I usually have a slight threshold on my machine when I detect. A friend of mine hunts in silent. I tried doing that and have stuck with it. My question is do you think that I am missing anything by hunting that way? I can always look at the cursor to make sure that I am not missing anything. What do you all think?Have any of you hunted this way? Thanks
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Have a question for all you explorer XS users
- Thread starter Diane
- Start date
I tend to run the threshold just under "hum". So yeah I hunt silent and have had great luck doing it. I actually went to my dads over the weekend and he wanted me to help find a nail that a contractor dropped in the driveway. Afer 5 min. I realized I had rejected nails hahaha. It didn't take long after that.
using the threshold hum allows you to hear the real faint change in the trheshold tone that tells you that there is a DEEP target that is too deep to render a strong signal. Try it out. Try JUST digging the "change in threshold tone signals" and see what pop's up. I once dug a silver quarter at 13" using this method. I would pass a junk target that was close by that would "blank out" my threshold, but then immediately after I passed the junk target, the threshold hum would jump up high in pitch. Kinda reminds me of my Sovereign and Excalibur.
Needless to say, the quarter was at 13" and a rusty corner brace was about 6" off to the side but the "halo" of rust was clearly the size of a softball as was evident in the dirt surrounding the brace. In this instance, the XS worked flawlessly and exactly the way its supposed to.
Took me a while to learn these tips here on the forums. But I don't care how seasoned of a detectorist you are, the Explorer will never cease to amaze you. Just learn it's capabilities and how to "Talk Explorer" LOL
Hope this helps.
Rusty in Chicago
Needless to say, the quarter was at 13" and a rusty corner brace was about 6" off to the side but the "halo" of rust was clearly the size of a softball as was evident in the dirt surrounding the brace. In this instance, the XS worked flawlessly and exactly the way its supposed to.
Took me a while to learn these tips here on the forums. But I don't care how seasoned of a detectorist you are, the Explorer will never cease to amaze you. Just learn it's capabilities and how to "Talk Explorer" LOL
Hope this helps.
Rusty in Chicago
James N.D.
New member
The reason I run a Threshold is so I can hear the Real Deep Targets that don't give much of a signal. I will hear the Threshold change with a small blip sometimes when I get something that is Ultra Deep. Funny thing is sometimes the Display won't even change or even give a reading and then one has to play with the Target to try and get more info on it. Most cases I will dig it and check these out. I don't think that a person using No Threshold would hear this or if they did hear it, they would most likely think a Iron Target or a False Signal. But for me, it is a must to have an Audible Threshold or you will leave Targets behind. Just my opinion on it! Good Luck and HH.
The real reason most want a threshold is so they know their headphones are working.
Diane, 6 year plus years of no threshold, especially since the XS sucks for trying to get just a slight Threshold on the vast majority of them that were made, maybe if you lower gain way down, but what does that accomplish. The only time I run threshold is for what I said in the first sentence, when a pair of headphones starts to get intermittent in the field I will, regrettably go one notch up and use threshold, but I it is too loud and will not be a soft low tone like it should be. I understand the XSII improvement on that but you were asking about the XS and I will stand on my 6+ years of finds to say, if you are comfortable with one notch below threshold like I use, than go ahead.
Don
Diane, 6 year plus years of no threshold, especially since the XS sucks for trying to get just a slight Threshold on the vast majority of them that were made, maybe if you lower gain way down, but what does that accomplish. The only time I run threshold is for what I said in the first sentence, when a pair of headphones starts to get intermittent in the field I will, regrettably go one notch up and use threshold, but I it is too loud and will not be a soft low tone like it should be. I understand the XSII improvement on that but you were asking about the XS and I will stand on my 6+ years of finds to say, if you are comfortable with one notch below threshold like I use, than go ahead.
Don
Big Fang Coin Biter
New member
Hi Diane,
One thing you will be missing if you run with no threshold is the alert to rejected targets (nulling of threshold). I only reject a tiny bit of iron most of the time. Hearing nulls tells me to slow down or otherwise compensate for conditions. In a total null situation I will turn down the sensitivity to where I get a threshold once in a while and go very slowly. Also if you have a good target next to a rejected one you will get little info to tell you this (the combination of signals may not sound like a good target). If you have no threshold how will you know what you are detecting over? That is unless you run with no discrimination - that would get the same info.
I know the threshold on the xs is a bit loud but you might try it. It is telling you valuable information.
Take care and HH - BF
One thing you will be missing if you run with no threshold is the alert to rejected targets (nulling of threshold). I only reject a tiny bit of iron most of the time. Hearing nulls tells me to slow down or otherwise compensate for conditions. In a total null situation I will turn down the sensitivity to where I get a threshold once in a while and go very slowly. Also if you have a good target next to a rejected one you will get little info to tell you this (the combination of signals may not sound like a good target). If you have no threshold how will you know what you are detecting over? That is unless you run with no discrimination - that would get the same info.
I know the threshold on the xs is a bit loud but you might try it. It is telling you valuable information.
Take care and HH - BF
"If you have no threshold how will you know what you are detecting over? That is unless you run with no discrimination - that would get the same info."
BF - That is exactly what to do, hunt with no discrimination and then you hear the iron hits and know what it is, iron! There is nothing sweeter than hearing the rat-a-tat-tat of small iron hits as you are now in the "finds zone". (I must remind people, I am a 90% in the middle of nowhere woods hunter, not a park hunter)
If you know the site well, and have hit it before many times, you can go up in discrimination as long as you go slow, slow as many have stated, when in iron or junk laden soil is the only way to go.
Maybe when I get the SE down the road a bit, I might run with threshold if it can be had as a very low background tone, but if not, I am not worried, my finds with the Explorer since 2000 have not been too shabby.
Don
BF - That is exactly what to do, hunt with no discrimination and then you hear the iron hits and know what it is, iron! There is nothing sweeter than hearing the rat-a-tat-tat of small iron hits as you are now in the "finds zone".
(I must remind people, I am a 90% in the middle of nowhere woods hunter, not a park hunter)If you know the site well, and have hit it before many times, you can go up in discrimination as long as you go slow, slow as many have stated, when in iron or junk laden soil is the only way to go.
Maybe when I get the SE down the road a bit, I might run with threshold if it can be had as a very low background tone, but if not, I am not worried, my finds with the Explorer since 2000 have not been too shabby.
Don
Mike Moutray - St.Louis MO
Member
Especially in trashy areas... being able to hear the threshold tone right before and after the signal of a target will help - especially when deciding whether or not to dig an iffy signal. Those pesky deep one-way hits can usually be separated good from bad target if you hear the threshold tone mixing in with the target signal or if you hear nulling with the signal - like many iron targets will hit. This doesn't work all the time but in many situations you will cut down on the iron you dig tremendously. I run in Iron Mask at -12, so the only nulling I get is from iron... that way I can tell when I'm over or next to an Iron target if I'm getting iffy or multiple tones to the signal.
The threshold tone is also an audible indicator of the presence of ground mineralization or iron when you hunt areas with constantly changing ground conditions... this allows those of us who hunt in manual sensitivity to keep our machine well tuned to the constant changes. I also use this to locate and hunt alongside long-ago buried cinder paths in the parks that still have coins along the edges masked by the cinders.
Too many reasons to hunt with a threshold tone... takes getting used to for some people, but it's the way to go.. for me at least. Take care and HH, Mike.
The threshold tone is also an audible indicator of the presence of ground mineralization or iron when you hunt areas with constantly changing ground conditions... this allows those of us who hunt in manual sensitivity to keep our machine well tuned to the constant changes. I also use this to locate and hunt alongside long-ago buried cinder paths in the parks that still have coins along the edges masked by the cinders.
Too many reasons to hunt with a threshold tone... takes getting used to for some people, but it's the way to go.. for me at least. Take care and HH, Mike.
By reading your settings from years ago helped get me to where I am now.
My question is why would you want to have your machine null out creating a question as to why in your mind and what am I missing?
I hunt wide open and hear everything in the ground. I know if I have a good target between two pieces of iron. Its like crossing the street and saying I only want to hear the big trucks. My point is a null over iron infested ground is a constant null. All metal lets you hear between the iron or trash which ever the case may be.
Don SJ and myself from NH and many others hunt Rural areas not parks and schools. All Metal should be tried by everyone even in the most trashy areas.
My question is why would you want to have your machine null out creating a question as to why in your mind and what am I missing?
I hunt wide open and hear everything in the ground. I know if I have a good target between two pieces of iron. Its like crossing the street and saying I only want to hear the big trucks. My point is a null over iron infested ground is a constant null. All metal lets you hear between the iron or trash which ever the case may be.
Don SJ and myself from NH and many others hunt Rural areas not parks and schools. All Metal should be tried by everyone even in the most trashy areas.
Jackpine Savage
Active member
I have not used the Explorer in years but recently spent some time with the X70. What you are saying about using the threshold and sensitivity reminded me of something I discovered with the X-70 when hunting in iron.
By notching out the TID segment for the iron that predominates at a site and adjusting the sensitivity when neccessary to minmize the nulling I felt I got better performance overall. Since reducing sensitivity reduced the nulls this seemed a good way to optimize the detectors "see=through" so to speak. Whereas in comparison when I ran in all metal I was not keeping up on my sensitivity adjustments. Hearing all the iron does work nice for adjusting sweep speed tho.
Tom
By notching out the TID segment for the iron that predominates at a site and adjusting the sensitivity when neccessary to minmize the nulling I felt I got better performance overall. Since reducing sensitivity reduced the nulls this seemed a good way to optimize the detectors "see=through" so to speak. Whereas in comparison when I ran in all metal I was not keeping up on my sensitivity adjustments. Hearing all the iron does work nice for adjusting sweep speed tho.
Tom
Mike Moutray - St.Louis MO
Member
The reason I want my detector to null out over iron is pretty simple - to let me know that something is iron. When I hunt trashy spots, I get a constant barrage of tones from everything in the ground - ferrous or not. If I hunt with Iron Mask wide open with no discrimination, 95% of all iron targets will give a high "coin" tone, so I would have to stop and look at the screen to see where the cross-hairs will read on the screen, sweep over the signal a few times, and then determine if it is iron or something good... since I would have to do this literally thousands of times, it would slow my detecting down tremendously. By setting up Iron Mask to eliminate an audible tone from iron targets, I will get a null instead and I won't have to look down at the screen to see where the target hits. I had tried hunting in Ferrous mode before to eliminate the high tone of iron targets, but I got too many other "high tone" hits that weren't coins... and iron bottle caps still read a high tone, so I switched back to Conductive mode.
Another reason to have iron null out is to tell the deep iffy coin hits from iron falsing. If you get a high tone reading that is deep, it will not lock on in one spot on the screen - it will bounce around, usually side to side across the top of the screen or up and down the right side of the screen. Silver coins like to stay to the right side of the top and iron likes to stay to the left side of the top of the screen... but when the signal is weak, it will wander to the opposite side of where it is supposed to read. By having iron null out, when you sweep over an iffy signal over and over you will get more nulling than "good hits" from iron, and more "good hits" than nulling from silver. This is a quick and easy way to determine a target's ID probability in the shortest time. You have to remember that the way I hunt and the places I hunt... in order to make the most amount of good finds in the least amount of time, you have to be able to process a lot of noises, nulling, changes in tone, pitch, and volume in the most efficient and accurate manner when you get thousands of signals in rapid-fire succession through your hunt.
I've hunted 25 years - mainly in trashy parks - and I just have it worked out to what is best for my style. I have had many people wonder at the amount of good finds I can make in trashy, worked out spots and I try to tell them that, above all else, you HAVE to waste as little time as possible trying to determine if a signal is worth digging or not, and spend more time covering ground looking for promising signals. It's like a sixth sense you develop on a subconscious level and having the detector set to null out over iron helps that subconscious decision making process as you sweep over one signal after another without end.
There is always time to rework the same spots digging more iffier signals each time, with a diminishing ratio of good finds to iron trash each successive time.
When you get a good high tone hit that only comes when sweeping in one line and goes away when you sweep different lines over the center of the signal, you could have falsing from iron trash, or a good target that has it's signal altered by being deep, on edge, next to trash, or in bad ground. When you can also listen for the threshold tone and nulling along with the iffy signal, you get a better picture of what you might have before digging. A "one way" good hit surrounded by mostly threshold tone will usually be a very deep good target, and a "one way" good hit with a strong null to one side of it will almost always be an iron target that is falsing off the edge or end of it. Sure it could be a good target next to iron, but there are other ways and tricks to sweep the target and process all the info you get for that "dig or no-dig" decision.
These are tricks that you can only learn with practice and experience, but they most often mean the difference between recovering a couple good items and spending an entire day digging a pile of 10" deep nails.
Sure I might miss the occasional good target, and when I was younger and had the energy and knees to dig scores of nails for every good target, it was justified. Now my detecting time is limited, and I want to make the most of it.
In the end, a metal detector is only as good as the person using it... and if you utilize ALL the information that it can provide you, it will
be more effective and your detecting will be more rewarding. Sorry for the long post, hope this sheds some insight on my stance
Take care and HH, Mike.
Another reason to have iron null out is to tell the deep iffy coin hits from iron falsing. If you get a high tone reading that is deep, it will not lock on in one spot on the screen - it will bounce around, usually side to side across the top of the screen or up and down the right side of the screen. Silver coins like to stay to the right side of the top and iron likes to stay to the left side of the top of the screen... but when the signal is weak, it will wander to the opposite side of where it is supposed to read. By having iron null out, when you sweep over an iffy signal over and over you will get more nulling than "good hits" from iron, and more "good hits" than nulling from silver. This is a quick and easy way to determine a target's ID probability in the shortest time. You have to remember that the way I hunt and the places I hunt... in order to make the most amount of good finds in the least amount of time, you have to be able to process a lot of noises, nulling, changes in tone, pitch, and volume in the most efficient and accurate manner when you get thousands of signals in rapid-fire succession through your hunt.
I've hunted 25 years - mainly in trashy parks - and I just have it worked out to what is best for my style. I have had many people wonder at the amount of good finds I can make in trashy, worked out spots and I try to tell them that, above all else, you HAVE to waste as little time as possible trying to determine if a signal is worth digging or not, and spend more time covering ground looking for promising signals. It's like a sixth sense you develop on a subconscious level and having the detector set to null out over iron helps that subconscious decision making process as you sweep over one signal after another without end.
There is always time to rework the same spots digging more iffier signals each time, with a diminishing ratio of good finds to iron trash each successive time.
When you get a good high tone hit that only comes when sweeping in one line and goes away when you sweep different lines over the center of the signal, you could have falsing from iron trash, or a good target that has it's signal altered by being deep, on edge, next to trash, or in bad ground. When you can also listen for the threshold tone and nulling along with the iffy signal, you get a better picture of what you might have before digging. A "one way" good hit surrounded by mostly threshold tone will usually be a very deep good target, and a "one way" good hit with a strong null to one side of it will almost always be an iron target that is falsing off the edge or end of it. Sure it could be a good target next to iron, but there are other ways and tricks to sweep the target and process all the info you get for that "dig or no-dig" decision.
These are tricks that you can only learn with practice and experience, but they most often mean the difference between recovering a couple good items and spending an entire day digging a pile of 10" deep nails.
Sure I might miss the occasional good target, and when I was younger and had the energy and knees to dig scores of nails for every good target, it was justified. Now my detecting time is limited, and I want to make the most of it.
In the end, a metal detector is only as good as the person using it... and if you utilize ALL the information that it can provide you, it will
be more effective and your detecting will be more rewarding. Sorry for the long post, hope this sheds some insight on my stance
Take care and HH, Mike.
What ever works for each of us is the way to go. I am as convinced of my way as you are of your way.
But the one thing that is so true is what you said about knowing your machine and what it tells you. Tricks like iron falsing and knowing how to tell very quickly if its the edge of iron you are hearing. Know the language of your machine.
But the one thing that is so true is what you said about knowing your machine and what it tells you. Tricks like iron falsing and knowing how to tell very quickly if its the edge of iron you are hearing. Know the language of your machine.
I run with a slight discernible threshold. If I get a slight positive signal, the increase is noticeable. A slight negative signal towards the null, is noticeable too. This gives an idea of what's going on without having to always keep an eye on the cursor to tell me whats going. Audio first, then the screen for further analyzing. If I run the machine in complete silence, I won't know if something is pulling in the null without staring at the screen all the time. If I set it too far into a silent null region, a slight signal increase may not raise enough to the point of audible signal increase. Machines typically have separate circuits for audio and visual. Some folks like silent operation, some prefer a slight threshold. I just prefer a slight threshold. This just gives more information of the conditions for me. This also allows me to keep an eye out on the surroundings for activity, watching critters, and where else in the area I might want to work. So I aways go by audio first, then if what I here gets my attention, I'll analyze it at different angles with the aid of the screen. Look at all the machines still manufactured for audio only. The screen for TID just gives me more info such as probable target depth etc. Just find how you prefer to work it and go for it...