Auto vs. Manual sensitivity ..

[MNCoinhunter]

I recently decided to try running my Explorer in manual sensitivity. And despite the fact that it's a bit noisy, I am picking up an additional few inches of depth. Now I feel like I have been cheating myself for the last three years, and possibly missing out on some good, deeper finds. Has anyone else switched to manual and had greater success ? And can anyone offer any better settings with manual sensitivity ? Been running Bryce's settings since I bought it (with pretty good success), just switched to manual to try and up my good finds a bit.

 

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

McDave,

That subject was hugely debated in the explorer's earlier days. I'm not sure if all that stuff is available on the archives of this site.

Before the Etrac there was no way to know what the actual sensitivity level was when running auto, the newer machines show both the programmed level and the actual level.

I did some experiments and found it could vary hugely in auto. I always run manual, my feeling (and others) was that in auto the machine will often reduce the sensitivity by a large amount in order to get a more stable threshold. And less sensitivity means less depth.

There were others who disagreed who also made good finds.

Hit some of your old spots and I'll bet you come up with quite a few more finds.

Chris

 

[Big Fang Coin Biter]

The last time I used auto, was in a field I had hunted before. Not sure if I turned it on by accident or what. With auto on the site was "completely clean" no nulling to speak of... Since I had hunted it before and knew there was lots of iron, I thought my machine was messed up. Turned on manual sens and there was the iron again. I think the machine was using the iron as a ground signal and lowered the sens until it was gone. Needless to say that was way too low, for me anyway.

I have always hunded using iron mask set to about an eithth inch strip to the left (12 or 13 on the Explorer II), manual sens set around 24 to 32 depending on the coil and soil, gain on 5 or 7 depending on the coil (5 for std coil, 7 for my Sun Ray 8"), conductive tones unless I am in a field where I want to dig it all. Then I will run ferrous with no discrimination. I found out early on that in my ground the Explorer will detect a penny at 11" with a 24 setting on manual sensitivity. So I always figure around that much is all I need. Hope this helps.
Take care and HH - Robin

 

[Ted S]

I find this interesting. I haven't been out much and don't have a lot of hours on the SE. I may try manual in an old park for the heck of it. There may be an old coin or two left in there!

 

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

Pretty darn timely of him.

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?63,2063149,2063149#msg-2063149

 

[sgoss66]

I am with Big Fang and Chris, for sure. If you are new to the Explorer (you obviously are NOT, Dave), auto is the way to go. It's a much quieter, more stable hunt. BUT -- once you get used to the unit, and understand how to separate all the noise from the good sounds that you are focused on, then running manual is the way to go...it is definitely a deeper way to hunt. I almost NEVER run auto, and I almost NEVER run manual below 26; usually upper 20s to near 30 with a big coil, and 30-32 with a small one. I run Bryce's disc style -- 22 IM, with my gain at 7 or 8 (just so the deep targets sound a little bit softer in volume).

I truly feel this is the deepest way to run an Explorer -- i.e. manual vs. auto sensitivity. Auto is not bad -- especially for a newb who hasn't learned the "language" yet, but manual gets more depth...

Steve

 

[MNCoinhunter]

I have definitely seen some positive results from running in Manual .. Now I get to go back to spots that I thought I had worked over ..