Is the Safari a Dud?

[bigolhorns]

I have had my Safari about a year and a half. If I look at the E-Trac and Explorer forums most of the posts are about the great finds those users are making.
If I look at the Safari / Quatro forums most posts are about issues/problems users are having. Is this telling us something???? My old 1990's Eagle Spectrum can tell the difference between a dime and a quarter in the ground.
Is there a software / hardware issue with the Safari that Minelab needs to address??

 

[bugg]

How have you done with your safari? After a year and a half, what have you found? How much have you used it? The whites machines I've had in the past had lousy depth in my soil.The safari is working great for me.Excellent depth, excellent discrimination.

 

[Dan-o]

I been have making great finds with my safari. Just because people aren't posting their finds here doesn't mean they are not doing well. I purchased my Safari in January and have found 50-60 pcs of silver, 100+ wheaties, lots of buff nickels, rings, war buttons etc...
I have had zero issues with my Safari. I have 4 detectors and I will not be getting rid of my Safari anytime soon. I have hunted side by side with someone who uses an Etrac and we both checked each others targets before recovery. Neither one of us hit something that the other could not hit as well. We both make great finds in the same spots.
I hunt parks and schools that have already been hunted for years and make great finds.
I really don't see that many more posts about problems with the safari vs the etrac.
The Safari rocks.

 

[dmitchstevens]

I have had my safari abnout two months and I love it. It is a silver magnet. I have nothing bad to say. I recently put the sunray probe on mine and that is an awesome probe, increased my recovery time 10 times. I haven't foiund much other than clad but i am loving it. I probably have found about $75 in clad. one silver ring, two silver pendants. Still looking for gold jewelry. I only hunt parks and schools

 

[Dave400]

I've had my Safari since April '2010. I love it.Best machine I ever had.Found well over 1500 coins.10 silver rings.Silver halfs.10 silver dimes (1 at 10 inches).The one thing I noticed over my other machine is the weight.It's a pound or so heaiver.After 3 hours or so you notice the diff.Took it to my local ball field this weekend and found 91 coins.It has been working fine.Took a while to learn the multi tones but now I love it.I can take it to the trashiest sites and pick the coins out between the trash.I still end up with trash at the end of the hunt but a lot less.And more coins.Getting cold here now. We will see how it does in the cold.Don't think I will ever need another machine.

 

[matrix_man]

No, of course it's not a dud. An operator who finds nothing with a Safari, will also find nothing with (even) an E-trac.

 

[Watchmaker]

I would not go as far as calling it a dud, but I really regret buying mine.

The area I search is very difficult as it is both littered with iron and very noisy (EMI). I have tried many different settings with the Safari and had very little success. My biggest problem with it is that it mostly identifies iron as a good target. If I use any discrimination it is too slow to recover from the iron to find anything else. The only good targets I have recovered have been in relatively clean areas of which there are not many. Time and time again I get good audio and positive ID numbers yet when I dig more often than not it is iron. I don't mean big or strange shapes either, it mistakes all types even very small items. On my last trip I recovered 43 iron fragments, 2 blobs of lead and a piece of mains plug all with good audio and positive ID numbers.

The only explanation I have for this is the way the Safari operates and I only found this out after re-reading the Mastering the Quattro book. The operation is described as; the machine checks the signal and first decides if it is ferrous or non-ferrous before working out what ID to display. So this means that the machine is taking away the decision from the operator and in my experience mainly getting it wrong. At least with an Explorer you get the ferrous and conductive data on which to base your decision to dig. If I had been aware of this before I bought the Safari, I would have bought something else instead. When you add to this the fact that it sounds like an out of tune orchestra and you have no way to reduce the number of tones, you have a machine which is far from suitable for a beginner despite what Minelab claim.

I have come to these conclusions after much testing and comparing to other machines. On one occasion I marked the targets found with the Safari and then went over the same area with my Garrett GTAx 550 before digging to see what it found. A couple of the targets were too deep for the Garrett, but it correctly identified all the Iron and the non-ferrous. It also found a button near and just below iron by showing two distinct targets on the display, while the Safari only showed iron. I thought it was interesting that on this target it actually got the iron part right for a change.

I can only assume that I have been very unlucky that the area I search is so bad for the Safari. I only hope that it does better at the beach, if I get a chance to use it there, otherwise it is a lot of money wasted.

 

[Prep1957]

Watchmaker-Good thing you did not buy the etrac you would really be mad I do share a lot of you observations the etrac would have not made you any happier.Now I owned a etrac and a Safari I sold the etrac and kept the Safari.The Safari is a good detector and I have found hundreds of coins and great stuff but the first thing you have to do is get rid of pro coil it is iron magnet although it finds coins deep it is pain in ass it is great open field coil.I do not think the Safari is a good beginners detector either it was easy for me because I ran a lot of Fisher Detectors.The etrac site has four or five guys that hunt everyday they would find something no matter what they were using.Look on You tube almost all the Minelab products are wearing new accessory coil also look at all the video's on line most of all are not hunting in heavy trash and are hunting new spots.If I were you I would hunt with Garret first then Safari then I would go over spot with gold detector.I have not posted any finds because I use a metal detector for a living and I have been working 80 hours a week if you think finding a good coin hunting machine is tough there are more models and brands in the utility locating world at prices up to 25 thousand dollars.I have not had any real trouble with my Safari although their customer service is horrid and it is a battery sucking vampire the discriminator needs to be better it still is the deepest hard hunted park detector out there bar none.I am keeping an eye on the new Garret that is coming out.

 

[dont know nutin]

" get rid of pro coil it is iron magnet" what coil should we buy? And why doesent Minelab put the better coil on the unit before seling it to us?

 

[dont know nutin]

I have used the Safari now over 1 year and have found a total of $1.64 in clad and 832 iron nails! Its a GREAT detector!

 

[Watchmaker]

Unfortunately I have already tried another coil. I bought an SEF 8x6 which was worse at giving incorrect ID numbers and seems to give far more false signals than the stock coil. Where it does do well is at pinpointing. You do not need to use the pinpoint mode and it was spot on every time (when it was not a false signal), plus it is quite a bit lighter.

Does anyone know if the Safari does the initial processing to establish the ferrous nature of the target before it sounds the audio, or is the audio derived from the raw signal. The reason I ask is that if the audio comes from the unprocessed signal then I need to run in ferrous audio and just listen to the sound ignoring what the display says. If it sounds low ignore it, otherwise dig. If, however, the audio is derived from the processed signal then I am stuffed either way. It would have been more helpful if Minelab had included a DVD showing how the machine reacts in different environments rather than just giving a brief description in the handbook.

 

[bigolhorns]

One thing that really puzzles me is the very narrow ID range the Safari has for U.S. coins. Junk (aluminum) ID's from 1 to around 31. Zinc pennies 31-37
Pennies, dimes, quarters and most silver is 38-39.What's up with such a narrow range??? I say it's a programing problem.

 

[Prep1957]

I bought the 6X8 SEF and it seems more stable and you are right it pinpoints great I think it helped my Safari a lot I dug less Iron but I hunt in good black Illinois soil most of the time.It really excelled in a park that I thought I hunted out that was junk infested found a lot of old silver.If the signal did not repeat from 2 directions I would not dig.I have not found a coin deeper than 8 inches with 6X8 but I am pretty impressed with that.I have found zinc fruit jar lids to 12 inches with 6X8.I do not really care for nickles so this is how I hunt in trash areas.Set to high trash density,Everything below 25 disc.out and the number 40.Sensitivity to auto.Go to all metal sweep coil and find a clean spot as close to spot that you are going to hunt.Then go to the program you want to hunt in and ground reject at the clean spot you have found at the coil level you will be hunting in. I would do this every half hour or when you change to a new program to hunt.I get a lot of guff about all the things I could be missing hunting so high but I dig a lot less junk.Also you are right about the Safari not recovering fast enough in heavy trash that is why you go slow and although it is stupid you may have to sweep same area several times until you hear Safari recover from blanking out.I have found a lot great old coins out of this hunted out park more than I thought was there. The etrac is a great machine in trash also but not any better than Safari it's recovery is about the same.When I hunt in high trash when I first got Safari I hunted with blue painters tape covering ID screen.From 25 to 30 on ID screen if it is not deeper than 6 inches I will not dig.

 

[bugg]

It appears you like your whites, why not get a v3? trade off the safari and be happy? From what I hear, it may take a few years to figure out how to set it up, but that will keep you busy, and you will forget about whinning on this board. Enjoy life, its short.

 

[bugg]

Sounds like an operator problem. Your handle says it all.

 

[Prep1957]

I like all detectors I used whites for years the V3 is a very good detector used one for about a week liked it called kellyco to order was 1600 dollars did not like it that much checking for good used one with recent improvements.Picked up F75 not 6 months old with extra coil for 450 dollars couple weeks ago.

 

[Prep1957]

Hey Bugg you get a chance to try my hunting pattern in one of the above posts I sure like helping fellow Safari user that are having problems learning their machine and achieve the success that I have been having.I am glad that you are in complete agreement with me about replacing the 11 inch pro coil with different accessory coil I see that you already have bought the X-5 and 6X8 SEF and on another post you you are showing great interest in getting either X-12 or the 12X15 SEF I think you will find either one will be just like you decided a little bit better than the pro coil which is my back up spare.Maybe you could share your thoughts on how you hunt with the Safari and maybe we could pick out something that would help the rest of us get a little more pleasure out of our hunts.I see by your posts that you have owned several whites good for you I remember the first motion detector that came out a whites 6DB that started this whole motion detector revolution the dealer in Kankakee got one of the first demo's we all met at state park and buy the end of the week we all bought one and almost every coin you found was silver.In my opinion the reason that the safari has 51 segments and only uses about 10 for coins counting segment 13 for nickels is that it is made by a non United States Company and the detector is set up to find coins that are made of different alloy metal/iron that is custom to there country.That is why I hunt higher up in disc than US made detector.But that is just a opinion of mine I am waiting to here what you and the rest of safari owners think maybe they need to make a US version of a safari like garret is coming out with ATPro International and US version.You can play soccer with basket ball and play basket ball with soccer ball but lets face it you have to make adjustments.I look forward to your opinions about this post,the Safari,and myself.

 

[dont know nutin]

I got out yesterday with my Safari! I found a paperclip and a metal snap off someone's jacket. Both came in a solid 38!

 

[UtahRich]

Hey there Bigolhorns,

Thinking of bailing on the Safari?

I see lots of picture stories in the Explorer and E-Trac forums as well, including some of my own. I don't see so many posts on the other forums because those guys are all out detecting and finding lots of stuff and keeping it secret. We haven't figured out yet that we INCREASE the competition out there by posting lots of good finds with our Explorers and E-tracs. On the other hand, those smart guys in the other forums keep all of their finds on the hush-hush so that everybody doesn't run out and buy one of the detectors they are using and clean out the local parks and schools with them.

Kidding aside, I feel the pain. Finding just the right detector can be a royal pain. Just look at how many detectors some us have had over the years hoping for that magic detector that makes coins and gold rings jump out of the ground.

Perhaps a better question to ask yourself is, "Is the Safari the right detector for me?" You've given it a year and a half of your time. If it isn't up to what you think it should be, and you are sure that you are operating it correctly, carefully review what else is out there and make a switch.

Not enough resolution on the target ID? One of the great qualities I've found with the Minelabs is their ability to find coins and such mixed in with iron. Many of my better finds have target ID's that jump around a bit on my E-trac, (and previously my Explorer XS) leaving me with a suspicion of what I think it is, but still an unknown. With my minelabs, my best information comes thru the headphones and the target ID is an important second opinion

In public places like parks and old schools, most of the EASY good targets that lock on with a rock solid reading have already been dug by others. I think the Explorers and E-tracs have found a nice balance between high performance and ease of use which is why you see a large following of users. I've read similar things when I peek in the Safari forum. The safari is similar to the Explorer and E-trac in performance minus some of the bells and whistles and selling for quite a bit less $$. In the end though, it is about performance, what do I find when I'm out with my detector? That is what makes this hobby fun. If you aren't having fun, you owe it to yourself to make a switch.

Good luck.

Rich (Utah)

 

[Dave400]

One of the reasons I like my safari is the disc. of iron. I've found dimes right next to nails,also pennies.Maybe it's a programming problem in the detecter.Every now and then mine will hit on iron usally old and rusted.Some one put on here that some really russty iron changes it's conductivity and thats why it hits on it like a coin.I hunt some spots that have a lot of iron trash and when you go over the iron you can hear the det. null out over the iron so I guess it's working I hunt in coin and jewelry most of the time.It's a challenge learning this machine, even after 7 months.But very time I use it ,It proves itself.Good luck with your machine hope you get it figured out.