Auto-Sensitivity: Is there really any reason to set it less than 32?

[chuck ky]

how do you tell the depth. on the xs i have been trying to dig only the targets that are at least half way on the gauge but some of them turn out to be very shallow. sometimes they are junk so maybe the coins are pretty accurate. thanks.

 

[Erik in NJ]

The depth guage is geared towards a coin sized object (cent, nickel, dime, quarter)...any bigger or smaller the gauge is off....for big objects it reads too shallow and for small too deep. I dig when it's just over 1/3 of the depth gauge or so (most of the time).

 

[dewcon4414]

I have to agree with Bryce.... ive found 28 to be the best setting in semi-auto for me. Like Andy said thou, it makes a big difference in trash as to how high you set it so i think thats why you get more falsing. Open it up if you are in clean ground or NO EMI.... otherwise i find i still get those trashy chirps with it over 28. The Explorer is about the only machine ive noticed air tests wierd. I might get an air test a LOT less in semi than manual.... but its not noticable in the ground. Semi to me has a CLEAN cut off where as manual continues to try and id a target with the screen jumping all over the place. This is a lot like the discussion about GAIN settings. Why set gain at 7, why not hear everything as loud as possible.

Dew

 

[Erik in NJ]

Good point Dew....Well my thinking here is that I wan't to use my ears and not my eyes to determine how deep a target is. I think the ears are better at relative pitch and volume changes than the eyes at relative changes in distance plus the screen always seems to lag the tone anyway. I also don't want to have to look at that little depth meter every time I hear a target especially in an area where there are many target (& junk) -- in a quiet field though I can see cranking up the gain. I want to be able to hunt by sound, then look at the screen when I have to. Hope this makes sense.

 

[NiagracountyNY]

Just like when I vary my sensitivity up a couple of notches....If I open Iron mask up to 23 or 24...deep rusty iron starts to mimic deep silver to my ears...and more nails end up in my pouch
Those little falses and chirps that I know are iron just seem to turn into more "diggable" chirps.

If I close it to 21 or 20....my SE won't hit deep silver in a null like I want it to

For me...my ears...and my soil conditions...IM 22 is one setting I truthfully never vary from.

I know some guys who hunt conductive with iron mask much more open...from 28 to 30 or so....and they do very well.

For me though...I've found the ticket that works for my ears. The setting of IM22 allows me to be able to tell iron most of the time. Sure I dig some iron crap...but if I do...it was my fault and I already knew it was an iffy hit before I dug it.

What it boils down to for me is that the setting allows me to hit a coin while my SE is nulling...and also makes iron hits pretty much sound like iron hits instead of deep silver.

If I vary by one # either way....I'm screwed

Thats exactly why i run All Metal,ferous sounds..I have very little iron in my junk bucket.I can hear every piece in the ground and it never mask the good stuff.I listen to every signal in the ground,and discrimnate with my ears.The multi-tone allows this.I think this mode of hunting is the strongest feature of the Explorers.But setting them up the way we each like is another great feature that we all seem to use

 

[Erik in NJ]

I have very little iron in my junk bucket.I can hear every piece in the ground and it never mask the good stuff

How do you know that the iron is never masking any good stuff? Just because you can hear the iron doesn't mean that it is not masking a higher valued target. The E-Trac it seems is better than the Explorer at detecting non-ferrous items near or touching ferrous items, but it too is not perfect.

In Ferrous, how do you like all of the foil and crown cap targets that sound like silver? It seems Ferrous is good for AM in farm fields or areas where there is little litter. The whole concept of ferrous and conductive audio is not a good one - the Minelab programmers REALLY dropped the ball on this one! They should have been combined into a single mode with pitch and timbre mapped to each axis....I keep saying this over and over, but not many seem to comment on it.

 

[Hotcz70]

"Thats exactly why i run All Metal,ferous sounds..I have very little iron in my junk bucket.I can hear every piece in the ground and it never mask the good stuff.I listen to every signal in the ground,and discrimnate with my ears".

That's exactly why I DON'T run ferrous sounds/All Metal...because I DON'T need to listen to every signal in the ground...when I have the most sophisticated method of separating coins from iron...right at my fingertips. I use the power of BOTH.... my ears...and the sophisticated tecnology of the Explorer iron mask feature. It is not foolproof...but it sure is a very effective weapon.

I do agree though....the best option is that we can set them up however we like...for whatever sounds we prefer...and for whatever hunting style works best for us There is no right or wrong way...only the way that works best for each us and our individual preferences.

 

[Hotcz70]

Erik...this is a very good point...but I'm not technical enough to comment on it any further...otherwise I would.
You bring up a valid point and I'm interrested to see what others have to say...but it's truthfully a little over my head

I hope some others give their input...because we can all learn from it. At least I can learn from the parts I understand anyway

 

[NiagracountyNY]

I dont know enough on the tech end to say anymore either.My experence was i detected my yard(150+ farm house)with minimal descrim and and did well.Then when i decided to try it in all metal i found a handful of coins i had missed with 2 other machines and the Se with discrim.A few of those targets had iron in the holes.Alot of old square nails here(they must have used them as toys,they are everywhere).It seemed like with all metal i was able to squeek out some signals i couldnt before.I just may not be experenced enough tho.I am always open to try new settings and methods.I like the topic.

 

[Erik in NJ]

Hi Bryce, You're just being modest...it's not over your head at all. Right now you can either select Conductive or Ferrous sounds. Conductive is the default and I feel (as do you) the most logical. As the conductiveness of a target increases it's pitch or the note we here being played increases - that's why silver is high pitched and pull tabs are medium pitch and foil and crown caps are very low pitches for us.

The problem is with ferrous targets, they also have high-med-low conductive properties the Minelab has defined them, so rusty nails are high ferrous BUT also high conductive which means they will sound just like silver! This is very bad and so we use some degree of iron mask to "squelch" the sounds made by these ferrous targets.

Minelab later introduced Ferrous sounds so now the pitch of the note being played will vary only with the ferrous level (conductive is ignored) so anything high ferrous will play a low pitched note (that's the iron growl they talk about) and low ferrous stuff like coins will play a high note - like silver coins, clad, cents.....BUT foil, crown caps, and other common junk in parks is ALSO low ferrous so....you get - you guessed it - a high pitch for non-ferrous junk! Minelab tried to fix this on the E-Trac by adding a "conductive mask" - I forget what it's called by it's a Iron Mask type control that goes the other way on the screen so you can mask out the low conductors.

This is really all a sh!t show and a pretty dumb solution to the problem as the AM guys will always have a problem with high pitches for junk (that's why you and I and many others, I believe rightly so don't use AM). Now what Minelab COULD have done is to keep the high-med-low pitch changes for how conductive a target is (silver is still a nice high flute sound the way we like it), but as you move to the left of the screen they could have added more white noise to the sound to make it rougher, so now you get a high flute pitch with a very rough breathy sound - you know right away without looking at the screen that it has a high ferrous component and it AIN'T silver - other parts of the screen might sound more like saxaphone than flute as more noise is introduced into the signal - heck it would be cool if we could customize parts of the screen to use the instruments of our choice (piano, sax, trumpet, drum)......well you get the point! Waddaya think? Should we start a new line of detectors called BryEr?

 

[N2Treasure]

As far as I'm concerned, I crank the gain all the way up and STILL hunt by sound with cross hair visual to see how the target is reacting. Here's the case and point to end the gain issue. If you set the gain to 10, all the targets will be amplified to hear them well. A guy COULD set it lower and chance missing a really deep one, but why do that? Does it really matter how deep that silver dime is when you are hunting? I mean, I've dug silver that was 2" and I've dug silver that was 8"+. I really don't care how deep the coin is by depth meter OR sound, all I care is that I am sure to HEAR it and not miss it by maxing the gain out. Are you really not going to dig that solid high tone just because it's close to the surface? Tell me where you're hunting so I can scoop it up right behind you.....

Duane

 

[Hotcz70]

Thanks for explaining the response in a way a "meat and taters" type of guy like me can understand...seriously

 

[eppillus06]

personally i alway's run senseitivity at 31,iron mask off, full metal,dont miss nothing then,ok so its a few hole's,but sometimes what's strewn on top,cans,horseshoe's,bullet's,ringpull's,hide a vast selection of goodies underneath,best to do every signal,kill 2 birds with 1 stone then.

 

[NiagracountyNY]

personally i alway's run senseitivity at 31,iron mask off, full metal,dont miss nothing then,ok so its a few hole's,but sometimes what's strewn on top,cans,horseshoe's,bullet's,ringpull's,hide a vast selection of goodies underneath,best to do every signal,kill 2 birds with 1 stone then.

This is the way i have trained myself to hunt witrh the se.I get bombarded with some sound,and maybe dig a few holes u guys dont ,but i trust my ears the most .I prob make it hard on myself this way ,but i have some nice finds ,Im happy.my trac will be here shortly.Ill test this discrim hunting out .Have you guys seen the vid where the guy has a coin between 2 nails.The E-trac picks it up np.Then he changes the direction of the nails and the trac cant find the coin.im wondering if he ran all metal if it would have found the coin.Sounds like my 1st test.

 

[enid homer]

i have had my minelab for 7 years i allways set it to maximum it will alter sensitivity automaticly ,why mess about in the field ,mind you here in england our soil may be different,but saying that the it will alter itself no matter what the soil condition is let the machine do the hard work,gives you more swinging time,regards from england--enid.

 

[Erik in NJ]

Or was that Yerti's brains and MY good looks?

 

[drkp88]

I've had my SE for about 1+ 1/2 years (w/pro coil). I've been following this thread and I think I'm more confused (lol). My brain dosen't seem to handle things too high tech
although there has been alot of great info and opinions here. Seems like it all depends on conditions and user preference - it ALL works, but the degree depends on numerous variables and there is no finite solution.
I've gotten into the habit of hunting in IM using only a slight amount of IM disc, ferrous tones, gain at 10, deep on, and sensitivity around 28 manual. Semi-auto is much more "comfortable" but I feel I'm missing deepies in semi. I'd rather "wade" through a little noise and use my ears to pick out the good signals. I'd also appreciate opinions on my settings.
I'm always finding deep coppers and LC also silver and artifacts etc, so my setting are working for me - but I appreciate all the input in this thread because it gives us all a chance to compare and get a better understanding.
Bruce in Ct

 

[go-rebels]

I repeated your test using my Explorer II in my test bed with a silver dime laying flat buried 7" in red South Carolina clay dirt. Moisture level is moderate.

Settings: Open Screen with Iron Mask=-6, FAST=off, DEEP=off, Gain=10, SOUNDS=Conductive

Manual 1 == Threshold only
Manual 3 == Threshold only
Manual 5 == Threshold only
Manual 7 == Threshold only
Manual 9 == Threshold only
Manual 11 == Threshold only
Manual 13 == Threshold only
Manual 14 == One little peep (I'd walk away)
Manual 15 == One little peep every 4th or 5th sweep (I'd walk away)
Manual 16 == A few peeps now but not repeatable (I'd walk away)
Manual 17 == An iffy signal (I probably wouldn't dig)
Manual 18 == A broken signal, but still not repeatable (likely an old nail; probably wouldn't dig)
Manual 19 == Nonrepeatable signal with high tones (probably would dig)
Manual 20 == Mostly good tones now
Manual 21 == Repeatable good tones
Manual 22 == Repeatable good tones mixed with some background falsing (sounds like my F75 but the falsing sounds like good hits, unlike the static the F75 continuously emits)
Manual 23 == Good tones mixed with continuous falsing
Manual 24 == Broken good tones with continuous falsing
Manual 25 == A few good tones with a high amount of falsing
Manual 26+ == Continuous falsing; totally unstable

In semi-auto the EXII chirped and falsed until I dropped to SENS=10, but then the signal was very iffy and I probably wouldn't dig. Anything >10 and the unit falsed continuously with the coil stationary on clean ground. So in semi-auto the unit would have never picked up the silver dime!

HAS ANYONE ELSE EVER SEEN THIS BEHAVIOR?

I turned the EXII off again and restarted it after bumping the sensitivity back up to 20 and leaving the unit in SEMIAUTO. The unit was stable for a few sweeps then it got unstable again within ten seconds. Taking the unit off SEMIAUTO and the EXII was stable again at SENS=20. The dime was easily seen with a nice high pitched signal.

The EXII was used only 30minutes after a full battery charge.

I must say that I was around 60' from my house and the EMI gets so bad as I approach the outside walls that in manual mode the EXII will only function at SENS<10. What is very unusual is that my Fisher F75 gets a little more chatter near the home but if I drop it's sensitvity from, say 85 to 75 then I'm OK.

I repeated the test moving >100' from my home but I still could not keep the EXII stable in SEMIAUTO mode. The unit ran fine in MANUAL=20 however.

Is this normal?

 

[Steve(OR)]

... at this post:

LIVE site test: Semi-Auto vs. Manual sensitivity...

SCM