Very hard to learn a new detector when diving in the deep end onto a very trashy site, I'd move elsewhere to retain some sanity. I remember several years ago when first using the x-terra 305 in a real junky park that it was enough to nearly make me give up, a real overload of information of hundreds of ring pulls and bottle caps. Instead I moved to a less inhabited area around the outer edges of a nearby older oval to learn on, and I started to concentrate on the deeper/fainter targets in cleaner ground which happily turned out to be in prec decimal territory. The only way you will able to make any sense of those real junky areas is to apply some discrimination, even if it mean raising it right up into the 70's to knock out most of the alloy targets (foil, pull tabs, ring pulls etc), and also step up the reactivity to 3 to help seperate out the targets. That leaves just the high conductors to concentrate on, and probably knocks out 3/4 of the junk, though you may miss out on some 50% silver threepences.
I suppose you could equate it to looking for a needle in a haystack, and unfortunately that's exactly the case in some areas - lots of ground to cover and targets to dig just to find that lonesome silver coin. If looking for older/deeper coins, you really have to learn to ignore good sounding shallow junk, and listen out for the fainter high conductors that could represent deep copper/silver predecimals.
Once you do get your first predecimal coin, that's usually the point where everything starts to click, and you realise what sorts of tones you should actually be chasing vs the previously dug shallow modern junk.
I also think if you are trying to learn a new detector, maybe either concentrate on modern shallower coins or alternately just concentrate on the deeper targets for predecimals. It can be hard on the brain to process audio from both at the same time at first, though once mastered you can combine both to seek out all coin targets in the one session.
Once again, if you get what you might possibly think is a good coin target, have another scan over the target from various angles - did the tone gradually dip or rise from what you got on the original target tone? If so, it is a good chance it is junk and irregular in shape. If the tone stays the same - smooth, consistent and steady ID, then it is a good chance it is indeed a coin.
Rusty crown caps can sound and ID very similar to ozzy $1/$2 coins, and this is where you need to be able to hear the iron report. If you get any sort of iron grunt as the coil moves onto the target, or when drawing the coil back off the target, it is most likely just a rusty crown cap. Most shallow alloy junk gives you a real "in your face" tone, I like to call it a "too good to be true" type tone - sounds nice, but too loud (obnoxiously loud at times) and too shallow for a deeper predecimal, and pinpoints a lot wider cross section. A lot of alloy junk and alloy bottle caps tend to fall in that twilight zone of ID's, higher than your typical goldie ID but lower than your larger predecinal coppers and larger silvers - usually around that 88-90 zone, especially on ID number 88.
Probably the easiest way to fastrack your knowledge on what to listen for is to meet up with another Deus user, especially if you can connect up a second set of headphones to hear what they are hearing, and have a listen to what targets they are interested in, and which ones they quickly discount whilst on the move. When you do get your ear in, it is a very fast method of detecting whilst swinging over multiple targets and covering large tracts of ground. I reckon I can literally go over thousands of targets in a session, and still manage to pick out several good sounding tones from amongst the mix going purely off the audio. Yes you will always come across targets that are too close to call on whether they are good or not, better off just digging them rather than be left wondering what might have been.
As an example, I must have dug at least 15 -20 aluminum bottle caps at that old school site by the end of the day, with a return of only about 4 or 5 predecimals in total, so a lot of hard work and digging for only a small return .
Hence you will always dig some junk, and coins don't necessarily come as easy as what it seems when checking members' coin finds.
I had a reality check midweek, I drove a 350km round trip to an old oval, only to find $1.03 and wallet containing 2 credit cards and drivers license - that's detecting for you, got to take the good with bad.
