DEEP and Gain

[dewcon4414]

Let me put this out here and see what kind of response i get. I notice some has DEEP on and their gain at 6 or 7... while others have their gain at 10 and Deep off. I see the Gain as modulation... when set at 6 deep targets have an obvious difference to those surface targets. However, if im reading the manual correctly the Deep does the same thing? On other detectors if you have a fast recovery the processor may be using 2 filters which are faster... and Deep would use 4 filters to better process the minerals at depth. I saw a vedio from someone on the minelab forum saying NOT to use FAST and DEEP together because it caused conflict with the processor. Now that made sense if you were trying to use both filtering systems at the same time. Otherwise why have a Gain and Deep if both are doing the same thing? Fill me in guys.

 

[Mike Bearden]

You will get so many opinions on this that only YOU will be able choose what works per any given site and target situation.

My 2 cents:

Fast is for shallower targets down to about 6" ... maybe down to 8" and speeds up the recovery, even seems to do the job fairly well in my area of hot dirt.
Not meaning to say that fast won't hit deep targets because it will/

Deep works best with anything over 6" and actually handles the hot ground better here. The extra filters come into play here, especially in hot dirt.

Gain will always MODULTATE the sounds of ALL targets the more it's bumped up the scale and makes it hard to determine real depth on the more shallow to 8" range for me. I leave mine set at 7 99% of the time.

Hope this helps.

Mike

 

[kickback]

I'm using a x-5 coil and what I do is the gain in trash , it is on 9, on very little trash I have it on 7. On 9 it will speed the sound up and on 7 slow it down some. And I have it on deep. But if you are in the heavy trash you can run it on fast and 8 and get the same thing. I think. A lot of it is on your ears and how you can hear things. And for more depth use the sen. , I run on 28.

 

[dewcon4414]

A part of my question was does the FAST and DEEP use different filtering? If it does then it may require different sweep speed as well to make those filters work properly. You arent going to want to sweep the detector like you are mowing grass if you are using DEEP which may be using 4 instead of 2 filters. Mike, that would explain why deep handles the hot ground better than fast. If thats the case, having FAST and DEEP both off might not be a better choice in cleaner areas since its a middle of the road setting for a little faster sweep speed. Kickback i did notice in Andy's book more people were using auto sensitivity. For me auto sens at say 28 is much less agressive than manual 28. There is just to much outside influence in most case for me to run any higher than 24 manual here in Ind. or i just have a hotter machine.

 

[Mike Bearden]

and yes the 4 filters in DEEP will contribute a lot towards handling hotter ground.
But most of all, keep this in mind, no matter what setting you choose, fast or deep, not nearly enough Explorers users when first starting out actually learn to really slooooow down when they get into a known target areas. This meant for new users, I know you are no newbie It's been said over and over ... but I'll say it again.
The Explorer HAS to be hunted slow for the best results.... period !

Granted I will run mine in all metal 99% of the time at a pretty fair pace, especially in a new site until I get into the target zone and then I will slow way down to a CRAWL, check the targets from every angle and when I hear "that sound" I'm looking for I will even try to work the sound up into the cleanest sound possible before digging.
And ... when I feel I've dug most everything from a productive site ... I slow down some more and hit it at different angle or time of day, or after a fresh rain etc. and usually find more goodies.

I've dug silver dimes at a full 12" that still sounded good after isolating the target and working the sound UP from it's faint whisper sound to a cleaner high tone, that's what's good about silver & the Explorer, it excels in finding silver like no other detector.

Yes you can run the Explorer successfully with Fast & Deep turned off and the Explorer will let you know just how far you can push the sens up but it's always site dependent and deep does handle bad ground better than fast. At least where I live anyway, ... and in all the places I've used the Explorer where the ground is hot.

Will you lose depth with fast and deep off ? I have found deep coins many times where I would actually TEST if they could be heard with deep OFF and many times I could not hear them until deep was tuned back ON.

Heavy minerals can cause problems you may not hear in the headphones or see on the screen ... so in general ... I always pick one, being site dependent, and since I'm looking for the deeper hits below 7 - 8" in hot ground ... I'm usually running with deep ON.
Having deep on will not cause you to miss anything shallow either so I have to nothing lose by running deep ON.

The Explorer does transmit the same power no matter where the sens it set by the user, however, where the user sets the sens at is what is being received through software for processing and what one hears through the headphones will be determined by the settings selected or rejected by the user.
In other words ... every independent adjustment made has an effect one way or another on most everything else in how the Explorer behaves, whether it be overall sound, reset speed between targets, heavy nulling, threshold strength, to much or to little sens, auto or semi-auto ... are all in the equation.

When you say auto sens at 28 is much less aggressive than manual 28 because there is just to much outside interference in most cases to run any higher than manual 24 in your area ....
Well ... it could be that YOUR ground dictates less sens be used simply for stability because in auto the Explorer may be actually running at say 22 or whatever and it will not always self select the most powerful sens setting because the software is set up first and foremost for stability in auto over anything else. That's elementary, but then again, you might just have yourself a hotter machine, it does happen !

Most folks like to run the Explorer in manual sens on the ragged edge of stability to get the most out of it ... but auto is there for a reason too and that would be good ground.
When I do get to run auto I always have it maxed out so the Explorer will run as close to or at it's max sens but still run smooth. In good neutral ground, auto can't be beat in my experience and there are PLENTY of successful auto sens users out there to prove it.

But the indisputable truth is that everyone has to make these decisions for themselves and the only way to make them is by putting in the hours it takes to finally make it all click and build enough confidence to KNOW that no matter what kind of site you decide to try and conquer ... it can be done with the right settings.... once learned.

Good Hunting
Mike

 

[dewcon4414]

Great response with a lot of good information. As far as my machine being hot... ayy could be my coil is less than perfect as well which is confused with a hot machine sometimes too. I do like the way the Explorer does allow you to crawl along very effectively without more EMI or mineral interferrance. Sometimes or should i say too many times, we tend to see the amount of ground we have to cover in the time alloted and fail to slow down to the proper sweep speed for our settings. There is always next time. Since we travel a good bit it does take some time to read the conditions, but id like to think im getting better at that. I know the FCC doesnt allow but so much transmit signal so a lot depends on how its received and processed.

Now that i have some idea about the filtering... lets talk channels. I know there are 11 channels, but the question is about the 28 harmonics. Ive read enough to know the SOV has 17 harmonics and they are set at 1.5 kHz intavals. However, the explorer has 28 which are randumly set in that 1 to 100 kHz range. Common sense tells me each channel has those 28 harmonics SET even thou they arent standardly set let the SOV. I say this because we can noise cancel out someone hunting with us... like on some machine it just changes freqs. If the machine just randumly set these harmonics every time... then we wouldnt need but one channel. Obviously if we knew that the majority of the harmonics to channel 1 were set closer to 1 than 100 kHz our decission in some places for manual noise cancel set might make a difference. I know some people in their area seem to think certain noise cancel channels work better than others in their area and they do manually set their channels.