My First Digital Minelab Looking for an Advice

[Rubezahl]

Salvete Miltes!

Hope you are all well. Just bought my first digital Minelab and need some advice from more experienced users

I am mainly detecting on the Thames shore where any machine is quite badly affected by tons and tons of iron ....and tons and tons of artefact's hidden under. I was looking for a machine who can provide me with more informations about burred objects. Before Minelab I was using a simple Tesoro/Laser machine specially modified for Thames conditions. It was a great piece of kit but lack of info forced me to dig every signal ., unfortunately Thames detecting time is always very limited because of the changing tides. Friend of mine showed me how good the Minelab Etrac and Explorer range can be. Indeed I was more than impressed. I have saved some money and bought SE + small coil. Yesterday I was using the machine for the first time (on factory preset) I even had some luck but had feeling the settings I am currently using are not good enough for such difficult environment. I will be more than thankful if somebody could advice how to set the machine in best possible way for a newbie like me. I would love to have only two signals for non fer and fer - easy to recognize. Many thanks!

Best Regards from Londinium

 

[MNCoinhunter]

I think most of the veterans in here will tell you to leave your detector in the factory pre-set for at least your first 10 to 20 hours. In the meantime, try and get yourself a copy of Andy Sabich's Explorer/Etrac handbook.

 

[Rubezahl]

Hi Dave

That's what I've been told. Unfortunately Thames is not a field and I believe it does need some modification even on the preset settings.

Many thanks!

Ps. Bought Andy's book as adviced

 

[TokenDigger]

I have used my Minelab on trips to England but it's always been on farm fields. It does preform well but one needs to go very slow. Certainly the Thames is a much different situation. Dave makes a good suggestion about staying with the factory presets for awhile. If that doesn't work, start playing around with the controls-you can't hurt anything by trying new setups. You may want to invest in a very small coil as well (I use a Sun Ray Stealth 8" coil in very trashy areas), perhaps one smaller than the small one you currently have. Hopefully you will run into someone who has a Minelab and is using it on the Thames. I know mud larks don't normally use detectors but they may have some insight, such as certain places where the banks have less trashy debris. You are in a tricky situation that requires some experience. Perhaps writing The Searcher magazine will yield some suggestions. Happy hunting in Olde Londinium.

 

[Rubezahl]

Hi TokenDigger

Before going down there with new machine I've bough small Detech coil 4/7 which is great for trashy sites ad have superb stability in opinion of many. Going through Andy Sabish's book - thanks to Andy's effort there is a really good part for the foreign hunters included. I am about to try one of the Relic setting tomorrow but with Auto-Sensitivity.

Many thanks guys any advice is worth more than gold for me

PS. If anybody have doubts before purchasing new machine I can tell you one thing GO FOR MINELAB what a great adventure

 

[digginrebel]

I hunt some highly mineralized soil in my area and choose to hunt in the Iron Mask mode and use the graph as opposed to the numbers. Over time you will learn the cursor positions and their meanings and can learn to trust it well. Good Luck!

 

[TURNMASTER]

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?10,1463415 this link is in the Explorer classroom and has a discussion on some of the settings.

Jeff