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explorer help

A

Anonymous

Guest
learning how to use my explorer.keep having the same problem,find targets but as i keep sweeping over them the ferrous/conduct numbers keep changing all over the chart,so i dig only to find a nail but the sceen says maybe fer00/01 cond25/29 should that be a coin or something nice? <img src="/metal/html/confused.gif" border=0 width=15 height=22 alt=":?">
 
This is a situation, where in my opinion, it is experience and not the digital reading that is the difference. Most US coins are nice and round so no matter which direction you sweep the coil to the target the tone is fairly constant if the target is centered. Rusty nails want to crawl around in the ground so seem hard to pinpoint and also will give tones that change as you sweep the the target from different angles. Dig the iffy ones and you start to see the difference between a nail and good target. You get to the point where you look at the display and tones and say "I know that is a nail" and it is. You might miss a good target now and then but unless we dig all target we have no idea if we have missed them in other situations. Unless I am absolutely sure it is trash then I dig the target. I would rather dig a lot of trash and find one half dime than dig very little trash and find a lot of clad coins. Also, when you find a deep nail, cover the hole and go to learn and blank the screen. Then learn the target and see where it falls on the screen. You get a very good idea where the nail hits the screen at the site in that specific ground. I make extensive use of learn and edit to aid in the ID of targets. You reach a point where I think you understand the site so can do a very good job of increasing the ratio of good to bad finds. Even so I don't think anyone is 100% in the ID of targets.
HH, Cody
 
thanks.another question is how come i have imask set to zero and still pick up all these nails. im hunting old farm house foundation that are long gone but the nails are about 8" in the ground.the detector goes off just about every foot,see a f04 c28 and start sweeping it again and it will say f13 c20 then sweep again it says f07 c15.what am i doing wrong to make a target change its composition so much?
 
I know how to explain this in a technical way but that is about it so bear with me. A metal has an electronic ID based on the induction of current into the skin of the metal from the electromagnetic field of the TX coil. In most targets the current flows in circles around a target's just below the surface. The current increases and decreases as the electromagnetic field increases and decrease.<STRONG> That gives a time signature for a specific frequency.</STRONG>
Nails or other metals in the shape of a nail have the current flowing around the nail the entire length of the nail. The eddy current induction is around the axis is another way to say that. These eddy current rise and fall and <span style="background-color:#ffff00;">have the same time signature as a silver coin.</span>
Iron Mask at zero means the mode is set for alloy and precious metal detecting. These and all metals are identified by a time signature. <STRONG>So, at IM of zero nails look like silver because they have the same time signature.</STRONG> This is the same reason, the time signature, that it is hard to ID tabs from rings and gold from foil as examples. Aluminum in various hapes and thickness look like coins and jewelry.
<span style="background-color:#ffff00;">ALL VLF detectors have this same problem with nails.</span>
The old pros sweep these targets from different direction and have learned to ID them by the different tones they get from various directions of the sweep. Becasue coin are nice and round the will keep the same tone no matter which way you sweep the coil to the target.
HH, Cody
 
Hi Cody I read what you say.
Even with your technical reasoning I can tell by sound if I have a nail or piece of silver under the coil.
I have lost count of the number of times in frustration I have doubted the explorer and dug what its telling me is a nail.
What comes out a NAIL.
The screen marker most times also stay left of centre as a back up to the sound.
Therefore I dont see where folks have a promlem with my setup nails are not a problem (X Nails)
 
thanks for the help i guess il have to get use to the tones.i cant hear the differance yet
 
Todd,
I don't use the Explorer and I don't think you are doing anything wrong! That is just how some iron/nails react with any detector. No matter what ID detector you use the main clue IMO is how repeatable the tone and ID is.
In the example you just described that to me seems to be the typical nail/iron..both values reading all over the place from different angles with no consistency. An iffy coin (not nail) signal would at least show some repeatability in tone and/or the conductive value upon careful resweeps. If you see/hear any repeatability at all, even if only when resweeping from one certain angle ya gotta go for it. It all takes time and at some point these things just click into place and you "know". After that you will start to pick up some of the other more subtle nuances (call them quirks if you will) that every deep ID machine seems to have. <img src="/metal/html/lol.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=":lol">
Tom
 
Todd,
Check your setting and make sure you are in Fast and I would turn off deep. I would try a smaller coil like the 5 inch. If you don't have one its really worth your money to get one. with all that iron I would use a 5 inch and just creep along with the coil as far as sweep speed. When you get one of those signals that are bouncing, see if you can just move the coil around only a couple of inches each way to see if you can get it to lock on. This is wear the explorer real shines and you may try going to ferrous tones if you haven't already as this may help you to distinguish the iron and good signals. I would also like to mention that the stock 8 is one sensitive coil and if thats all you have I would also try to run the sens all the way down just to see if that helps too.
 
You aren't doing anything wrong. You detector is just trying the best it can to try to figure out what the heck is down there through the haze of the mineralization. It is sort of like fuzzy logic.
If you were standing by a highway and the fog was real thick and a motorcycle kept driving by at 50 feet away and you could just barely pick it out you'd be guessing, was that a Harley? Now then if the motorcycle drove a foot by you, you would be able to see sharper details and probably know for sure it was a Harley. It's the same with the Explorer. A shallow coin at, say, 3" to 5" it would probably tell you for sure that that is a dime or penny etc. if there was not a lot of trash surrounding it. It doesn't have as much fog to see through on shallow coins.
My Explorer gives sort of a choppy sound on iron nails and usually id a little differenty when moving the coil the length of the nail as compared to moving the coil across the small width of the nail.
If I had my Iron Mask all the way to zero with the screen half dark I doubt I would hear any iron nail unless they were bent pretty badly. Those are the tricky boogers.
 
If you are getting bouncing numbers it is due to a coin being near the iron nail where the computer in the Explorer is saying . . . "I think it's a dime, not wait, a nail, oops! no . . . a coin! . . . a dime?, no a nail, no a coin!"
This has happend to me many times and when I dig up the nail I put my X-1 probe down in the hole and sure enough, there'd be a coin down there.
 
I like the Motorcycle example Tony.
However, there are people who could tell you if it was a Harley or other in total darkness, just by sound. It took them a lot of listening and verifying to learn, but now they're very accurate.
The same thing applies to your machine. At first, you will dig a lot of nails and other crap that you thought sounded good. Hopefully you'll start to remember what each of them sounded like. Then, you'll dig something that sounded good that actually *is* good. Hopefully that will stick in your mind as well. Eventually, you'll be able to scan a suspect target from all different directions and decide if it's worth digging or not, based on the sounds you've heard a million times before. I, too, dug a lot of nails before I started to hear the subtle differences in them, and learned the way they pinpointed off center typically. Keep in mind though, that you can't always dismiss an iffy response as bad, and you will still dig quite a few crap targets. Sometimes, those crap targets will turn out to be a nice coin hiding in the nails.
Hang in there. Make subtle changes to your machine once in a while and see if you like it better or worse. I've found Audio1 to work best for me. I also like to hunt in wide open IM -16. If you're discriminating any at all, you will find that once in a while the cursor (or digital numbers) bounces up into what you think is good. If you're wide open, you will find that the cursor typically locks on to a nail accurately, with occasional jumps to the high right silver area. Keep at it. Eventually, you'll be able to pick out the Harleys! If you find a buried HD, I got dibs on it! <img src="/metal/html/biggrin.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=":D">
HH - Rhoderman
 
I never use digital, I would need to carry the book or cheat sheet and be trying to match them to screen. In years of Explorer XS and now II, I just listen to sound and use screen last and even then, I just dig most everything. If it is junk, well then I won't have to worry about it a second time! <img src="/metal/html/smile.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=":)"> If it turns out to be something nice, well then it is a plus. <img src="/metal/html/smile.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=":)">
 
thanks for all the replies,very helpfull forum, looks like i need to hear the differance which i cant yet,but will keep trying (maybe with some head phones)also would help if i actually find a coin out there, i tested it with some old coins but no actuall finds yet, well besides a blob of lead,rail road spikes,a door hinge ,copper wire,copper shot shell,cap,my shoe,bees nest, and 250000 pounds of nails!!!!
 
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