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Iron Mask Question...

T

txop

Member
OK, I just bought a new Explorer SE pro and have been reading Andy's new book. I got to the iron mask chapter and thought I understood it but I guess not.

I know you set it for the amount of ferous materal you want to reject but I also get the impression it helps you unmask targets somewhat next to iron.

I have my detector set up in the house with the coil in mid air where I have been testing in all metal to hear what all the various targets sound like from stuff I found in the past.

I turned on iron mask and let it at the default of 16 and ran a piece of an old iron belt bucklet across the coil and there was no sound except for the threshold nulling. Then I ran various coils past the coil and hear all of them just fine. I then held the belt buckle and the coin at various distances from each other thinking I would hear some kind of peep out of the detector but nothing. So I opened up iron mask up all the way, All Metal, and tried again. Same thing. I can now hear the belt buckel but not a peep from the coin.

What am I missing? Can I just not see this in an air test?

Thanks for any help. BTW, Andy's book is fantastic. It really gave me a perfect understanding of all the menu settings as far as what they do. I will have to experiment to see the interaction between the settings.

Anyway, any help on the IM questions?

Harold
 
If your moving the buckle and coin,the iron is being masked,thus the nulling,hold them still and just wiggle them,
hold them still long enough,the nulling quits,you should get a chirp from the silver.
This will show how slow you have to go to catch coins hiding in trash.
What they don't talk about in a lot of the books,is the recovery speed.
This is the time it takes the detector to reset after nulling,(Going over something discriminated out).
Before it will pick up another object.
Try this,it will give you a understanding of what i am talking about.
Use some iron mask,say 22,This is where i run mine at,So with iron mask set on at 22,
Find an area free of other metal objects,place a nail on the ground or floor on the left,place a dime,about six inches to the right of the nail. what you are going to do is sweep your coil over both of them from left to right only.
when you go over the nail,the detector will null,move the coin farther away till you get a signal from the dime AFTER passing over the nail.This is the time it takes the detector to recover,before it will pick up the coin.
also,the slower you go,the closer you can move the coin towards the nail and still pick up the coin.
Hope this isn't too confusing.
Harold Reese
 
You get more good targets if you run in all metal mode imo. Use ' ferrous' sounds and dig everything that doesnt give a deep (iron) sound. 'Masking' blanks out too much.
 
trust me...conductive sounds and some iron mask works very well for quite a few of us fellers':cheers:
Minelab put the "iron mask" feature on the explorers for a reason...cause' it works.

That gives us all a choice of how we want to hunt and what we want to hear. No right or wrong way...ONLY the way that works best for each of us.

Take your pick...ferrous/AM or conductive/iron mask...they both work.:thumbup:
[attachment 151610 crowdclapping.gif]
 
When it blanks it blanks everything including the sound of a good target. Try air testing a piece of iron and a coin together and see if the coin is hidden.
 
I don't do much deep coin huntin' in the air:cool:...only in the ground:thumbup:...and I have found 100's of deep silver coins on iron...under iron...beside iron..mixed in with iron...on edge with iron...nulling over iron...etc. while running my iron mask at -22 and in conductive sounds.

Please feel free to view the field tests and hunts post at the top of the page.

I am not interested in a debate...so please don't start one. You stated your opinion...I fully respect your opinion....and I more than backed mine up.

AGAIN...there is NO right way or wrong way...ONLY the way that works best for each of us and our hunting styles.
 
Bryce,

I was not trying to start a debate with my question. I am trying to find out if I am understanding what I am reading. That's all. I don't think you or anyone else has anwered my question. In theory are my statements above correct?

As far as air testing I am just doing what Andy suggest in his book; Learn the dector first before you take it in the field. I know the detector will work differently in the ground but it's to cold here to go out today. It's like 27 here in Dallas, Tx and we are a bunch of wimps when it gets below about 50 or so.

Anyway, can you or anyone else please re-read what I have said above and let me know if I am understanding what I am reading. I have had a couple of Explorers before and given up on them because I never took the time to understand what the detector was doing. I have read several books in the past but never anything as interesting as the newer book I am reading.

I am just simply looking for some factual help, not opinions. I will end of figuring out what works best for me once I understand what IM is supposed to do.

If someone has already answered my question I apologize. I am just trying to figure this thing out.

Harold
 
Harold Reese,

I will try what you are saying. I know there is an option for recovery speed. I tried that but it didn't make much difference.

In a nutshell, I think I understand that IM is about the same as the other modes but has some additional programming that helps it seperate a good target close to iron.

Would you agree with that?

Thanks,

Harold
 
Iron is a real problem in my fields, I'm in Denmark. There are literally places that 'blank' out continuously. I would find less if I had masking turned on imo.
 
Harold Reese,

I believe I see what you are saying. I ran them across several times and would get a high peep, sometimes in just one direction. Something in the past I might not look at any further.

Then I did the wiggle and could clearly hear the high pitch of the coin. I was expecting to SLOWLY pass the coil and iron across the coil and hear the silver. Wouldn't that be cool if that worked.

Anyway, thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Harold
 
I was using a rather large piece of iron and a quarter. I can see with something like a rusty nail it would see the coin better.

This is all maing since now.

Thanks.
 
This will show you how it works.

Put a nail on the ground, place a quarter (or any coin) under it. If you swing your detector so that the nail is parallel with the center web (hot spot) you will generally get a decent signal. If you now turn 90 degrees so the nail is across the center web you will only get a null or iron hit, depending on the amount of discrimination you use. No detector will see the coin in this orientation, but a DD coil CAN see it from the initial position. This is why trash filled parks came alive again with the explorer detectors, they were among the first to popularize the DDs. But as you can see from the experiment that we are still missing a ton of coins because the bulk of the time the iron will mask the coin. It is often only when you hit a target from a certain angle of approach will you get a signal. Try placing the nail and coin apart in different orientations and try swinging from different angles and speeds. Should be a pretty good eye opener about the machine's capability.

I'm guessing your buckle was bigger than the coin in all dimensions and effectively masked the target.

The choice of the word iron mask is a deceptive one. Iron mask is just regular discrimination. Only thing different is that it is easier to increase or decrease than programming in a pattern. It has nothing to do with "unmasking" targets next to iron.

Try going to an open screen in ferrous and start swinging over that coin and nail. When standing in the first position (nail facing away) you should get a good sounding signal every swing. Sometimes it will be better than others and many times the target icon will hit to the top left part of the screen, instead of the top right. But the sound will usually be good enough to catch your interest. Now start increasing iron mask. You will eventually find at some level you are no longer getting a good hit every swing, maybe 2 out of 3 or 1 out of 2. You'll be getting a null the other swings. That is why many of us advise against using any more discrimination than necessary. We are not saying you can't find coins this way, but you are really decreasing your odds of getting a good signal.

Chris
 
Interesting post guys, I have a Safari and like alot of folks, I hunt in all metal. That way the nulling is kept at a minimum. So, I take it that the Iron Mask on the Explorer is the same as the regular discrimination on the Safari? The Safari acts the same way when in discriminate modes..........MO
 
a great tool for information. You did absolutely nothing wrong:thumbup: You find out stuff ...and learn by asking questions.

I just wanted to point out to toewarmers that there is NO right way OR wrong way. There is also NO "my way is better that your way".

I also know I don't have to be in all metal to hear a coin hiding in iron...and I get signals just fine no matter where the placement of the coin is according to the iron. I have found a silver dime directly under a 5" piece of iron...and there was absolutely no part of that dime sticking out from the iron. I don't have technical answer as to why...and I don't need one. I just know sometimes people spend too much time trying to analyze things with reasons why it won't work...when all along I have found coins in ways they told me I shouldn't....or couldn't.

Neither way is perfect and I hunt with a couple of guys who LOVE all metal/ferrous sounds and a couple of guys who hunt conductive sounds/iron mask. Trust me...we all find stuff.

Anyway...thank you for this response and you don't owe me an apology for anything. We are all friends here.:clapping:
 
OK, so one person said it's just another descrimation pattern; easier to set up that trying to do it one the smart find screen. I can see that.

I thought I read in Andy's book that in IM the software was a little different to help to "mask" ferrous stuff from non-ferrous stuff. I think I may be reading something into it I shouldn't. He probably just means it's easier to hunt ferrous mode by using IM. I probably did a bad job of explaining but I hope you can understand.

I think I am at the point I need to stop reading and get the detector out of the house now that I understand the items you can set. I have a lot to learn but at least I know what adjust does what.

There is an old hunted out park by the Garrett factory that they have typically used in the past to test their detectors. I have used an MXT there before and just found a bunch of clad. This park is huge and woould take a long time to hunt going as slow as I guess you need to go with an Explorer. So it will give me a place to practice for a while. I am going to give it a try tomorrow if I can stand the cold. It was 70 degrees here all last week. I get a new detector and it goes into the high 20's and low 30's. Go figure.....
 
Bryce,

I will do that. The sentence that is throwing me is his one sentence at the bottom of page 62. He says in part of the definition that says "as well as minimize the amount of masking from nearby trash targets". That lead me to think that when you turn IM on it had different software than when IM is off. Like I said I may be reading more into that than is there.

Harold
 
That part of this post was in response to what I said earlier. Have you really tried this with the nail and coin? You will see it totally matters what the orientation of the nail to the coin to the coil. Try it. I'm by no means saying you need to be in all metal to find coins in trash. I didn't see a whole lot of missed signals at small amounts of iron mask, but when you start blacking out much of the left hand of the screen you will start missing coins hidden in iron that you can hear just fine without the added discrimination. What I am mainly arguing against is what was explained in the original manual: That you can learn in little areas where coins hit and go detecting. I know Minelab marketing would love this to be true, but it certainly is not the case.

I also hunt in totally iron-laden sites, that is where the goodies are left. I don't think I've ever pulled a coin that was completely under a chunk of iron, but have found zillions that where buried close to several iron parts. I have a Periscope probe and probe for the coin before digging. Pretty much lets me know where the iron is in relation to the target.

But I also know we are probably missing more than we dig, no matter what our settings. Anyone who has been over an area that has had 50 years of nail ridden topsoil scraped off can probably attest to the same. You will pull a whole ton of coins from an inch or two deep. They were not too deep to be seen by the explorer, or any other decent machine, but were masked by adjacent trash.

I'm just saying there are some basic tests everyone who owns a detector should try. Like the nail and the coin, and checking depths in auto or manual at sensitivity 1 and then at a much higher sensitivity. They really are eye-openers.

This winter before I cleaned up and stored my equipment I spent an hour or so swinging various targets over the coil. I held a silver quarter next to different sized ferrous items and swung over the coil in different orientations. I tried all manner of sensitivities and discrimination. One new thing I learned is that coils do have a "Sweet" spot in the middle that gives a much better response than the front or back of the "hot" zone. I kind of knew this from years with the WOT; there were many times I could get a signal but moving forward or back a couple of inches and the signal was gone. Found out the Pro coil was much the same. There is a spot in the middle where the iron/coin combination has a much sweeter response, again the iron had to be aligned with the center web to get any signal at all. I will be overlapping my swings even more next spring. Actually learned a few other things. Maybe later should film and YouTube it.

Chris
 
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