'doc holiday,' my most recent "adventurer" with the Racer was a week-long trip to hit some old town sites in Eastern Oregon, Southern Idaho and Northern Utah. Unfortunately, my visit with Oregon Gregg in Eastern Oregon was limited due to me having a bad back day. I think I only got in about 45 minutes of hunting an unfamiliar site, but that was okay because every adventure is a learning experience, especially with a new detector and assortment of search coils.doc holiday said:
At this site, while I have never hunted it before, a quick glance around the area I decided to search let me see quite a dense littering of nails, rusty tin, aluminum and other scrap trash. Thus, I just left the smaller 4.[size=small]7[/size]X5.[size=small]2[/size] DD coil mounted [size=small](as it generally is on the Racer)[/size] to best deal with dense litter. Naturally I always hope to find something of interest when out detecting, but with the new Makro Racer I was more interested in finding out more about its strengths and weaknesses. It's been a month already that I have been putting the Racer through their paces in a variety of sites, mostly urban settings, and I just wanted to learn more.
"Learning" can be both learning something new, or it can be a 'refresher course' in confirming what you have learned or maybe experienced in the past. Even verifying what you believed might occur in the way of performance. In several ways the Racer both educated me and also left me feeling quite comfortable in what I already knew or anticipated in its behavior. The end result then confirming how I felt about my decision to move the Racer, and the Nokta Coin & Relic, up to my #1 All Purpose Detector spot.
In Ogden, Utah, my home town, I located two parks that had renovation work done, mainly last year with a little recent grading. I know these were hunted last fall and probably during their record-setting warmest, driest winter on record. Even saw some recent recovery digs when I got there, but I know these old parks well and could even see plenty of exposed older ring-pull tabs. There I used only the small DD coil, also, and used the 3-Tone mode with ID Filter set at '23' to just reject iron nails.
The first two coins were Wheat-Back cents then I got a very gouged '51 silver Roosevelt dime from the tractor work. Several other coins, some modern and a few more early Lincoln cents and a couple of early-date Jefferson nickels. Only about 30-minutes worth of hunting at the limited available renovation work as most was inside a fenced area.
At one old ghost town's "fringe area," out away from the primary parts of town that are full of high, dense trash, I knew from past experience that targets, any targets, were going to be few and far between with the exception of surface .22 Short, Long and Long-Rifle cartridge cases and some spent .22 caliber lead bullets. There I opted to use both the standard 7X11 DD coil, and where some short, stiff weeds/brush were a challenge I switched to the 5½X10 solid-housing DD coil.
I did find a couple of glass buttons and one suspender buckle, but no coins in the 'keeper' category. Because this area was rather sparse on targets, I used the two middle-sized search coils and opted for the 2-Tone mode. I kept the ID Filter [size=small](Discrimination)[/size] at '10' to help deal with damp alkali soil and some rocks but allow me to hear almost all ferrous and non-ferrous targets. In spare-target locations I have always enjoyed using a 2-Tone audio to help separate probable iron from likely non-iron targets.
In the heart of a couple of towns, especially my all-time favorite that I have hunted since May of '69, I intentionally concentrated my hunting to the most worked section of the town that comprised most of the business district. I selected this area because, trust me, I do know it well, and I wanted to evaluate the Racer and small coil with both the 2-Tone and 3-Tone modes, and using several Gain settings from '10' to '99,' but mostly I worked the default setting of '70.' I set the ID Filter at the default setting of '10' and also increased it to '23' for iron nail rejection. In the nastiest trash areas I even ran at a setting of '40' ID Filter to reject most iron.
Most of the non-ferrous targets I recovered were located from shallow sub-surface to no more than perhaps 3", and those are typical of the depths I have always found most coins, trade tokens, buckles, metal buttons, sheep ear tags and other 'keepers.' The Racer performed quite well, even at the default or reduced Gain settings. It did well at the '10' and '20' Gain settings, but out of 'habit' or quick mental references I either ran at the default '70' or at a 50% setting of '35' Gain.
With that smaller-size coil and an ID Filter setting of '40' to reject most ferrous targets, I especially searched and cross-searched two places where you can visually see very densely littered rusty tin pieces of about ½" square to 1" square all over the ground, very close. This was done to try and duplicate the settings that many detector models offered when I hunted there through the latter '70s and early-to-mid '80s when the Discrimination didn't adjust as low as many modes do these days.
I found the Racer/small coil combo to work quite well, even with the Discrimination set higher, but my preference is '10' or '23' for most of my style of detecting. What is my style or preference, you might wonder? Well, I like to find good stuff and that means I like to know if I am hunting in trash, any trash, because I can then work a coil around the undesired targets and perhaps hear a desired target close to the masking junk. It's good to know when there is any offending metal target present so as not to just detect through a site and use too much rejection and not hear enough junk, but know when you're up against a real challenge.
For decades I have worked ghost towns, homesteads and similar locations that have a lot of undesired metal present. I usually use no more Discrimination than just enough to barely reject Iron nails, and with the FORS CoRe and Racer that would be a setting of about '23.' Sometimes I like to hear more iron, if the amount present isn't too annoying to listen to, and run the ID Filter of the Racer at '10' and use the search mode I am most comfortable with. If the amount of targets at a site is sparse, I like the 2-Tone mode, and when I am dealing with an ample amount of bad-target challenges, especially ferrous junk, I like to use the 3-Tone mode a little more often.
Most typically, we'll encounter .22 shells, bits of rusty tin and other scattered and undesired trash either on the surface in plain sight, or just barely out of sight and in the top inch or so. Also a lot of the ground I hunt, not all of it but a lot of it, is somewhat loose and porous dirt. In these conditions I like to use a "toe-scuff" technique of checking any target response buy simply "toe-scuffing" just a little surface material aside. Then I can re-sweep the spot and see if I scuffed a small object away or if I have moved a shallower masking piece of material and now get a better, cleaner response from a desired target that was under or nearby the junk.
I can't tell you how many times I have hunted these very town sites and many other places with others and watched people just walk away from 'iffy' or 'borderline' signals. Not only have I felt they were in error based upon my own experiences that have shown me it was wise to check all questionable signals, but I would often do just that on many of those spots they ignored and, low-and-behold, I walked away with a good find that they had ignored. More proof, to me, that use of a lower Discrimination level and checking out any spot with a good or questionable response can prove rewarding.
This brings me to another nice feature of the Racer [size=small](and Nokta FORS CoRe)[/size] that I like for hunting sites that might have bigger masking junk, and that is the Overload Audio response. Working a site at little to no Discrimination [size=small](an ID Filter of '10' or less)[/size] allows me to hear almost all targets present, good and bad, and deal with each as I encounter them. Hunting a site with a minimum rejection level, such as '23' to just bump iron nails out, will also reject a certain amount of other ferrous trash. Logically, the bigger the junk target the more good-target masking there can be.
Therefore, I like to know if I come upon a larger-size hunk of junk so I can investigate and deal with it. I might use an ID Filter setting of '23' or even higher and still audibly work a site quite well and have very good performance in an iron infested site because these two models do a wonderful job in most typical iron we deal with is smaller-size. I want to investigate bigger-size junk that might be rejected. It could mask a target, or in an old town site or homestead, it could be a rusty can with coins inside.
The Racer, and FORS CoRe, 'Overload Audio' will sound off if the search coil is touching or very close to a coin-sized target, especially the larger sizes, and also if it is too close to a larger-size object such as a big buckle, firearm, can, spur, and all sorts of ferrous and non-ferrous targets of larger size. When we get an 'Overload Audio' response, it alerts us to the fact that the search coil is too close to a target, or that the target is too large to deal with. All we have to do is raise the search coil and inch or two, depending upon the height we have it during the search, to deal with the 'Overload.'
If we are searching a site with the coil too close to the ground and a very shallow target, we might get an Overload and raise the coil a bit to eliminate that and re-sweep the spot to get a better audio response and visual Target ID read-out. I like the Overload Audio design of these models because it works regardless of the ID Filter/ID Mask setting. Let's say you are working a site with the rejection level set at '23' to reject iron nails and some other ferrous, or even set at '40' to knock out most Iron junk. If you sweep over a nail or bolt or other rejected iron trash, you will probably not hear a thing, if it is rejected.
However, if you sweep over a rejected target BUT the target is a bigger-size or too close to the search coil, then it will still trigger the 'Overload Audio.' While I might intend to reject the typically annoying smaller ferrous trash, I can lift the search coil just a little and see how much coil lift is required to silence the Overload, and then use the Pinpoint function to size-and-shape the offending target. Because it is larger, I will usually make the effort to recover that bigger item to see if it might be:
1.. A desired iron artifact.
2.. An old can that contains coins or other desired keepers.
3.. A big masking target that I will remove so I can scan the surrounding area for any 'keepers.'
Other hunters, in the past or even today, who use a lot of Discrimination and do not have an Overload Alert could be missing out on a good find now and then that could come my way, thanks to the design of the Racer and FORS CoRe.
My concluding thoughts on more time afield with the Racer and how it performs.:
The Makro Racer continues to perform in a very pleasing way, providing a very comfortable platform that handles well with the standard to smallest search coils mounted. As I frequently state, I like 'Simple' and I like 'Functional' and I like 'Performance.' The Racer is all of that. While I find the factory default settings to be 'functional' and the Racer 'performed' well during my recent week-long journey, it was still 'simple' to make a few quick changes to the Gain or ID Filter settings and get underway.
One of the things you don't see with the Racer is one of the things I like to see. What does that mean? Well, you don't see 'clutter' in the way of having an over-necessary array of adjustment functions, and I like to see a detector that has what is needed, but no more. There are some detectors on the market that do have quite a few additional adjustments, and if the operator knows how to tinker with the right settings they can make the detector and coil work okay at some locations and challenges, then re-adjust a numerous number of different settings when conditions change.
No thanks! I prefer the 'simple' design of the Racer as I can move about all kinds of sites and rely on reliable function and performance, not fiddling with settings. I also am quite satisfied with the choices they made to provide us with three primary search modes, plus Beach for working the salt water beaches or wetted alkali sites. I know there are some hobbyists, and even more avid detectorists, who seldom, if ever, select the All Metal search mode, but I do on quite a few occasions, even other than for gold nugget hunting. I have used the All Metal mode, trying the auto-tracking feature but I still prefer an automated GB and/or manual GB to fine-tune as I need or desire.
It is the two primary Discrimination modes that help make the Racer be a very good, very versatile, detector for all-around applications. A Racer user can easily, and quickly, adjust the Gain and ID Filter settings they want at any site, then pick the VCO complemented 2-Tone Audio search mode, or the static 3-Tone mode and hunt away. I like the Racer set-up because I can set each mode as I choose, and on-the-fly I can change any search mode with the press of a left-or-right arrow key. I have found this helpful at some places where I have run into a denser amount of iron when using the 2-Tone mode and could quickly 'upshift' to 3-Tone.
I've done the reverse as well, hunting in 3-Tone and 'downshifting' to 2-Tone, or from any mode even going to All Metal mode at times just to listen to the ground and target activity.
Again, with both the FORS CoRe and Racer, a reminder to folks to check them out in a variety of hunting conditions with a Gain/Sensitivity setting that is reduced from the default setting. These detectors were not designed to be wimpy performers, let me assure you. Even at reduced settings they have ample 'performance' for a lot of hunting needs, and it even helps to work with a reduced setting under trashier conditions.
Also, spend the time to learn and understand the Discrimination settings and performance. While I seldom use more rejection than enough to barely reject Iron Nails, there are times when a higher rejection [size=small](just enough to knock out most iron)[/size] of '40' will be used. I know a lot of people will run with it set at that level, anyway, because they don't want to hear any iron, and I have found the Racer to perform very well against several competitive models using a similar Iron Disc. setting and it will pull favorable targets in trash better than most contenders.
Initially there were concerns about the grip angle on the 'S' curve upper-rod. I agreed that a slightly gentler curve might be a little more comfortable, but after over a month of hunting with the Racer I have to tell you that it is comfortable as initially designed. It doesn't take a tight, firm grip to handle the Racer. Instead, I use just a 'comfortable' relaxed grip and the light weight Racer is easy to work without fatigue. The only coil I haven't used much on it yet is the larger 13.[size=small]3[/size]X15.[size=small]5[/size] coil, but I am going to do some comparison of those two same-size coils on the Racer and FORS in a day or two after the rains pass from this storm we're having.
Spring is upon us, the weather is improving, and in two days I'll be off for another 2 to 3 day detecting jaunt to a different Eastern Oregon ghost town. I usually don't use rechargeable batteries, but I have mine all charged and ready. Now all I need to do is put in a lot more time to wear out the alkaline batteries I have installed in my racer, which seems to defy the suggested 25-30 hour run-time. Maybe I'll get to them on or after this trip. When I do, I am going to clock the actual on and operating time of the rechargeable batteries and then a set of alkaline batteries. The Racer is both powerful in performance and fuel efficient on its power source.
If you haven't pre-ordered a Racer, you better hurry because they will be in demand. I know I am going to get another and keep at least two Racer's with me, having different coils mounted.
Monte