Hey Steve. As I’ve only used my Nox 800 in Culpeper once before (most recent Spilman DIV), I don’t have a ton of experience with it in the hot dirt. It was my backup to my GPX but I honestly was really surprised at how deep (relative to over VLFs) it would detect signals. I had used a White’s MXT on past DIVs and almost couldn’t get a signal on a bullet sitting on top of a clod of dirt! But like Eric said, I’d try to hunt in the woods if you can as that dirt is usually not as hot. Be sure to ground balance A TON while you’re detecting as the varying mineralerization of the ground will cause issues and you will likely miss deeper targets. I’d also be sure that the ground balance tracking (little squiggle line upper right corner) is turned off. You don’t really want the machine self adjusting itself for the ground since you again may mask some signals that are deeper. I’d also dig in all metal mode (horseshoe) and dig everything that’s a repeatable signal. I usually take a three ringer and small brass piece (GS eagle button) and dig a small hole and bury it for each of them. That way I can get a feel for what it might sound like. For the location I was at at Spilman, about 6 -8″ was about as deep of a signal as I could detect. But it all depends on the dirt. Good luck out there and hope to see you at a future DIV.
Michael
woo hoo!!