It's here.....!!!

[Willy_MN]

The new SE showed up here at work today! Had it shipped here as it was signature required. Now the
box is sitting on the table in my office "staring" at me and the clock has apparently stopped running.

I haven't posted much on here, but have done a lot of reading and learning. I wanted to say thank you to
all the pros on here that are so generous with their time and advice -- it is appreciated. With your help,
I feel like I'm going into this as informed and educated as I could possibly be. In addition to the reading
I've done on this and other forums, I've also read Andy Sabisch's books "Mastering the Minelab Explorer
XS & S" and "The Minelab Explorer & E-Trac Handbook" -- read them both twice actually. I downloaded
the manual about a month ago and have read through that several times. I downloaded the SE Emulator
and have played with that some to get a feel for the tones/settings a little. And, I've spent some time checking
out some of the videos on Youtube.

Does anyone have any other helpful tips for me before I take off into the unknown?

C'mon 4:30.....can't wait to get started with this thing!

Thanks in advance,
Willy

 

[Dan-Pa.]

Hunt in the factory settings and dig a lot till you get the feeling for the beast...for gosh sakes don't get fancy and pick ferrous or conduct and stay with it...Although good reading Andy's books are a little too technical and may not use or need some of the bells and whistles so crawl before you walk and you won't be confused.
A local mentor(dealer-clubmember-friend) who is efficient with the beast can cut down the learning curve immensely...
PS: I use the term beast in a positive manner as thats what the silver coins will call it once you start swinging...

 

[Great Republic]

n/t

 

[montanagold]

I agree with the stay in factory settings. Its the best advice. You are going to love this machine. Good luck and hope to see some posts of your finds.

 

[king-ghidorah]

I agree with what Dan-Pa says. There are no magical settings at first. It just takes getting used to.

 

[dewcon4414]

Sorry guys, but i feel the need for speed.... well depth. Id still have to jack my semi sensitivity up to 26 or 28. With the machine in charge why leave it at 22 and miss that first deep silver.

Dew

 

[Willy_MN]

Well, after assembling "the beast" and spending some time air testing some targets, I got to spend about an hour in my yard
with the SE last night and here are my first impressions.

First off, the machine is definitely solidly built and, surprisingly, I didn't find the weight to be an issue at all. Yes, it is heavier
than my X-Terra 50, but it is very well balanced and comfortable to swing. The fit and finish is very good and everything
assembled with no issues. The all black color scheme looks great -- almost military looking. One feature I really like, with me
being only 5'-7" tall, is the Explorer is adjustable to a much shorter length than the X-Terra. So, I was able to adjust it to a very
comfortable length for me. I didn't really realize that the X-Terra was too long for me until I used the SE -- I'm going to have to
shorten the X-Terra shaft as well.

Now, on to the yard hunting. I ran in the factory settings, with the exception of the sensitivity -- that I had turned up to 26. After
noise canceling, the machine ran very stable and quiet. The first two targets I dug were a .45 cal pistol casing that was pushing
6" deep and a 1966 copper penny at 5" deep. These both came out of an area of my yard that my brother in law and I have hit
over and over (he runs an X-Terra 70) and they both came through the trash loud and clear. I am very impressed with how well
the coil separates targets as I've had some issues with the 10.5" 7.5kHz DD coil on the X-Terra. One of the biggest reasons I
wanted to try the Explorer was due to the X-Terra's love for rusty bottle caps -- especially with the 10.5" DD coil. The next target
I dug was a solid, medium pitched target. It ended up being a rusty bottle cap. I went on to purposely dig 6 more and -- while they
varied greatly in where they registered on the Smart Find screen -- they all had the same "mid-pitched, hollow honk" sound to
them (if that makes sense to anyone else but me ). So this, to me, was a very good discovery! I did get fooled by a couple
rusty nails, but learned that those can be had -- most of the time -- by double checking the digital screen and noting the huge
swings in the FE and CO values and the inability of the machine to lock on to a set of numbers. The only question I have is in
regards to the the threshold tone. At times I noticed the threshold would disappear for extended periods of time -- is this normal
to have happen?

I am sure I'm going to love this machine once I get some time on it. It definitely has its own language, that's for sure. I'm heading
out for a day of hunting tomorrow with my brother in law, so we'll see how much more learning I can get done. Thanks again to
everyone that's so willing to share their knowledge and help newbies, like me, get "over the hump" with the Explorer.

Jeff

 

[johnnywilliamson]

Hey, Jeff -

Gather a bunch of potential trash targets (different kinds of pulltabs, bottlecaps, nails, whatnot) and various coins, and airtest them to observe how they sound, and where they show up on the SmartFind screen. The key here is to "tune" your ears to the sound/location of trash targets, as well as coins. You can also put down multiple targets near one another, and observe how proximity to trash targets can affect the detection/ID of coins. Another thing you can do is gradually raise your coil as you sweep across a target, and learn how depth can affect the "classic" sound and/or SmartFind location of a target as you near the detection limitations of your SE/coil. Once learning this, you will undoubtedly know when you pass over a silver coin, as well as bottlecaps and other distinctive sounds/targets. Targets that have been in the ground for years/decades will not always sound like or hit in the areas on the SmartFind screen where they airtest, but have enough similarities to give you hints as to the ID of a potential target. Detecting is not an exact science - you just want to put the odds in your favor, so that you dig less trash and find more goodies, percentage-wise. Good luck in your learning curve, and most of all, have fun! Take care. Johnny

 

[Hotcz70]

Hi willy.

Welcome aboard..and good luck with the sweet machine.

Here's a couple of links to responses I made for new users...and I think they would help you out too.

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?19,987861,988031#msg-988031

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?19,1027264,1027477#msg-1027477

 

[Willy_MN]

Well, yesterday turned out to be a great learning day for me and the SE!

First we hit a very old rural church that my hunting partner had pulled an 1889s seated dime out of the previous
weekend. We didn't pull much out of there this time, and upon learning from one of the parishioners that the place
has been hit very hard in the past, we decided to move on down the road. Dan suggested we hit an old county park
that hosts a celebration every year. Well, I ended up stumbling onto an area that must be host to some kind of coin
toss game, or something similar, during the party. Over the next 2 hours, Dan, his 12 year old daughter and I pulled
roughly 250 coins (totaling almost $15.00) out of a 15' x 15' area -- there is probably that much again in the ground
yet, but it was time to head home for the day. I'll post pics of "the pile" as soon as I can.

While we didn't find anything old, it was a great opportunity to learn the coin sounds of the SE -- I ended up with 123
coins, totaling $6.24 on the day and am pretty confident on ID'ing at least the shallower coins with the SE now. Also,
it was great that Dan's daughter got to experience digging on something like this on her first official day of MD'ing.

All in all, a great day of hunting. After putting in a good 7 hours yesterday, I didn't find my shoulder to be any more
tired than it was with the X-Terra and I don't think the weight will be an issue at all. Now to find some spare time to
work on researching a few leads I have and move onto finding some older stuff -- I have no doubts that this is going
to be a great machine with some more time on it.

Thanks for reading and happy hunting,
Jeff

BTW, Bryce, I had your coins settings -- from Andy's "The Minelab Explorer and E-Trac Handbook" -- loaded into User
B on my machine when I headed out for the day yesterday. I tried them a couple different times.....WOW, it's gonna be
a while before I can run anywhere close to that -- not for the faint of heart! LOL! It'll come though.

Thanks again, everyone, for the advice.

 

[Hotcz70]

be quite a while before you even mess with any settings changes.

I would take it slower than slow...and stay very basic for a while.

I honestly feel it's best to stay with the factory presets for some time...until you get familiar with the SE's language over deep coins.

Good luck with it...and keep on diggin'.

 

[Willy_MN]

Yeah, Bryce, I just wanted to get a feel for where a guy typically ends up with the machine. I've been running in the
factory settings -- with the exception of running the sensitivity at 26.

Here are a couple of pics from yesterday's haul.

Total for all three of us -- including the live rifle round Dan dug up. Yikes! We disarmed it and got rid of it:
[attachment 136143 DSC04244.JPG]

Here's my take from the diggings:
[attachment 136146 IMG_4167.JPG]

Thanks for looking,
Jeff

 

[RandyNorthridgeca]

n/t