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Frank I'd like to hear your stories about the Troy X3 if you would like to share them. The best I know how to set up the detector against pull tabs and still find the gold and Indian Heads is to have a good supply of gold rings of all sizes, gold coins, Chains, necklaces,badges, charms,gold teeth, glasses, etc (any thing made of gold you may want to find) & nickles from 1850 to present, Indian heads above and below 1864. You are also going to miss finding many nickle alloy buttons, pins and badges not to mention things I can't even think of. NOW after you have collected all these things that are either nickle alloy,gold alloy, or copper/nickle alloys of Items you WANT TO FIND.*****NOW GO AND GET ALL DIFFERENT KINDS and years of pull tabs that you do not want to find including screw caps and tin foils you've found (you do save special garbage of each kind don't you?). After you have the good, bad and the uglies......
1) Set up an Advanced White screen and save it.....
2)Now open it up, program all your settings that you like to hunt in, Gain(set to 10 for programming only)Change to 7 (I use)or higher afterwards, Limits, Threshold, Ferrous etc, etc, but leave the screen absolutely white and clear of any dicrimination......
3) Turn the Sense all the way up to 32 for explorer1 or 40 for explorer2 and switch over to your X1 probe.
4) Hold the probe in the air about hear high away from metal and now push noise cancel.....wait till it stops.
5) Put your detector on top of your kitchen table and rest the probe in the top of the battery compartment and sticking out about 4-5 inches over the back of the machine and out over the floor.
6) Tape the probe to the machine so it does not move and pick up the metal from the batteries. (you are not in pin point so the probe will not pick up the battery if it does not have metal moving by it.
7)after this stage Make sure you do not have a watch or ring on and if you wear glasses be careful your face does not get within 6 inches of the probe.

Now I expect that you already know how to use the ADVANCED EDIT FUNCTION and the ADVANCED LEARN FUNCTION, IF NOT STOP HERE AND READ (AND PRACTICE) THE MANUAL ON HOW TO USE OR YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GO ON.
9) NOW KEEPING CLEAR OF THE PROBE go to the screens LEARN PROGRAM ....have the pile of bad and uglies (pull tabs,tin foil other nickle or alum types that are typical and in quantity in this park you frequently hunt and want this SPECIFIC program for) that you DO NOT want to detect in the field.
9A) NOTE: The reason that this is a SPECIFIC PROGRAM is because every type of pull tab is seriously different from its older brothers and younger sisters and you do not want to black out an area to eliminate a pull that because of age or popularity does not exist in this park in any quantity to cause a numbers problem.
10) Now we will start to eliminate the undesireables...You see the CHECK MARK and the X MARK and the BLACK SQUARE(click till square is the smallest size) ***you did set the gain to 10 and the sensitivity to 32 or 40 from the start right?
11) Now pick up the fist piece of probably 3 to 9 types of pull tabs you may want to eliminated in this park......push the learn button next to the X MARK. The X MARK should start Blinking. Careful now the probe is activated and any thing you put in front of it will place a small black square each time you pass the item in front of or along side of the probe. As you keep moving the Beer Tab back and forth across the probe it will start to get quieter until you cannot hear anything anymore(usually 4-8 passes is good enough). When there is no more major sound push the X MARK BUTTON ONCE....it will stop blinking and you can RELAX the probe is deactivated. DON"T SHUT THE MACHINE OFF TILL YOU ARE FINISHED!!!You don't have to push the X MARK TO NON BLINKING BETWEEN EACH PIECE OF GARBAGE, ONCE EACH PIECE OF TRASH GOES QUIET LAY DOWN THAT GARBAGE TAB AND PICK UP A DIFFERENT ONE AND WAVE IN FRONT OF THE PROBE until it to is quiet. When you have done this to ALL PIECES of garbage you have, quickly push the X MARK BUTTON to stop it from blinking. There should be quite a bit of a BLACKED OUT AREA on the screen.
12)Now you can play around a bit...push the DETECT button till you are in regular detect mode Screen but still using the probe. Pass the different garbage in front of it and it should be quiet. If any piece you wanted eliminated still makes sounds just push the X MARK BUTTON till it blinks and wave the Tab in front of it some more til it becomes quiet and don't forget to neutralize after by pushing the X MARK BUTTON again so it stops flashing.
13) Now pass your nickles, gold jewelry,gold coins,dimes etc, etc everything you do want to find. Your finding I'm sure that some of the goodies are quiet..RIGHT? NOW THIS IS WHERE YOU HAVE TO SACRIFICE SOME. Put aside the pile of trash and also put aside the pile of goodies that the machine has no problem detecting...
14) Now you will be using the CHECK MARK BUTTON to add back the things we want even if it slightly crosses over into the blacked out pull tab range and may allow a few of the alloys in a particular pull tab to be heard because these exact alloys may be in that gold ring or nickle. FOLLOW YET? By opening up a little white area in that black that particular Ring can be totally detected. DON'T FORGET TO NEUTRALIZE THE PROGRAM BY PUSHING THE CHECK MARK AGAIN MAKING IT STOP BLINKING, IF YOU TAKE A BREAK OR WANT TO PLAY WITH IT BEFORE GOING ON>
15)Do this with everything you you want to find and the amount of black left is what you have successfully eliminated while being able to detect and pick up everything you want.
Now by going back into detect mode you will find that some of the pull tabs or other garbage you deleted are again active and being picked up by the detector....you do realized you can eliminate it again by Blinking the X MARK again and waving the Tab in front til it stops making noise again, But now you just eliminated the good piece of stuff that caused it to become active again. Was it the gold coin? the 1857 Indian Head penny? the small gold ring? the 1865 Indian head penny the 1895 Indian head penny? The brass broach, the brass and gold 1865 naval academy pin? get my picture?
The whole point of this is not to eliminate anything... Read the forums and learn by others that you can learn thru time to distinguish between a pull tab and anything else. Thats what the 120 sounds this machine makes is all about. But it will take ten years to master it. Hit the fields that are going to get paved over and don't worry about the ones that arn't. If you cant find it the other guys are passing over it too. Keep getting better and go back to the places you were 2 years ago and you'll be surprised what you learned.
SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG. I'M NOT SMART ENOUGH TO EXPLAIN THIS ANY OTHER WAY.
I hope someone has a better way for yo out there....so good luck and keep reading different forums. Try www.detectorgear.com for good Explorer Information. John or "DIGGER BEGINNER" Michigan