green waste and iron.

The coke and iron got the better of us and we moved line to an area where there were just lots of green waste to contend with.
Our brave attempt to master the green waste came to an end just after lunch and with 28 Roman coins we thought we'd try another field.
Again, no artefacts were found but several fragments of Roman pottery were scattered everywhere including a nice piece of mortarium. 

The next move was something extremely rare for us.... we had a look at a pasture field. Yes, you read that right, pasture! Bits of lead, Georgian coins, a worn pierced silver coin, a broken hammered coin and a Roman grot were found. The grass was quite long in some areas so we decided that the pasture had received as much of our attention as required.

We then took the opportunity to survey another field that was drilled with peas and one we'd never been to before.
As the machines were tuning in, we had a decorated piece of Samian Ware and a large fragment of a grey ware base sherd at our feet.
We thought that we were in for a good session after this, how wrong were we. Nothing Roman was seen at all! Oddly enough, two hammered coins were recovered; a penny of Edward Ist and a Scottish twenty-pence of Charles Ist and a C14th strapend buckle.

High Definition images can be seen here.

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It was great to back out in the field after a lovely holiday in Pula, Croatia.
Pula is a fascinating place with lots of history and has the 6th largest Roman amphitheatre in the world and the most complete outer walls. There's also lots of Medieval history too.

The day before I flew out to Pula I received a text from one of our landowners to say that he'd drilled the newly ploughed fields with peas.
Returning to the UK saw the cases unpacked and the Déus on charge.

We visited a field we hadn't seen since December 2015 and one that had produced 174 pieces of Roman pottery and several coins on that occasion.
The 40-acre field was flat and only showing the drill lines as there was no sight of the crop yet.

Within 5 minutes the first three Roman coins and a quern stone fragment were recovered. These were found by the same machine and the now expected and overused phrase was uttered "is your machine switched on?".
Thankfully the situation was resolved and a total of 87 roman coins were recovered with one being a nice denarius of Septimius Severus.

Oddly enough, only ONE metallic artefact was found in the form of a tiny Roman slider ring. No fibulae or the usual Roman items came to light.
Several pottery fragments lay on the field surface including Samian Ware.
Nice fragments of grey ware rim sherds were recovered showing some nice features.
Normally fibulae, or parts thereof, are found when a large amounts of coinage are recovered but this is the second time here with the same result.

The machines were setup using V4, GMP, Manual GB and the 13" x 11" coils. The finds came from the surface and to a maximum depth of 4 inches.
No large iron items were dug but the green waste recovery was very high.
Lots of small ferrous targets were detected indicating habitation along with 3 to 4 bars on the mineralisation chart to support this.

The MI-6 probes glitched a couple of times by not connecting to the Déus straight away. There doesn't appear to be any explanation as to why this fault should occur.
However, the 99% of the time that they were working perfectly showed just how great they are. The pitch mode is superb at homing in on those shy targets. 

During what must have been the wettest part of the day the landowners came over for a chat and a catch-up accompanied by their two dogs.


 

We arrived at today's site via two other permissions. The first of these had been newly drilled​ with what appears to be Spring wheat and the other newly drilled over disked ground.
We'll wait for the disked field to be ploughed before we check that one out but we may visit the other asap before the crop gets too high.
This is our 30th survey of the season and we've have had quite a reasonable recovery rate up to date. Details may be published at a later date. 

The weather was bright and dry but this came with a biting wind.
The 40-acre field was drilled this week with beans and was extremely flat and dry. In fact, the wind started whipping up a bit of a dust storm which was quite gritty for the eyes.

At switch-on, one of the machines didn't connect to the 13" coil as this was the first time it had been used since the new HF coil was installed and used. This was further confused as the control unit had swapped the coil "names" for the serial numbers since the V4 update. For example, the coil called 13" x 11" was now a serial number instead. After a couple more switch-on's, with all three coils present, the 13" coil was eventually successfully connected. I can understand how some may have thought that their coils were "fried" or at fault after the update.

We'd decided on the 13" x 11" coils to ensure maximum ground coverage using the V4 version of GMP mode with one machine set at 90 and the other set to 84 on the Manual GB setting.
The 84 level allows a little more audio feedback when detecting but this can be set to whatever level you are comfortable with. The performance is not increased at all, this is just a personal preference.

The background to this field is that there is a small early Romano-British settlement here with evidence of earlier habitation dating to the Neolithic Period in the form of flint tools. There's also evidence of the Medieval/Post Medieval Periods too. Of course, modern items are here too such as buttons and the odd coin here and there.

The first recordable item recovered was a Roman bronze coin after an hour of methodical searching. We knew this field was going to be a hard nut to crack as the finds are few and far between.
The next four coins were hammered coins of Edward III and Henry VIII in the form of a cut-half, a penny and two groats respectively.
Two more Roman coins were recovered with a C3rd Roman crossbow type brooch and a bronze decorative Roman bowl rim fragment coming to light.
A large piece of a Roman grey ware rim sherd and a couple of others were found along with a fragment of Bronze Age pottery being recovered too.
Apart from the buttons, lead and coke, some other items such an aluminium WWI commemorative disc, a 1994 pigeon ring, a love token and two modern coins.

XP MI-6 Probe
This was also the second outing for the new XP MI-6 probe ​and we both agree that it develops with age, like a fine wine. Gone are the concerns of which hand to use as it is feels great once you get used to where the on/off button is situated. With the abundance of settings and customisation, we're sure that it won't be long before the MI-6 fits like a pair of well-worn slippers.
Two outings out now and the battery level is still showing 100% so no worries about the longevity factor.

Natural History
The swallows are back in the barns here, with chiff-chaff, blackcaps and greenfinch singing merrily away. We also came across three vacant lapwing nests. Quite a few buzzards were soaring and mewing to each other. There were plenty of deer prints with one of them running across the field into an adjacent plot. Looking forward to doing a bit of adder hunting soon!

High Definition images can be seen here.