Learn mode?

[Anonymous]

I do understand the signature of an item changes when it's been in the ground for a while.Three questions:
1.If I were to lets say program a quarter ,dime, and nickle,air test of course, would it still hit the same as a coin in the ground.
2.Would it be a good idea to get a few rings from my wife's collection,and maybe a few of her girlfriends and make and save a "ring" program,does it really help ID rings in the ground.
3.If I am running with this "ring" program,will coins be discriminated out? thanks, Scott

 

[Anonymous]

great question, I also would like to know about this.

 

[Anonymous]

I have used a coin program with some success. I use it most in really trashy areas. The rest of the time, I use the default coin program and jack the sensitivity up to 23 or over if conditions will allow. I have gotten pretty good with the tones and I really like the digital mode on the Explorer II so I rarely use the smart find display any more when I am coinshooting. I have found rings all over the screen so it's my opinion that if you use a broad spectrum of rings while programming, you probably will not be much more sucessful than you would by just learning what your detector is telling you through the tones and digital display. I am certainly no expert and admittedly primarily a coinshooter so I hope you get lot's of posts to read.

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Scott,
The whole learning in patterns probably sounded like a great idea when it was first thought of.
But....
Coins in the ground, in mineralized soil, next to junk, pretty much everything besides real shallow ones will hit outside of the expected area a good portion of the time. It may bounce where it should one in every four swing, but this means you will only get a hit 25% of the time.
Rings are even worse. Because of differing alloys and sizes than can hit about anywhere on the screen, Throw in the ground effects mentioned above for coins and the situation becomes even worse.
About the only time you might use this feature is if a person lost a ring and had exact duplicate for you to learn.
Much much better to start running the standard coin program. Then switch to iron mask and slowly decrease the amount of discrimination as you get used to all the sounds.
There are some wonderful setup articles written by Mike Moutry, Charles(UpstateNY), and others that you should be able to find on the web. And plenty of advice if you search the archives on the Explorer classroom.
The best thing you can do is do the let the detector tell you as much as you can handle and do the discriminating in your brain.
Chris

 

[Anonymous]

Over the years as people have gotten more time under their belt with the Explorer, the standard answer to anyone asking how to set up the Explorer has become "Iron Mask -16 or -15" as that will ensure you do not miss anything. Well, we can take that even further and say, "<EM>Buy a GP 3000 which is an all-metal detector and hunt the local parks or relic sites . . . . won't miss anything and boy, you'll get some depth to boot!</EM>".
At the 2004 Minelab dealer seminar in Las Vegas last November this was a topic that came up more than once and it was shown that IM is <STRONG>NOT </STRONG>the way you have to go most of the times to ensure good targets are not overlooked . . . . . the use of selective discrimination will out hunt IM 95% of the time (OK, I'm sure the bricks will start flying now!).
As far as the use of patterns, I've had the opportunity to talk to 100's of Explorer users worldwide and the consistent message is that pattern programming does work and has its place. Many of us do not have unlimited amounts of time to hunt so success comes down to a matter of math; i.e., how many good targets are recovered in a certain amount of time. Will hunting in IM -15 or -16 ensure that even "iffy" signals are investigated and recovered? Yes, but if 50%+ turn out to be trash, that was time that could have been spent going for the known good targets. If you have the time and patience to go for the marginable or partially masked targets, by all means do so but if time is limited or the site is simply a "trash dump", then cherry picking it first just makes sense. There have been many areas that I have passed while travelling that lookd prominsing but I only had an hour or so to hunt. Using an old coins program netted me far more than I would have found had I dug everything that even remotely sounded good. Did I miss any "keepers" . . . maybe, but I know that a pocketfull of coins made my day!
Beach hunters have also reported positive results - often out-hunting other Explorer users they hunted next to who were searching in IM - by using a program similar to the Gold program in my book.
In summary, programs have their applications as does hunting with little or no discrimination. Each of us needs to determine
1) how much time we have to hunt an area,
2) do we have the patience to hunt with little or no discrimination,
3) what is the trash content of the area,
4) what is our definition of "success" for that hunt (and that does change).
The answers will define what level of discrimination you should use for that specific site on that specific day - and it can change from day to day.
Just another perspective . . .
Andy Sabisch

 

[Anonymous]

Good idea to make a "learn set".But don't stop at just rings.I tried to use a sample of everything I'm willing to look for,and also some of the junk--bottle caps,pulltabs etc. Learn the stuff in what you want to keep and also what you want to reject.After you've did the learning,you can go into edit and tweek what needs to be tweeked or 'ajusted'.There's one thing you have to learn or remember,YOUR NOT GOING TO GET IT ALL.But you can get a good part of it.Why buy a machine with all these features and then not try to use them.Heres my learn kit. HH Bob

 

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

Rings are even worse. Because of differing alloys and sizes than can hit about anywhere on the screen, Throw in the ground effects mentioned above for coins and the situation becomes even worse.

 

[Anonymous]

That might be fine if you are just a <STRONG>modern coin shooter</STRONG>, but not for colonial era coins and relics.
IM is basically the only way to go on most of my sites, since most of them were abandoned in the mid 1800's and therefore there is not much "trash" like a homestead from the 1890's and on would have.
A lot of the posters are hunting similiar homesteads the majority of the time and there is no way you want to Cherry Pick your finds.
So how you set up your detector without a doubt depends a lot on the area you hunt most of the time.
I wont even go into how colonial coppers vary from coin to coin due to so many of them being counterfeits made of varying amounts of copper, zinc, lead, pewter, etc.
A program for a coin/relic hunter like myself would be a waste of time.
More important is to get to know your detector and the sounds and readings of what is common in your area.
I am still trying to figure out why shotgun casings vary so much in sound and readings after 4 years of digging thousands of them..... <img src="/metal/html/smile.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt="">
Now I expect the brick to be thrown back. <img src="/metal/html/smile.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt="">
Don

 

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

Hi Andy,
"At the 2004 Minelab dealer seminar in Las Vegas last November this was a topic that came up more than once and it was shown that IM is NOT the way you have to go most of the times to ensure good targets are not overlooked"
Charles - the above may hold true for a given site condition but since site conditions vary considerably I don't believe there is a simple answer as to how best to hunt them that works "most" of the time. I use 4 different approaches in a single park, adapting as best I can to the particular site condition in that area. A coin pattern only works well in a few select areas of that park.
" . . . . . the use of selective discrimination will out hunt IM 95% of the time (OK, I'm sure the bricks will start flying now!). "
I agree for a given site condition that may hold true. But for the average site that we have hunted with Explorers for 2-3 seasons the cherry pickers approach will likely result in going home empty handed as the easy signals are long gone.
"As far as the use of patterns, I've had the opportunity to talk to 100's of Explorer users worldwide and the consistent message is that pattern programming does work and has its place."
I agree and use them at times.
"Many of us do not have unlimited amounts of time to hunt so success comes down to a matter of math; i.e., how many good targets are recovered in a certain amount of time."
I rarely have more than a couple of hours to hunt so I face this question frequently, do I use a disc pattern to cover lots of ground fast? The theory is that if I cover twice the ground in a given period of time that I should find more good targets right? Sounds reasonable but in practice this approach fails miserably at the sites I hunt.
The reason is that the vast majority of good targets that are left (at sites I hunt) are the more difficult signals, they are hiding up near trash or iron, they are deep and iffy. Thats why they are still around after 20 years of people detecting for them. I consistently find far more good targets per hunt when I'm running wide open IM -16 (or nearly so) and creeping along slow. I have rehunted areas slowly that I previouly hunted more quickly with more discrimination and picked off many good targets.
Ed will remember one spot we covered many times over in IM and seemed played out. Its no bigger than my front yard but it gave up old IH's in superb condition so we could not resist rehunting it. Well one day I decided to go IM -16 with no disc and creep forward, and I mean slow. It took me about 90 minutes to make a single pass across this site, the result...not one but 2 very nice large cents and 1 indian head. Most days I'd be happy to find a single large cent let alone two.
So given the site conditions where I hunt the cover lots of ground fast approach does not result in more good targets, just the opposite. At the beach? Big coil go fast. 20 acre farm field? Big coil go fast. Modern trash heap in a park? Coin pattern medium slow to slow. The correct approaches are as varied as the site conditions.
"Using an old coins program netted me far more than I would have found had I dug everything that even remotely sounded good. Did I miss any "keepers" . . . maybe, but I know that a pocketfull of coins made my day!"
How can you be sure your approach netted more coins unless you went back to the same spot and tried the IM approach? Thats the only test that holds water, could be had you covered less ground in the same 90 minutes using an IM approach you may have found more coins and deeper, older, more valuable coins. Also its not alwasy about quantity, I'd take 1 flying eagle or seated dime over a dozen 1900's indian heads.
"Beach hunters have also reported positive results - often out-hunting other Explorer users they hunted next to who were searching in IM - by using a program similar to the Gold program in my book."
Beach hunting is a realm unto itself. Guys like Beachcomber who have hunted the beaches for years and have piles of gold finds can offer some valuable advice. When I hunted with him last year he shared quite a number of do's and don'ts, its quite a bit different than hunting cellar holes, farm fields or parks.
A final note on the IM approach, the IM method may not be the most successful for someone brand new to the machine. Its best to ease into it over 2-3 weeks. Its also not always the best approach to take for a given site.
Thats my two bricks worth! lol

 

[Anonymous]

what i really should have said is:
i use a pattern almost all the time from july thru. sept..............after that i hunt the beach in I M 14 or 15.
summer i can cover more area in less time and find gold and silver, no pennies excepted the really nasty ones............i can hear them and dimes, but seldom digem.........find many nickels and quarters and 1000's of pull tabs just like everyone else hunting on the beach...............b u t for me patterns are great used in the right zone and at the right time.

 

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

Hey Andy,
I think you may be misunderstanding the non-pattern approach. It is not at all like hunting with an all metal machine such as a GP 3000. (never used or seen one so my ignorance may be apparent but I'm assuming this is a PI that gives one flavor of beep for any metal?)
The explorer's wide range of tones and the 2 dimensional display gives one much information about what is in the ground. You don't dig every target, but you do listen to them all and anything that sounds interesting gets a more thorough checking out. You can still cherry pick all you want by only digging the most promising signals.
By using lots of discrimination, especially learned in patterns you are denying yourself much of this information. A null is a null is a null but with an open screen you get to hear more sounds that may provide useful information. And with screen area blacked out you cannot watch how the crosshair icon jumps about- which is often key in determining whether to dig.
If the explorer was monotonic, or even a two or three tone machine, or if it had a single axis display, hunting wide open would be much less worthwhile.
I don't disagree that patterns have their place. I've never done any beach hunting but I could see why they might be useful there, probably also o.k. for competition hunts. I've hunted a few parks with lots of modern trash and have just blocked out the entire bottom of the screen. And if you are hunting relatively virgin ground with personal time constraints or a bulldozer a couple of paces behind, well then, yes.
But the majority of places that the average detectorist is going hunt will be public lands that have been hit many times before. The coins that remain are the ones that are deep or masked by trash. All the easy ones that would have given a clear and easy signal that would get through a pattern are generally long gone.
Whether you hunt wide open or IM-13 or less probably isn't going to make a huge amount of difference. Personally nulls drive me nuts much more than listening to all the low tones because that is what I am used to. Others would disagree and for the new user it is probably too dificult.
I'm still convinced that with few execptions the whole teach/edit/programming of patterns is a better sales tool than a detecting method. I was thrilled to peices with it when I first got my explorer but like many others have gravitated to the "less is more" approach.
And it is one heck of a machine.
Chris

 

[Anonymous]

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