Welcome! That cold and snow is in one way a blessing for you. It will give you a few weeks of time to actually learn, by rote, all the functions, the different tones, levels, discrimination, GPS functions, Xchange 2 abilities, the different buttons, etc.. If you are like most of us, we want to turn it on and go find old silver, gold or unique antiques. Well, in my own situation it took me about 2 months of hunting to stop and then try to actually read and learn what I was supposed to be doing. Yeah, I found a lot of stuff but in retrospect it would have been a bit more if I had actually learned what the functions actually meant.
I suggest an air test bed if no ground is available. Set up the stock patterns and learn the different tones, then do the download programs to see what difference they make. And most of all READ ALL OF 'DIGGER'S' POSTS, he know his stuff!!!!