Minelab Safari/Quattro Forum

Bout a month ago I traded my F75SE for a Safari, the reason being when I got the F75 the dealer had ask me if I had ever hunted with a F75 before because they were very unstable, I ignored his advice and got it anyway...well to make a long story short, in my neck of the woods he was right...very unstable, very noisy,didn't handle mineralized soil very well, and I know all mders have some trouble with emi but this one was the worst I ever had. So I've always like the ML's...use to have a x-Terra 50, and what I read was the FBS machines were very stable and would handle the crappy ground around here better. So far I've got about 6-7hrs on the Safari and it does handle the crappy ground better and is very very stable, but I am not seeing the depth I saw with the fisher or for that matter even the AT pro I had...everything I've dug has been only about 2"-3"...I've got Andy's book and have received some very good advice on this and another forum but I'm just not seeing much in the way of depth, which has me a little concerned ...I've been to a few parks I hit in the past with the Garrett and fisher and am pretty sure I should have hit some deeper targets...could it be I need to run the sensitivity in manual instead of auto? Or do I just need to finish reading Andy's book and get some more hours on this thing? I'm not a noob at this, I've been at this for over 15yrs but with my job and family life many of you who haven't been at this as long have many more hours of experience then I do...Thanks for listening to my rant...
Greg

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Greg
Kansas

Not ranting at all. Even those of us who aren't newbies to the hobby can certainly have issues when adding a new detector to their stable. In my case,I've found that the Safari is really effective and deep when I purposely slow down my swing. Even with the pro-coil, a slow swing allows me to notice multiple signals under the coil, and approach the target from different angles. I almost always hunt in auto sensitivity, too. Go ahead and finish reading Andy's book, if you're like many of us,you'll be reading it several more times before the year is over.

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Continued HH
kschae4
Minelab Safari/BH Land Star/ Garrett Pro-Pointer
"Cause down the shore everything's all right"
Oldest identifiable coin- 1775 King George lll half penny

You are having troubles like I had coming from Fisher product to Minelabs.I would hunt high disc,25 to 39 open until I got use to Safari listen to sounds of good or better targets for first 20 hours you will not lose depth like older detectors was big hang up for me also.Make sure you noise cancel correctly in clean ground,with coil on ground.I would hunt in high trash until you get use to it.If you had bought Etrac you would be feeling same way also but you would have readout for auto sensitivity so you could go up a little from that number.I do not know your soil but I would start at 16 on sensitivity and go higher until you get a lot falsing then back down a little most veteran Etrac users are doing the same also but have finer adjustment to 30 but have no more sensitivity power than Safari..Do not be afraid of noise canceling a couple of times even at start of days hunting your first noise cancel for what ever reason may of not selected proper set of channels and you may not be hunting with best freq for your hunting area.Slow down to 1/3 speed that you used your Fisher.Unless something is wrong with your Safari you should be getting deep coins or deep good junk also.Listen to the Null to make sure you are not going to fast and blanking out whole sweeps. The Null sounds will also tell you down the road not to dig so many large iron square nails.Learn the Minelab wiggle you will find coins up against other junk targets.Go to Etrac forum and look and listen to video's last couple weeks sounds will be almost same on Safari training like that is priceless.I will tell you I almost wrapped my Safari around tree it was newer model Minelab that had just come out I also had Etrac at same time, no book by Andy on Safari, at about 40 hours everything just came together I really began to clean up on sites that I had already hunted out after I figured out on my own that holding coil above the ground to noise cancel was bunch of C**p.That Auto sensitivity on Safari and Etrac and that includes Auto +3 is a real depth loser on deep coins you need to learn how to run in manual sensitivity.Good Luck and let us know how you are doing.

Hey Gsmith, The Safari is a really good machine. You made a great decision so not to worry. First of all you may not have gone over any deep targets yet. It is a possibility. Second like the others said, you have to go slow for the real deep targets. You can go fast if you want if you just want the shallow ones but you WILL miss deeper and smaller targets. So go REAL slow if your in a potentially good area like an old home site. Also don't dismiss some of that weird numbers of weird half signals...they are telling you something is there but they may fool you into thinking it is junk or not worth digging. When I began to dig almost ALL my targets (depending on the site) I began getting the good stuff...even though the numbers can be off. Don't put too much emphasis on the numbers cause good targets can sometimes come up under weird numbers. Dimes are usually about a 38 but I pulled my best and oldest dimes around 20's and 30. Go figure. Go slow. Dig everything and go back at a different angle. Many targets will only sound one way. And I'm talking good targets. Aslo try buring a few deep coins to see if you can target them. Hope this helps you. Good luck. ! Crazy Joe

If you run in auto sensitivity it will definitely cost you depth in most situations. Run it as high as you can in manual (at least 17) without it getting chirpy, to get your best depth. Under most circumstances it would be best to run it in the High Trash Density setting and just leave it there except for cleaner more open areas. The best way to eliminate all the nulling is hunt in the All-Metal mode, although my own personal preference is cross-saving the Coin mode over to the Relic mode, so as to eliminate both target icons and so as to reject most iron targets. The only problem with using this type of setting is the Safari will be nulling on any and all iron targets as it nulls on anything being rejected. It also doesn't hurt to noise cancel every so often because of changing EMI and ground conditions. Like mentioned the Safari needs to be swung much slower than the F-series Fishers. For even better results over-lap each swing by at least 50%, that way if a bad target has blanked out a good target next to it from one direction, on the return swing by hitting the good target first, it won't be blanked out because of the over-lap in your swings. Most former F-75 owners have a heck of a time getting used to the slower swing speed of the Safari, suspect that is half of the problem



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2012 05:10PM by Mtnmn.

Just for the record even in fairly mineralized ground your Safari should be getting at least 6" to 9" depth on coins or 3 times the depth you are currently getting, so there could be something wrong with your detector. Try bench air testing it on a quarter, you should be getting about 12" with a high sensitivity setting.