I recently got my hands on a Ron's meter.

[JASONSPAZ1]

The meter is a great quality home made item and fit perfect on my Sovereign GT. The cables are good quality and spliced together very good with no quality issues at all. It was calibrated out of the box and right on the money when I set it up for an indoor air test with the Sunray s-8 and the 12x10 SEF. This is my first foray into using a meter.
I have been a Sovereign user since the 90's but I refused to use a meter since it handicapped me and made me dig less. I am now of the mindset that I will only use this meter as a reference tool and not let it be the dig or not dig decision maker. However, if the air tests that I have done are correct( no reason why they should not be as I got consistent target id) and this meter can tell apart zinc pennies from the other coins as good as it appears to tell them apart. Well I am going to be very happy. This is a real good meter!

I am glad I got one of these meters!

HH
Jason

 

[rl48off]

Jason you forgot to mention that Ron will go out of his way for you and be happy to do it. I also got the same meter from him and he really did a great job with the cables. My Meter works great with the SEF 10x12 coil which was surprising. I didn't put the stock coil on that my GT came with but I will sometime down the road, I don't know if Ron told you that you can buy a 6' Audio cable to extend the reach .....so you can use it both ways ....that in it's self was a great feature. Well worth the money and doing business with Ron was a pleasure.

If your thinking about it Go for it !!!!
Ronnie L

 

[Critterhunter]

Nice looking meter.

Jason, how do you like your 12x10? Dug anything deep with it yet?

 

[JASONSPAZ1]

Oh yes indeed this coil is a deep seeker. I have been using it at the beach since the inland is frozen. I am surprised how sensitive it is to tiny targets. I noticed on the real deep signals that the detector gives off a more consistent tone id on deep coins with the 12x10 SEF. What I mean is that the deep coins are low in volume but no doubt a high tone. I find this more pronounced on the SEF than the stock GT coil.
I love the coil. I dug so deep on some quarters that I thought I heard Chinese coming out of the hole. LOL

Take Care
HH
Jason

 

[JASONSPAZ1]

With out a doubt! Ron was a pleasure to deal with. I recommend him highly.

Take Care
HH
Jason

 

[Tired Rooster]

I have one of Ron's meters on the way. Hoping it will get here tomorrow. I have heard nothing but good things about his meters and him personally.

 

[deepdiger60]

From what i read Ron,s products are excellent that meter does look good ,i wasn't sure if i wanted to hip mount my box or not but i did make up my mind i had a Minelab DTI on my rod plus a S-1 search probe plus the box on the top of the rod , just to much weight and to many wires to mess with so i went with Joe,s Insight i sent it to him 2 days ago real nice guy also now you don't have to send the coil in order for him to place the insight , i also sent Ralph at Sun Ray my S-1 search probe to get a 50" wire put in so i can hip mount with room to spare ,right now what a pleasure to swing that rod no weight to speak of even with a S-12 coil and i put Doc,s swingy thingy to hook on my suspenders and last but not least i took off 25 inches of coil wire on the S-12 you just don't need all that coil wire, by next week ill be hitting the beach and trying it all out , in those 100+ acre fields i mostly hunt for the last 2 year,s with the Sov maybe i can last a full day now Jim

 

[JASONSPAZ1]

Yes they are heavy machines.
That is why Minelab needs to get a new version of the Sovereign made. We need one that takes 4 AA batteries and not 8. I want to see a new Sovereign that is lighter and with trigger pinpointing built in.

hh
Jason

 

[JASONSPAZ1]

Ron is doing a great service for the Sovereign community.
His meters will be part of the Sovereign Legacy like the DTI meters from a time gone by.
The meter came packaged excellent. Communication with Ron made the short time waiting for the package stress less. I felt like a kid waiting for a Radio Control car and the end result was awesome.

Just my honest two cents.

HH
Jason

 

[Critterhunter]

Thanks for your 12x10 report, Jason. How do you like it's seperation? Have you noticed the audio seems much crisper and sharper? Have you noticed that reaction between targets almost seems sped up?

My Meter works great with the SEF 10x12 coil which was surprising..

And how about you rl48off. How do you like your 12x10 and do you think it's deeper than stock for you? How about the seperation and such?

I know how I feel about this great coil but I like to hear opinions from others using it.

 

[JASONSPAZ1]

People are going to think I am just agreeing with you for the hell of it. So here is a link to an old post I made.

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?21,1610141,1610141#msg-1610141

Critterhunter, In the post I basically observe and agree with everything you asked me about The SEF.
It is a great must have coil for the Sovereign. I noticed better performance right off the bat. I have had this GT since 2006 and have used the Sovereign series since the late 90's. I have had many machines in between but all roads lead back to the Sovereign.

Take Care
HH
Jason

 

[JASONSPAZ1]

Here are some words I had about the 12x10 SEF in another forum.



"After a few years of speculation and hesitation I finally got a 12x10 SEF coil.
I use it on my Sovereign GT.
No problems with the build quality here. The SEF is slimmer and MUCH lighter than the stock 10" coil that came with my GT. However the SEF feels solid and has some good epoxy work done on the bottom of the coil.
If you can not get a coil cover with it then do not buy it! You really should use a coil cover especially if you use any coil at the beach or any surface. We have all gone out and tried to build confidence thinking we don't need the coil cover on because " It is so smooth here" only to grit your teeth and look in horror at the gouges and scrapes on the bottom of your coil. Beach sand is (duh) sand paper and it will gradually rub away that smooth finish down to the copper windings, which I have done before. I know you guys and gals know this. But for those that dont USE A COIL COVER.
For some reason K'co is always out of stock of coil covers for the SEF's ( I had to order mine from the UK). The coils are made in Bolivia and are imported and exclusively sold through the big box detector store. Lets face it many of Kco's after market accessories are cheap plastic (ie) max whatever it is called pinpointers, earlier excellorator or the old Hot Head coils. The SEF is not K'co made and it has a good coil connector and cable length. I do not know the exact weight of the coil but I do know that it feels so much easier to swing and maintain coil control than that of the stock GT coil. I can not stress that enough.

I love the scan width and the unique "butterfly" design which allows a tighter and/or more thorough ground coverage especially if you are grid searching. Better target separation! I thought I was imagining it but after a 5 hour beach hunt and extensive bench testing I feel as though the SEF has a bit quicker target response and better target separation than the stock 10"
The coil is a hybrid design of a cross between a DD and a concentric. Right off the bat with out a doubt the SEF does a better job in making them rusty screw caps break up. I do not know if it is the concentric components that aid to this or vice versa with the DD, but the sef has better cap id'ng capabilities.
I have always felt that pinpointing with a DD is easy even though Some find it annoying. With my Sovereign.I locate a target tighten up its location and then drag the rear of my coil toward the tip if of my toes, as soon as the target stops responding as the coil is being swung fast in narrow patterns(the sovereign wiggle) while being moved toward your toes. BANG! the target is right under the tip of the front of the coil. The SEF is easy and great in doing this. The unique design of the SEF has a little concave curve at the top of the coil. This is so helpful in showing where the tip of your coil is by the way the curve on the coil kinda "highlights" the area to dig.
My Sovereign GT with any coil is EXTREMELY deep on the beach. Even more so in the wet slop. One thing I noticed as well on the SEF is that the REAL deep conductors seem to be brought up a little higher in their audio resolution and maintaining consistent tone id.
So far it has been only beach hunting with the 12x10 SEF coil on my GT for me. I suspect that it will be very good in my usual inland stomps and fields.
But boy my GT with my Sunray probe rigged up feels so much better when searching .
It is water proof. The coil ships with the coil cable guard unscrewed. I suspect to make sure the coil cable where it meets the coil does not get any pressure on it. Just hand tighten the nut on the coil. It simple and shows that the company is aware that coils can get banged around in shipping.

I suspect that the SEF coils give the same performance on whatever machine they are used on. I wonder if they are V rated for the White's3 ? I may get one of the 8" Sef coils even though I very much like my Sunray S-8 which is my city park and junk hunt coil. That's a whole other topic."

Take Care HH
Jason

 

[Critterhunter]

Thanks for that review. I see you too also feel that the target response seems faster due to the tighter/more well defined laser like detection field of this coil. It's wierd that that would make the target response seem faster but it does. One of the reasons why I give credit to the Pro Coil in the Etrac's & SE Pros better unmasking abilities. What the coil sees is where it's at in terms of target seperation and unmasking.