First Impressions of My New MXT Pro

[ga5150]

Got my new machine today and thought I was prepared to take it out fairly quickly and swing for an hour or so. I had ordered Foster's book a few weeks back and have been reading up on the MXT Pro since that time. I got the stock 12" coil and also the 5.3 with a complete lower rod so I could switch out easily. I quickly assembled everything and headed out for my trusty old local park which has been good for me.

Boy was I in for a shock! Keep in mind, I've used a White's 3900D Coinmaster basically forever, so I'm used to the continuous threshold. I don't think I was ready for the multi-tones and all the chatter this machine gave me. I heard bells, whistles, chirps, burps, grunts and other stuff that I can't describe. To be honest, there were so many noises jumping over my threshold that I had trouble distinguishing which were supposed to be good or not. At every noise, I found myself checking the display and then going back over the spot to try to get the signal to repeat.

I was in Coin/Jewelry Mode, Gain set to preset, threshold at a barely audible hum, and toggle set to Ground. When I turned it on, I pumped it up and down several times as described to ground balance. I noticed that most of the time my display showed -95 Hot Rock as I went along the ground. I was able to dig one single pull tab. I went after several targets that rang up as Zinc and 4", but could never find them, not even with my ProPointer. I know my park has a of trash, but I thought I had cleaned this one area completely out previously, including all trash.

I'm sure this will be a great machine, but it's going to take me a bit to adjust since I've had the single noise 3900D for so darn long!

Any tidbits or helpful hints would be greatly appreciated! And I'll be soaking up as much info from these forums as I possibly can.

Thanks!!

Rodney

 

[Hunt4Fun]

Hi Rodney,

You did not specify but I suspect you were using the 12" coil in an area containing a lot of trash targets. That coil only works well in areas with very few targets. The only place I use the 12" is in open fields or after I have cleared the area with first the Eclipse 5.3 then the Eclipse 950.

I suggest you head back to that same location with the Eclipse 5.3 mounted. Set your Gain at about 7 at first in Coin & Jewelry with Disc set just below Nickel. Get a good GB and Lock it. Work your coil slowly and if the tones bother you, press the Note button once to put it in single tone. When you find what sounds like a good target, look at the display to see if it is indicating a good target. If it is, press the Note button again to see what that target tone sounds like. You know the recovery routine from there.

You have a great machine to work with. However, it does take some time to become accustomed to the scratchy threshold and the tone ID.

Good luck.
Bob

 

[ga5150]

Hi Bob,

I used the 12" first, and then changed over to the 5.3 for a while. I'm already thinking I should sell/trade the 12" and pick up the 950, as I pretty much hunt parks, carnival areas, homes, etc;

I had my gain higher than 7, so I'll drop that down. Also, I didn't lock the GB. If I read right, if I didn't lock it, it continuously updates, right? Tomorrow I'll lock it, and then update it every little while. I'll try your idea on turning the tones on/off as well. I don't know why I didn't think of that tonight. Too excited I guess....


Thanks for your help!

Rodney

Hi Rodney,

You did not specify but I suspect you were using the 12" coil in an area containing a lot of trash targets. That coil only works well in areas with very few targets. The only place I use the 12" is in open fields or after I have cleared the area with first the Eclipse 5.3 then the Eclipse 950.

I suggest you head back to that same location with the Eclipse 5.3 mounted. Set your Gain at about 7 at first in Coin & Jewelry with Disc set just below Nickel. Get a good GB and Lock it. Work your coil slowly and if the tones bother you, press the Note button once to put it in single tone. When you find what sounds like a good target, look at the display to see if it is indicating a good target. If it is, press the Note button again to see what that target tone sounds like. You know the recovery routine from there.

You have a great machine to work with. However, it does take some time to become accustomed to the scratchy threshold and the tone ID.

Good luck.
Bob

 

[Hunt4Fun]

Since you primarily hunt parks and similar sites, I think you will be much happier with the more versatile Eclipse 950 coil. The MXT Pro is fairly forgiving on coil speed but it prefers a slower sweep speed. In heavy trash sites, especially iron trash, I lock the GB so the Autotrac does not start drifting the GB toward the rusting iron. Concentric coils produce much better iron target IDs on an MXT and Pro than DD coils. The DD coils will separate targets better but they will more often than not ID crown bottle caps as a quarters.

Be patient ... you have a good machine.
Bob

Hi Bob,

I used the 12" first, and then changed over to the 5.3 for a while. I'm already thinking I should sell/trade the 12" and pick up the 950, as I pretty much hunt parks, carnival areas, homes, etc;

I had my gain higher than 7, so I'll drop that down. Also, I didn't lock the GB. If I read right, if I didn't lock it, it continuously updates, right? Tomorrow I'll lock it, and then update it every little while. I'll try your idea on turning the tones on/off as well. I don't know why I didn't think of that tonight. Too excited I guess....


Thanks for your help!

Rodney

Hi Rodney,

You did not specify but I suspect you were using the 12" coil in an area containing a lot of trash targets. That coil only works well in areas with very few targets. The only place I use the 12" is in open fields or after I have cleared the area with first the Eclipse 5.3 then the Eclipse 950.

I suggest you head back to that same location with the Eclipse 5.3 mounted. Set your Gain at about 7 at first in Coin & Jewelry with Disc set just below Nickel. Get a good GB and Lock it. Work your coil slowly and if the tones bother you, press the Note button once to put it in single tone. When you find what sounds like a good target, look at the display to see if it is indicating a good target. If it is, press the Note button again to see what that target tone sounds like. You know the recovery routine from there.

You have a great machine to work with. However, it does take some time to become accustomed to the scratchy threshold and the tone ID.

Good luck.
Bob

 

[Aarong81]

Locking the GB is best since it will drift when you swing over one target 3 times. That just simulates pumping the coil 3 times, it assumes the target is just ground mineral and begins to GB it out. If you leave it in 'ground' all the time you will eventually notice deep/weak signals getting weaker with each pass due to drifting. If its locked, those weak signals will be there pass after pass.

My 2 cents to the issue is make sure your batteries are fresh and you are NOT using 'heavy duty' batteries. Alkaline is the way to go. Some use rechargables and are happy with them but they WILL NOT give full 12 volts even at full charge since they are only 1.2v each, total of 9.6v.

I get excessive chatter when my voltage is down to 9 volts and I lose depth when at or below 10 volts. If I'm in a very potential area I make sure I have at least 11v or I will install fresh batteries.

Lastly, I have a park by my house that I can only hunt about 80% of it due to electrical noise in a certain area. I have heard the MXT is susceptible to electrical interference.

 

[ga5150]

I'll lock the GB today and see what kind of results I get. The batteries are the factory batteries. It shows 12v when powering up, but I have a brand new spare set ready to go already.

I hadn't thought about the electrical noise at the particular park I was in, but there was one area that even my old 3900 acted up a bit which was near a office area in the edge of the park. I wasnt at that area yesterday, but I bet it's possible that the MXT is more sensitive and I may have been getting some of that noise.


Thanks for your input!


Rodney

Locking the GB is best since it will drift when you swing over one target 3 times. That just simulates pumping the coil 3 times, it assumes the target is just ground mineral and begins to GB it out. If you leave it in 'ground' all the time you will eventually notice deep/weak signals getting weaker with each pass due to drifting. If its locked, those weak signals will be there pass after pass.

My 2 cents to the issue is make sure your batteries are fresh and you are NOT using 'heavy duty' batteries. Alkaline is the way to go. Some use rechargables and are happy with them but they WILL NOT give full 12 volts even at full charge since they are only 1.2v each, total of 9.6v.

I get excessive chatter when my voltage is down to 9 volts and I lose depth when at or below 10 volts. If I'm in a very potential area I make sure I have at least 11v or I will install fresh batteries.

Lastly, I have a park by my house that I can only hunt about 80% of it due to electrical noise in a certain area. I have heard the MXT is susceptible to electrical interference.

 

[ga5150]

I've taken the new machine out twice more, including today for about 2 hours. I've only been using the 5.3 coil. I played around with the gain and noticed that at the preset, it was very noisy, but when I backed down to around 7 that it evened out. Thanks for that bit of input Bob! I used the GB in the locked position as both Bob and Aaron recommended, and that seemed to help tremendously.

I've come to determine that where I'm hunting is just horribly littered with trash, being mostly bottle caps and pull tabs. With each swing of the coil, I'm getting tons of noise, but I'm able to pick up on the sounds better now. It just takes me forever to go over an area because I'm constantly checking sounds. There are lots of coins mixed in, so I just have to keep digging!

I'll have it back out tonight and get some more practice in.

Thanks for the feedback so far!

Rodney

 

[Aarong81]

When I find an area like that, I shorten my swing to about 2 feet or so and swing very slowly about 1 foot per second. The MXT can opperate at a very slow speed compared to other detectors which makes it a killer woods detector. If your normal swing has, say, 10 targets blaring at you in a single swing, you have no choice but to isolate a couple targets at most and don't cover so much area per swing. Sometimes it requires just wiggling the coil about 4 inches side to side to pick out one target at a time. You just need to adapt to each area, it could be that area has high mineralization as well. Stick with it, soon you'll be picking out good targets others left behind in all that trash.

 

[Hunt4Fun]

I agree with Aarong81. He is right on about carefully picking the good targets out of heavy trash.

Some time in the future, after you are very familiar with your MXT Pro, think about coming back here and clearing the surface trash out of a small area, say 3' by 3'. Sometimes clearing the top 2 inches of trash unmasks a bunch of deeper good targets. If good stuff starts turning up this way, that park may turn into a long term project for you.

Good Luck.
Bob