Chelsea contacted me about a ring lost by the husband of her friend Rebecca 3 weeks ago, and most likely lost in a volleyball court. Rebecca had taken off the family heirloom ring to play the game, and gave the ring to her husband to place in his pocket for safe keeping. After the volleyball game, a game of basketball, and a walk in the park, they discovered the ring missing from his pocket. Not much I can do in a paved basketball court, so, the most likely place to start would be the volleyball area. Normally volleyball courts are detected often, so, it was not likely still there, but, always worth a try. In this case, the court in not in a high use area, so, the odds were getting a tad better. I also learned that a detector was already used to try and find the ring. The odds were now getting worse again until I found out it was just a cheap kiddie detector and the person using it didn’t have much experience using one. The odds went up a bit again. My wife and I met Chelsea at the site and she relayed as much info as she knew while we walked to the court. Once we got there, I noticed that even though it was a sand court, it was fairly hard packed. The odds just dropped again. Hopefully it was a lot more fluffy when the ring was lost as a ring wouldn’t sink into this surface very easily. I fired up my Equinox 900 and was hit with all sorts of interference signals when I started sweeping the coil across the sand. There must be all sorts of big metal down deep under the court. That actually improved the odds to someone with some detecting experience. A novice would be overwhelmed, but, I’ve learned a few things over the years about dealing with bad conditions. Knowing that the ring is a fairly recent loss, and should be relatively shallow, I mainly just turn the sensitivity way down to help eliminate the deep targets. Knowing what the ring should read and sound like also helps in this situation. I made it maybe 8 feet along one side of the net when I got my first likely signal. Sure enough, it was the ring we were hoping to find just two inches down. My understanding is that the ring is going to be a surprise reveal to Rebecca from her husband. A pleasure meeting you Chelsea. You’re a good friend for taking charge of this, and thank you for the reward.
Watch the video on YouTube.
