Mike (Virginia Beach)
New member
With all this talk on settings, FAST, DEEP, etc. I though maybe some might benefit from reading something I used when I first got my Explorer II and have not varied much from with my SE. Charles from NY had provided his baseline settings and the "why" of each. They have worked well for me. He has a nice website too...here's a link. Below that is a cut-and-paste from the site. Note the section on "Recovery".
(Obviously this was all written for the XS or the Explorer II, but you can modify for the minor differences with the SE)
Here's the site: http://www.detectorgear.com/index.htm
Here's an excerpt from the "Explorer Tips" > "Machine Setup" section. I hope Charles doesn't mind me posting this...can't see why he would...GREAT STUFF!
Machine Setup
Important Notes - The Explorer has a number of settings however once setup the machine is nearly turn on and go most days. That said it's important not to get in a rut using a single setup for all site conditions. I tweak my standard setup to my advantage as the site conditions change. What works well for me on one side of a park may not work well on the other side, and neither may work well hunting an iron infested cellar hole in the woods or the beach. The Explorer has many good features, use them.
Sensitivity = Manual mode as high as it will go and be reasonable stable, I rarely will hunt at less than 25 and I'll put up with a bit of instability in exchange for the depth a higher Sens gives you. I almost always run 26-28 with the stock coil, 30 if the conditions are very good. I NEVER hunt in semi-auto because it has a bad habit lowering the sensitivity too far to give you a stable, solid threshold. You can often run the sens quite a few points hotter and still have very stable operation in manual mode. If you're in a super heavy iron condition, try lowering the sens to 20 or even 18.
Threshold = personal choice, I like it just barely audible.
Volume = 10 max
Gain = 7. I have found this to be the best all around setting in my area. Deep targets still sound deep (different) from shallow targets yet they are not so faint that you have to strain to hear them. Be on the lookout for those fainter signals that repeat though, I found many a silver dime on edge with this machine and they don't give the more robust signal you get from a coin lying flat. Some guys hunt with the gain at 10, I get too many false signals that high. Often I can't even run the gain at 8 and 10 also does one other thing, it makes it difficult to tell the target depth by tone since all signals are amped up to the same volume level. One quite successful hunter uses a gain of 6 but I nearly missed some on edge coins at 7. The factory setting of 5 is too low.
Variability = 10 Max, this gives you the widest variation which I like, like having 100 possible tones verses 80, or 50 at lower settings. You can actually hear the difference between a merc verses a barber/seated dime with practice, even the difference between a worn silver and one in good shape.
Limits = Max which is the recommended Minelab setting. I like the high pitch scream of silver!!!
Sounds = Ferrous. This is an excellent advantage the Explorer has over other detectors. Silver still sounds high but iron sounds low. We have tons of iron around here so this makes it quite easy to hear silver mixed in with the iron. The down side is that rusty bottle caps will sound high like silver in pitch but they tend to pop at the end which gives them away. I have some ideas about conductive tones, specifically whether they give you more depth versus ferrous tones that I will be experimenting with in 2006 but for now Ferrous is my normal setting.
Noise = if you have the XS just hit the Noise Cancel button after you startup the machine, if you have the S adjust manually for most stable operation.
Response = Normal, a few have experimented with the other options but most find this to be the best overall. I would not experiment until you have this machine down pat. Note some successful beach hunters like setting 2 for small gold.
Recovery = Fast Off, Deep On, this is very important. This combination gives deep coins a nice wide, robust signal which sticks out like a sore thumb compared with trash signals. But if you turn Fast on it will chop the signal off short and the coins will sound more like the short chopped off trash signals making learning the detector much more difficult. In my opinion it should only be turned on in heavy trash conditions and my advice is avoid those areas until you are confident with the machine in medium to light trash conditions and you have learned what the coins sound like. Don't ignore this feature, it can be useful.
Discrimination - I run all sorts of discrimination patterns, IM -16, -12, -8, Smart Find wide open except for rusty crowncaps rejected, Smart Find with the entire bottom 1/3 of the screen rejected, etc. Now 85% of the time I'm in IM -16 or the equivalent with rusty crowncaps rejected but the point is don't get stuck in a rut hunting all site conditions in IM -16. And if I only have 90 minutes to hunt I may reject the most common trash targets and try to cover some more ground in the limited amount of time available. Sometimes I use a custom gold coin pattern that has little gold coin (and nickel) windows open in another otherwise rejected bottom 1/3 of the screen. To you IM -16 die hards, have a little fun with the machine once in a while.
(Obviously this was all written for the XS or the Explorer II, but you can modify for the minor differences with the SE)
Here's the site: http://www.detectorgear.com/index.htm
Here's an excerpt from the "Explorer Tips" > "Machine Setup" section. I hope Charles doesn't mind me posting this...can't see why he would...GREAT STUFF!
Machine Setup
Important Notes - The Explorer has a number of settings however once setup the machine is nearly turn on and go most days. That said it's important not to get in a rut using a single setup for all site conditions. I tweak my standard setup to my advantage as the site conditions change. What works well for me on one side of a park may not work well on the other side, and neither may work well hunting an iron infested cellar hole in the woods or the beach. The Explorer has many good features, use them.
Sensitivity = Manual mode as high as it will go and be reasonable stable, I rarely will hunt at less than 25 and I'll put up with a bit of instability in exchange for the depth a higher Sens gives you. I almost always run 26-28 with the stock coil, 30 if the conditions are very good. I NEVER hunt in semi-auto because it has a bad habit lowering the sensitivity too far to give you a stable, solid threshold. You can often run the sens quite a few points hotter and still have very stable operation in manual mode. If you're in a super heavy iron condition, try lowering the sens to 20 or even 18.
Threshold = personal choice, I like it just barely audible.
Volume = 10 max
Gain = 7. I have found this to be the best all around setting in my area. Deep targets still sound deep (different) from shallow targets yet they are not so faint that you have to strain to hear them. Be on the lookout for those fainter signals that repeat though, I found many a silver dime on edge with this machine and they don't give the more robust signal you get from a coin lying flat. Some guys hunt with the gain at 10, I get too many false signals that high. Often I can't even run the gain at 8 and 10 also does one other thing, it makes it difficult to tell the target depth by tone since all signals are amped up to the same volume level. One quite successful hunter uses a gain of 6 but I nearly missed some on edge coins at 7. The factory setting of 5 is too low.
Variability = 10 Max, this gives you the widest variation which I like, like having 100 possible tones verses 80, or 50 at lower settings. You can actually hear the difference between a merc verses a barber/seated dime with practice, even the difference between a worn silver and one in good shape.
Limits = Max which is the recommended Minelab setting. I like the high pitch scream of silver!!!
Sounds = Ferrous. This is an excellent advantage the Explorer has over other detectors. Silver still sounds high but iron sounds low. We have tons of iron around here so this makes it quite easy to hear silver mixed in with the iron. The down side is that rusty bottle caps will sound high like silver in pitch but they tend to pop at the end which gives them away. I have some ideas about conductive tones, specifically whether they give you more depth versus ferrous tones that I will be experimenting with in 2006 but for now Ferrous is my normal setting.
Noise = if you have the XS just hit the Noise Cancel button after you startup the machine, if you have the S adjust manually for most stable operation.
Response = Normal, a few have experimented with the other options but most find this to be the best overall. I would not experiment until you have this machine down pat. Note some successful beach hunters like setting 2 for small gold.
Recovery = Fast Off, Deep On, this is very important. This combination gives deep coins a nice wide, robust signal which sticks out like a sore thumb compared with trash signals. But if you turn Fast on it will chop the signal off short and the coins will sound more like the short chopped off trash signals making learning the detector much more difficult. In my opinion it should only be turned on in heavy trash conditions and my advice is avoid those areas until you are confident with the machine in medium to light trash conditions and you have learned what the coins sound like. Don't ignore this feature, it can be useful.
Discrimination - I run all sorts of discrimination patterns, IM -16, -12, -8, Smart Find wide open except for rusty crowncaps rejected, Smart Find with the entire bottom 1/3 of the screen rejected, etc. Now 85% of the time I'm in IM -16 or the equivalent with rusty crowncaps rejected but the point is don't get stuck in a rut hunting all site conditions in IM -16. And if I only have 90 minutes to hunt I may reject the most common trash targets and try to cover some more ground in the limited amount of time available. Sometimes I use a custom gold coin pattern that has little gold coin (and nickel) windows open in another otherwise rejected bottom 1/3 of the screen. To you IM -16 die hards, have a little fun with the machine once in a while.
