Explorer VS other makes

[Tom_in_CA]

Not sure how many CA folks post here, but there's a local CA specific forum: "Kinzli forum", where those of us from here post back & forth. Every so often, over the past 5 or 6 yrs, 15 to 20 of us will descend on a big meadow in Golden Gate Park (San Francisco's answer to New York's Central park) to have a big duel. Now 5 or 6 yrs. ago, it was a mix of Minelab, Whites, Fishers, Tesoros, Garretts, etc... A trend immediately surfaced that the Explorer guys would invariably walk away with the highest silver count (not counting flukes, like someone strip-mining foil & tabs and ending up with a rogue gold ring or whatever). But for shere depths at silver in this turf, the Explorer guys kept whooping the others.

Finally, after 4 or 5 of these "shootouts", you could see that nearly everyone there had Explorers. Those that show up with DFXs, XLTs, etc... when shown marked signals, can't deny they probably wouldn't have heard them on their own. I too was one of those, who.... was dragged kicking and screaming away from my Whites, when signal after signal (8 to 9" deep whisper type stuff) was shown to me, that they accurately were "calling". On one of these shootouts we even had entry forms where you put in your machine brand/make, and then entered in all your end-of-the-day find tallies. The Explorers took it hands down. Granted, some Explorer guys do no good, because they haven't learned the tooty-fluty. And yea, it could all be coincidence (ie.: the Explorer guys merely had more experience), but the proof begins to be in the pudding, when you see a guy try every conceivable setting, but still can't bring a marked target into a repeatable TID'd target.

 

[jeff & Maria]

n/t

 

[Mike Bearden]

I rarely post here anymore with my work schedule being what it is but your post is dead on. I've been hunting with the Explorer since Minelab unvailed the original S series and continue to count on it's abilitiy to pull deep silver where other detectors just don't HEAR it.
My silver count is WAY down this year because I just haven't put in the hunt time but my usual average is between 250 - 325 silver coins per year.
Granted we don't find a lot of barbers or flowing hair cents down in the deep south like the folks up north do but the Explorer at least gives us the chance to find our share in sheer numbers alone
What I love most about the Explorer (other than depth) is how well it pulls goodies from heavy iron patches with a small coil.
Minelab products have been very good to me, their customer service is #1 in my book too.

Good Hunting
Mike

 

[Nascarfan]

Guys, I would definitely go along with all that has been said so far! But, I would also like to say that I am a little frustrated w/ my Explorer XS. I had a White's and liked it, but wasn't getting good depth w/ it.........I do like the depth this XS machine dishes out but I live in Missouri where the ground is very mineralized. I like to do alot of hunting in remote areas and really have struggled w/ keeping my threshold in most areas! I bought this detector at the end of last year so I'm probably still quite the Noobie on this machine ( and don't get out to detect as much as I'd like to).......I have tried running almost wide open and it seems to help some with the losing threshold part, but then I have the problem of digging too much trash!! Don't get me wrong, I do like my Explorer XS, it's just how do I go about getting the most out of it!! Been thinking about buying Andy Sabitch' book too, anyone want to sell thier copy cheap!! Later! HH, Nascarfan

 

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

It just means the coil is over something you have discriminated out, or that there is electrical noise in the area.

Chris

 

[captn_se]

Hello Tom, I'm a member of the CA Kinzli forum also. I'm sure you recognize me. I was at the most recent hunt up at Big Rec back in May. Almost everyone was using Explorers that day. As much as that place has been hunted, we still found a good amount of silver, wheats, buffalos,and some V's and IH's. I'm am so pleased with my SE I purchased back in January. The only thing I have changed in the past few months is the switch to an Exp. II coil on my SE. It actually performs better than the SE coil. Before that, I was a White's diehard. Not any more. I am having the best md'ing year of my life. I have nearly 450 silver and over 2000 wheats for the year so far.

HH,
CAPTN SE
Dan

[quote Tom_in_CA]Not sure how many CA folks post here, but there's a local CA specific forum: "Kinzli forum", where those of us from here post back & forth. Every so often, over the past 5 or 6 yrs, 15 to 20 of us will descend on a big meadow in Golden Gate Park (San Francisco's answer to New York's Central park) to have a big duel. Now 5 or 6 yrs. ago, it was a mix of Minelab, Whites, Fishers, Tesoros, Garretts, etc... A trend immediately surfaced that the Explorer guys would invariably walk away with the highest silver count (not counting flukes, like someone strip-mining foil & tabs and ending up with a rogue gold ring or whatever). But for shere depths at silver in this turf, the Explorer guys kept whooping the others.

Finally, after 4 or 5 of these "shootouts", you could see that nearly everyone there had Explorers. Those that show up with DFXs, XLTs, etc... when shown marked signals, can't deny they probably wouldn't have heard them on their own. I too was one of those, who.... was dragged kicking and screaming away from my Whites, when signal after signal (8 to 9" deep whisper type stuff) was shown to me, that they accurately were "calling". On one of these shootouts we even had entry forms where you put in your machine brand/make, and then entered in all your end-of-the-day find tallies. The Explorers took it hands down. Granted, some Explorer guys do no good, because they haven't learned the tooty-fluty. And yea, it could all be coincidence (ie.: the Explorer guys merely had more experience), but the proof begins to be in the pudding, when you see a guy try every conceivable setting, but still can't bring a marked target into a repeatable TID'd target.[/quote]

 

[Mike Bearden]

I feel your pain, it can be a long road on the learning process until it all clicks for you.
After hunting with nothing but non metered, single tone machines all my life and then going to the Explorer. All of those tones and multiple settings were a little overwhelming at first even though I was FINDING good targets along with the bad.
On about the 2nd. week I decided to cut out a piece of thin cardboard to fit the screen and tape it at the top so it could be lifted to make adjustments when needed.
I ran it in factory default mode "other than a quieter threshold" for most of the summer, hunted by SOUND only and my finds started increasing dramatically
Then I started playing with the IM settings, opening them up little by little until I eventually ran a wide open screen and that's how I hunt 99% of the time now. It's nice to be able to bounce back and forth from IM wide open back into disc when needed, and it can be an eye opener.
So the best advise I could give any new Explorer user is to hunt sloooooow, scrub the coil on the ground and listen carefully.
Depth isn't everything either but rest assured that if you can only get your Explorer to run stable at lower sens settings that you are NOT losing any depth, discrimination is what causes depth loss for the most part.
I've hunted in area's where the finds were so deep that the only reason I knew something was there was that I heard the threshold dip and go null and no other sound or ID on the screen.
For those willing to spend the time to really learn what the Explorer is capable of .... yeah they'll be rewarded with some great finds

Good Hunting
Mike

 

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

Low sensitivity definitely cause loss of depth, discrimination doesn't.

Put you machine at 1 manual and air test it on a target. Only an inch or two range.

I detect in town under power lines where I can only run the sens up to teens, and out in the country where I can run it up to upper twenties. Huge difference in the depth I get. If you are running Auto sens you may be running hotter or colder than you would be in manual at the same setting. With sens set at one switch between auto and manual and you will see auto is much deeper. If you are hunting some place noisy or with lots of trash then auto sense will generally be less then manual, at least at higher settings.

Discrimination makes it seem like you are loosing depth because most signals are somewhat masked by trash or ground mineralization and don't hit in text book locations, at least not every sweep. Only shallower targets tend to hit exactly where you expect them to be, you tend to miss the deepies with disc, and that is why people think disc affects depth. Bury a coin in clean ground, learn in the signal. Basically the whole screen will blacked out except for that little bit. Still hits as deep as open screen.

MHO

Chris

 

[Mike Bearden]

The Explorer puts out the same power to the coil at low sens as does at high settings. Sensitivity settings are just that, sensitivity to the ground/dirt matrix not a POWER adjustment per se.
Any Minelab tech will confirm this !

Heavy discrimination can and will cause depth loss and it's not all attributed to masking and heavy minerals.
I hunted the Pensacola area for many years where even the beach is almost zero mineralization and the Explorer will lose depth as the disc is turned up .... FACT.

Another known FACT is that Explorers don't do well in disturbed ground such as that Bury a coin in clean ground statement you made, the Explorer excells at finding naturally lost/buried coins.
You could never prove to me that auto sens verses manual sens is BETTER either, I know plenty of folks that run auto only and some that run manual and nobody seems to do any better than the next guy.

Sorry but we have to aggree to disagree on this one.

Mike

 

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

Mike,

Don't want to get into a feud.

I know sensitivity does not affect transmit power. It affects recieve threshold sensitivity. There has been plenty of oscilloscope traces posted over the years that shows the transmit power is constant.

My Explorer gets much worse depth at a low sensitivity than it does at a higher sensitivity. I'm not saying auto or manual is better, I'm saying in auto you really don't know what sensitivity level you are at so you need to use manual to do comparisons. And I'll bet you anything that your machine will not get the same depth at sens level of 1 as it will at 25.

And I will stick with the discrimination statement. Let me refine somewhat though. As a coin gets deeper- and in mineralized soil this happens quicker, it stops IDing as a coin and more like iron. If you have the left part of your screen disc'd out eventually as depth increases the explorer will just null. Even with open screen eventually all you will get is an iron hit and unless you are digging everything you will walk on by. If a silver coin is still at a depth where it ID's correctly- upper right- you can crank up the disc to everything but the upper right hand corner of the screen, you will still get the coin.

And it's not just depth. Co-located trash can have the same effect. I hunt open screen to minimize this, and tell people to throw out any silly learned in programs they show in the book.

Chris

 

[Mike Bearden]

pretty much on the same page as a whole, I'm not wanting to argue either and that's a prime example of what I was trying to explain about when I only hear the threshold drop or null when a target is very deep, and yes that's beyond any correct ID capability ... could be ferrous or non ferrous down there.

However, in NUETRAL soil or sand a Explorer with a stock 10" coil will still hit pretty deep on minimum sens settings with wide open IM but raise the disc and watch the depth go away.
Have tried it myself and seen it done many times with hunting buddies.

I like to think of the Explorer pretty much like one BIG stereo graphics equalizer. Practically every setting made affects what the operator hears, or doesn't hear. That's why for the most part it's never good for a newbie to constantly change settings before it all starts to make sense.
Gain, Sens, Variability, Threshold, Tones, etc. depending on the combination and how well the selection works is purely site dependant.

Try this, the next time you find a coin at 5-6" deep, leave the dirt out and throw the same coin back into the hole, did your machine hit it clean, mine doesn't and none of my previous Explorers did either because they just don't like loose dirt around a coin, it practically becomes invisible.

Yes a coin will still come in while under heavy disc settings if it's within correct ID range but it's also true that the reset speed between targets is much quicker in wide open IM. No nulling from disc means less work for the processor.

Anyway, after a few thousand hours of hunting with Explorers I still enjoy using them for what they do best .... finding the goodies.

Good Hunting
Mike

 

[Mike Bearden]

Here's a good read that was posted by Charles (Upstate NY) awhile back concerning adjustments etc... it's a great read IMO.
As usual, Charles expertise shines through and it's easy for most to understand.
Hope you don't mind Charles

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?19,535733,536102#msg-536102

 

[Pal Al]

Thanks Tom, EX 2 on its way, MXT on to my son! I'm about to become a true believer
Right now I just take it on faith and what I was shown at Roosevelt a couple weeks back.blowup<<minelab vs whites!