Minelab or Whites...I'll tell you what's the deal in my area

[Beachcomber]

Ground Mineralization varies a great deal from one area to another and choice of detectors definitely depends on what works in your area. I have hunted many times in North Eastern and Central Eastern Virgina with machines that weren't designed for heavy mineralization and they worked well. But there have been some places that I have hunted where these same machines were all but useless. The machine you mentioned the Whites XLT is a 4 filter machine that was designed to be able to hevier mineraliztion than most machines so I am not surprised that you have found few machines that are it's equal in your area. Here in NJ where I live the Explorer will easily leave it in the dust. I have used an Xterra here and it has worked well too. I am surprised that you say the Explorer doesn't work well in your area as it to was designed to be able to handle mineralization. There is one quirk for land hunting with the Explorer where a good signle frequency machine will be able to surpass it and this maybe the type of areas that you are hunting. That is plowed farm fields! For the Explorer's Ground Compensating circuitry to work best it needs relatively packed or undistrubed ground. It does not like ground with a lot of air or air spaces in it. I have huted several plowed farm fields where I was only getting half the depth I was acustomed to with the Explorer. I rehunted those same fields using a top of the line single frequency detector and found old coins, buttons, and bullets that gave much stronger singals and at much more depth than I was getting on my Explorer. But this is the only situtation that I have found this to be true. For the msot part the Explorer has worked well wherever I ahve taken it though I have heard there are some areas in Virginia that have some very heavy mineralization that maybe just too much for it. However areas that I have hunted there didn't pose any problems. Those old 4 filter Whites where good machines!

HH

Beachcomber

 

[James N.D.]

Have you tried lowering the gain on the detector? You could also try ferrous tones at -14 or -16 Iron Mask while in Manual. Also try and noise cancel by holding the detector (keeping the coil horizontal with the ground)waist high and see if this helps also. Are you running your audio on audio 1? Also try using a 8" coil, this will solve some of the problems hopefully. Wish I could be there to see for myself and try and adjust the detector to see if a person can get it to work better, but I'm not in your area so I hope something that I posted helps a bit with your problem. Good Luck and HH.

 

[AK in KY]

DonB - That describes my soil exactly. I can tell you the EX11 will pick coins out thru the constant sounds. I get tired of hearing this noise but, it does still work.

AK in KY

 

[Mike Bearden]

Some detectors simply won't perform as well in particular areas as others. Virgina is famous for tough soil in more than a few areas and the XLT's filter system & KHz line up with the sites you frequent must make for a good match.
I've hunted Brandy Station with the Explorer, MXT, Tejon, Nautilus, and a X-5 Shadow and got huge differences in each machines performance but for what it's worth, the Explorer held it's own but all suffered a bit and some were simply unusable.
Same way in the iron ore belt, some work well, some don't.
Went to a spot last weekend where the dirt changed dramatically every 20-30 yards. It was hit by 2 different Tesoro's, Whites DFX, and 2 X-Terra 50's. Everybody pulled a few goodies but it was a perfect example that some detectors just have their place and time to be used over another.
H.H.
Mike

 

[DIGGERBEGINNER]

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? YOU CAN'T GROUND BALANCE AN EXPLORER. DIDN'T YOU KNOW THAT. WHY CANT YOU ASK NICELY AS A HUMAN. WE ARE SUPPOSED TO TRY TO BE HELPING FELLOW DETECTORIST. YOUR POST IS SENSELESS. PLEASE STAY OUT UNLESS YOU HAVE SOMETHING CREATIVE TO SAY. THIS IS WHY I LEFT THESE POSTS YEARS AGO BECAUSE EVERYONE WANTS TO BRAGG THAT THERE'S IS THE BEST. DO YOU KNOW RALPH AT SUN RAY TO EVEN DOUBT HIS WORD? I'M SURE I'M OUT IN THE LIMELIGHT BY SAYING EVERYONE HAS BEEN NOISE CANCELLING WRONG AND YOU COME IN AND SAY THAT I SAID GROUND BALANCE....SEE THAT'S WHAT MINELAB SCEWED UP THEY WERE THINKING OF GROUND BALANCE WHEN THEY WROTE THERE BOOK AND ANDY S. MISSED IT TOO WHEN THEY WROTE TO PLACE IT FLAT ON A CLEAN SPOT OF GROUND WHEN NOISE BALANCING......BUT NOISE BALANCING YOU DO IN THE AIR AND NOT THE GROUND.....THE EXPLORER GROUND BALANCES AUTOMATICALLY...NOISE BALANCING HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GROUND BALANCE EXCEPT IT CAN SCREW YOUR MACHINE DETECTING POWER IF NOISE CANCELLED ON THE GROUND. TRY IT AND SEE, IT ONLY TAKES ONE DAY TO FIGURE OUT THIS IS RIGHT.

 

[DIGGERBEGINNER]

TOUCHE' MIKE.

 

[christian_99]

How is the Xterra doing in the soil of Orange? Is it able to get any depth? I know what you are talking about concerning the soil and the mineralization, its attributed to the magnetite in the ground and the by-product of the formation of the Appalachian Mountains a gazillion years ago from a large Glacier breaking apart.

I guess one way to sum it all up would be to explain to everyone why they call Orange, Va- "Orange"? In one word, the soil is Orange because of the miniature magnetite particles in the ground which make the soil look Orange, Red, Brown. With most machines you would be lucky to get four to five inch's at best because of the amount of iron in the soil matrix.

With the Explorer, I kept my Sens down to between 8 to 14 at best, and kept the gain down. I didn't get that good of depth, but the results were similar to other machines for that area. But, truly the worst ground in VA!!!

If you can give some info on how the Xterra does in that ground I really would appreciate it, also in some of the camps for that area I would appreciate that as well i,e Iron nails, tacks, and tin. Thx! Good luck with your digging!


***Disclaimer- I own many machines including the Explorer as well as recently, many Tesoro machines- and Fisher. I use all machines for various situations and circumstances and this post is not a bash towards any machine, person, place, or thing. For those of you who have doubts about this ground, go to the hardware store, pick up some small iron tacks, and spread them on the ground- in fact buy two packages to cover an area 1ft by 1ft. Now place a coin in the center of that covered area and see if you can detect it. This describes how "hot" that ground is and how difficult it is for any machine to detect under such conditions.