Fish N Chips
New member
I got my new NEL Sharpshooter today for my T2 'Classic'. The mailman was 2 1/2 hours late which put a damper on my mood, lol.
The coil is much smaller than I expected, something I am very pleased with. I was wanting a 6x8 but could not find one, this is a nice small coil. Smaller than my 11" DD, yet the same width and not quite twice as long as the 5" coil. A perfect in-between size. The coil seems well made and came with a cover and all the mounting hardware (screw, rubber washers, cable strap). The cable is thicker than my Teknetics cable but not excessively so. I read these compared to garden hoses, but found this was not quite the case. It wound just fine up the shaft. The quality of the coil seems very nice. It balances well with the mounting point at the middle of the coil.
TID numbers seem right along with the 11" and 5" coils. I could run max sensitivity with no chatter.
I set up the nail board test with a 1902 indian head penny and rusted square nails. Interesting results:
Test #1:
Sensitivity 60, Discrimination 10, Tones 3. Ground balance 78
The coil got 5 out of 8 hits. It hit all the #1 spot directions, and only 1 of the #2 spot directions. I almost got a 6th, but I truthfully would not have dug it. All TIDs were down averaged, coming in around nickle to zinc (58-7
depending on direction, but good audio.
Test #2:
Sensitivity 60, Discrimination 24, Tones 1. Ground balance 78
The coil got 6 out of 8 hits. Almost as good as my 5" coil! It hit all the #1 spots, and 2 of the #2 spots. Definitely no more than that, the other two were completely nulled. Again TID was running nickle to zinc, but great audio.
Test #3:
Sensitivity 60, Discrimination 10, Tones 2+. Ground balance 78
The coil did the same as Test #1.
I took it to my local park with a huge RADAR transmitter. EMI is a huge struggle here, but I figured would be a good test on the EMI resistance, or lack there of.
As normal the EMI was horrible, the coil was a bit better than my 11" coil but still bad. My daughter was using the Silver Umax and we had to turn it down to 3-4 sensitivity to run semi-stable. I tried frequency shifting with little to no difference. I ended up running sensitivity around 20-40 depending how close to the radar I was, to deal with most the chatter. It was still annoying but worked. Other settings were discrimination 40 (to further help with EMI) and tones 3. There was no doubt when I hit a good target, a nice solid tone and lock on the TID. The TID seemed to lock on much better than the 11" coil when compared. My 11" jumps around and is a noisy chirpy beast at these parks, EMI or not. I found the coil very stable and much more tolerable in the trash.
I did not make any amazing finds. Just clad coins, trash and some chunks of lead. I got a few nickles that locked right on at 56-58. I noticed pull tabs bounced a bit more as I changed directions, coins did not. TID seemed a lot more stable. Separation seemed very good, I could run it right on a coin surrounded by trash and hear the coin well. It ran well in the heavy trash and the more open areas having a good balance of separation and coverage, making good finds in both. I make no illusion that my 5" would have been the better coil to use in the heavy trash, but was pleased how well the Sharpshooter did. My 11"coil can not hardly function in the same location. Depth was hard to judge as the EMI really interferes with hearing deep targets here. I dug several coins and pull tabs at 5" at 40 sensitivity.
Bottle caps still fooled me at first, but lifting the coil would give me a little iron crackle in the audio and the TID would drop. I use this with my other coils, and it worked well with this too. Coins locked on so well there was never a doubt on those, unless the silver ones magically turned into buried soda cans, lol. I hate when that happens.
I have a lot more hunting to learn and make a better determination on the coils attributes and detriments. My initial impression is that I really like it. I think it will work perfectly for the application I got it, hunting moderately trashy parks and sites where I want one coil to cover the varying terrain and trash levels. My 5" coil will still be the weapon of choice for the heaviest of the nails and trash, gridding small heavily littered areas looking for targets. This medium sized Sharpshooter coil will cover more of my general hunting needs, and I think it will do it perfectly. The 11" coil will be reserved for large fields and beaches where I want to cover more ground looking for targets.
The coil is much smaller than I expected, something I am very pleased with. I was wanting a 6x8 but could not find one, this is a nice small coil. Smaller than my 11" DD, yet the same width and not quite twice as long as the 5" coil. A perfect in-between size. The coil seems well made and came with a cover and all the mounting hardware (screw, rubber washers, cable strap). The cable is thicker than my Teknetics cable but not excessively so. I read these compared to garden hoses, but found this was not quite the case. It wound just fine up the shaft. The quality of the coil seems very nice. It balances well with the mounting point at the middle of the coil.
TID numbers seem right along with the 11" and 5" coils. I could run max sensitivity with no chatter.
I set up the nail board test with a 1902 indian head penny and rusted square nails. Interesting results:
Test #1:
Sensitivity 60, Discrimination 10, Tones 3. Ground balance 78
The coil got 5 out of 8 hits. It hit all the #1 spot directions, and only 1 of the #2 spot directions. I almost got a 6th, but I truthfully would not have dug it. All TIDs were down averaged, coming in around nickle to zinc (58-7
depending on direction, but good audio.Test #2:
Sensitivity 60, Discrimination 24, Tones 1. Ground balance 78
The coil got 6 out of 8 hits. Almost as good as my 5" coil! It hit all the #1 spots, and 2 of the #2 spots. Definitely no more than that, the other two were completely nulled. Again TID was running nickle to zinc, but great audio.
Test #3:
Sensitivity 60, Discrimination 10, Tones 2+. Ground balance 78
The coil did the same as Test #1.
I took it to my local park with a huge RADAR transmitter. EMI is a huge struggle here, but I figured would be a good test on the EMI resistance, or lack there of.
As normal the EMI was horrible, the coil was a bit better than my 11" coil but still bad. My daughter was using the Silver Umax and we had to turn it down to 3-4 sensitivity to run semi-stable. I tried frequency shifting with little to no difference. I ended up running sensitivity around 20-40 depending how close to the radar I was, to deal with most the chatter. It was still annoying but worked. Other settings were discrimination 40 (to further help with EMI) and tones 3. There was no doubt when I hit a good target, a nice solid tone and lock on the TID. The TID seemed to lock on much better than the 11" coil when compared. My 11" jumps around and is a noisy chirpy beast at these parks, EMI or not. I found the coil very stable and much more tolerable in the trash.
I did not make any amazing finds. Just clad coins, trash and some chunks of lead. I got a few nickles that locked right on at 56-58. I noticed pull tabs bounced a bit more as I changed directions, coins did not. TID seemed a lot more stable. Separation seemed very good, I could run it right on a coin surrounded by trash and hear the coin well. It ran well in the heavy trash and the more open areas having a good balance of separation and coverage, making good finds in both. I make no illusion that my 5" would have been the better coil to use in the heavy trash, but was pleased how well the Sharpshooter did. My 11"coil can not hardly function in the same location. Depth was hard to judge as the EMI really interferes with hearing deep targets here. I dug several coins and pull tabs at 5" at 40 sensitivity.
Bottle caps still fooled me at first, but lifting the coil would give me a little iron crackle in the audio and the TID would drop. I use this with my other coils, and it worked well with this too. Coins locked on so well there was never a doubt on those, unless the silver ones magically turned into buried soda cans, lol. I hate when that happens.
I have a lot more hunting to learn and make a better determination on the coils attributes and detriments. My initial impression is that I really like it. I think it will work perfectly for the application I got it, hunting moderately trashy parks and sites where I want one coil to cover the varying terrain and trash levels. My 5" coil will still be the weapon of choice for the heaviest of the nails and trash, gridding small heavily littered areas looking for targets. This medium sized Sharpshooter coil will cover more of my general hunting needs, and I think it will do it perfectly. The 11" coil will be reserved for large fields and beaches where I want to cover more ground looking for targets.
Very good report and very well put. I use my Sharpshooter coil for the same reason as you and save the 5" for the heavy trash areas. I am still anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Mars coils in the US.
