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I think we are missing something. Please read.

N

NH Bob

New member
I was hunting this morning and found myself thinking about settings.
I have found myself wrapped up in everything that has been discussed over the passed couple weeks instead of enjoying the hobby the way it should be enjoyed.
First I want to say that I am as guilty as anyone if not more so. Because I know what I've done. All the information on this forum is priceless and should be cataloged for our future reference. The problem lies in the fact that we with experience are poisoning some of the ones that are new to the Explorer. We are not doing it intentionally but we are doing it.
When you first started with your new Explorer or any machine for that mater, didn't you enjoy learning by trial and error by the finds you made by digging everything. Most of us got our machines and read the manual probably more than once and found that we could turn on our machines and hunt. Easy as that. And as we progressed we learned more about our machines and tried different settings as we were ready.
What we are doing and its not all bad but we are not allowing new users to enjoy learning from the start. Many of them as I see the posts, are expecting to be experts from the word go. They read our posts and ask questions that should not even enter into there Detecting experience as yet.
They are missing something. They are missing all the fun of discovery.
So I say this to all the new Detectorists out there. Don't concern yourselves with all the high tech info that is being crammed onto these pages. Read it and catalog it and when your ready to advance yourself then take it slow and learn one thing at a time but enjoy our hobby. It can be very relaxing and exciting.
The Explorer is a turn on and go machine. Start there.
 
Some of us that don't have a lot experience with the Explorer. Unfortunately my back went out before I got much experience with the Explorer. However I got enough experience to understand much of what is discussed. You guys don't need to tailor your discussions to fit the newbie. We can work that stuff out on our own. Thanks John R
 
Bob when I was brand new to the Explorer running the factory settings my first two targets out of the ground were a SL quarter and a very thin gold ring. I thought holy cow this is easy, talk about beginners luck! But for the next 6 weeks I nearly sweated to death digging clad, ungawdly numbers of rusty nails and assorted trash. Not a single old coin except maybe a few wheats. I hunted one particular sports field about 20 hours and found nothing but clad. Suffices to say that I was a little dissapointed.

Then the MO boys shared some Explorer setup and hunting tips with me and good lord old coins started popping out of the ground left and right. Over the next 18 months that same field I spent 20 hours at yielded 400+ IH's, 120+ silver coins, about 800 wheats, gold and silver rings, silver religious medals, and all sorts of relics.

Was it easy to operate the Explorer with a more pro like setup? Hell no but I was having a whole lot more fun and not digging nearly as much iron and trash.

I would not recommend that a new user jump off the deep end in terms of settings and different approaches. What others recommended to me was a modest setup of iron mask -10 to -8, ferrous, manual sens adjusted to a stable level and, and this is the most important tip, take a day or two and hunt by depth only. Pick a depth just below the modern trash and dig every target deeper than that. In my case that was about 6 inches or deeper. I dug up all sorts of old coins that I would have never dug before given the sound and screen location. That is the quickest way to learn the machine in my opinion. Its also an approach I have used teaching a few other people the machine.

Thats my two cents worth.
 
And I agree with more of what you said then you think. Where I am from My first old coin was a 1797 Large cent. And I dig old large coppers like others in different parts of the country dig zincs and Wheats.
Maybe I didn't word my post right. I am all for helping new detectorists get started. In fact I have new Explorer users ask me to help them and I set them up usually in iron mask 10 or 22 depending on the Explorer and leave them in conductive. I make a few small adjustments and turn them loose. I have one fellow that likes the way I set him up a year ago he won't let me take him to the next level.
What concerned me was the High Tech info that some of the new guys want and they haven't even got 5 hours on the machine yet. One setting that everyone new should change on the SE is the preset gain from 8 down to maybe 6. This would allow them to learn what a deep signal sounds like. Its good for the Heart.
So I still say all the great info on this forum should be cataloged for use as one progresses.
Happy hunting Charles
 
There is a lot of TRUTH in your post though, some new users are capable of weeding through it all but the one's who can't SHOULD catalog it like you suggested.
But ... this information carousel keeps evolving, meaning, folks new to the Explorer and those that have found their way through long term trial and error like myself.
I suspect it will continue for years to come, as long as there are forums to post on anyway.
Yes ... there are folks out there that can pick up on it pretty quick, especially if they have a mentor in the field ... but only long term EXPERIENCE truly tells the story in the end when they get out of their common element and are hunting on their own.
After 1000's of hours with the Explorer, it still has some secrets to teach me and most have been earned the hard way too.
There is no substitute for time spent in the field. None !


Mike
 
My post was not to shut out the new user. It was meant more to encurage Walking before running.
 
the intent but I do catalog useful/tech info from several on the board. I retain the info, only deleting it after it is no longer useful to me. Sometimes I have to run the info through a filter but rarely. I don't show my finds because I don't find much. I did hunt regularly through the 70s and into the 80s. My career field was electronics (later computer) and I made the first detector I used. The fact that I find info useful is a complement to the authors.
 
that half the fun of this hobby lies in the learning and discovery process. It can be an awesome experience. But not if ones brain is overloaded with info that is not necessary at the beginning.
 
I look at it this way. With all the very informative posts, I feel they help shorten the learning curve for me and also give me more incite into what these machines are capable of doing. Of course I am not going to go and jump around trying all different types of settings while I am still a newbie with the machine but when I am ready I at least have quite a bit more knowledge how to go about it. I say keep these posts coming!!!
 
To be thrown a lifejacket, or do you think it would deprive you of the joy of learning how to swim on your own....:veryangry:
 
...I'm afraid that the genie is out of the bottle on this one. In this age of instant gratification and the accelerated knowledge that ANYBODY can gain about ANYTHING in the online community, there is no "starting at square one" anymore. And that can be both a GOOD thing and a BAD thing. :shrug:
 
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