New to me X-Terra 50 first hunt and a question

[SkiWhiz]

Hi folks, I am sure many of you know me, I have done lots of wheelin & dealin on the forums. I just got a X-Terra 50 and took it out on my first hunt today for a short amount of time.

Went into town today with plans to look at headphones but my son needs a new pair of sneakers for school so headphones are out of the question for awhile. Anyway I took my new to me X-Terra 50 with me to give it a try. It was a crappy day, drizzling rain all while I was hunting, the ground was already really wet from all the previous rain we have had. The X50 was a joy to swing,very light and well balanced. It only took about 3 or 4 seconds to ground balance it, I ran the sensitivity at max most of the time. I ran it in pattern 1 and I edited it to accept the +3 number that is rejected @ factory pattern 1 setting, because +3 is foil and that is where small rings/jewelry could be. I didn't find any jewelry which didn't surprise me as I have pounded this field for years. But I did find 3 quarters, 10 dimes, 1 nickel, and a few pennies. Depth was real respectable, one penny was extra deep (my guess 8 or 9 inches). I keep a close eye on the display because I wanted to see how accurate it was, it was pretty accurate. The meter/display is very easy to see, all the buttons are laid out well. Being digital and having a display and muliti-tones makes it much different than the Tesoro's that I am used to. I honestly prefer a single tone detector but the tones on the X-50 are pleasant. I would really like a nice warm day and drier ground to give it another try. If I was to rate it on how good it works and fun factor I would give it a strong 8.5+/10

Question -

I was wondering if there is anything that I could put on the meter of my X-Terra 50 that I could write on. Maybe some kind of small circle stickers that won't harm the display that I could get a marker and draw 5 cents on one of the stickers and place it on the display/ penny/ a dime/ quarter/ etc. The display on the X-Terra 50 just has numbers for the targets, not an icon that says nickel,dime,etc. and I thought there has to be something I can use until I memorize what number is what. Thanks! Steve.

 

[tjhoosier]

One suggestion is to use the environment cover that comes with all the new Xterra's. I think they are pretty inexpensive to buy if yours didn't come with one. You could put stickers on it and not worry about hurting the display. I use mine most of the time anyway to keep me from wearing out the pictures on the buttons and also keep it relatively clean.

 

[vespaman]

you could use the iphone clear covers and cut accordingly to suit your needs and also protect the touch pad.
there are some strong ones out there so have alook see what suits ur needs.

 

[Heelgrasper]

Regarding the environment cover: If you don't have one already, try looking for the type that allows you to change batteries without removing the cover. It's pretty annoying to have to take the cover off (and unplug headphones and coil) to change batteries and as far as I know the price is about the same.

Personally I wouldn't take much notice of the numbers and newer trust them to show what is under the coil but then again I hunt in a different part of the world where there's endless possibilites for what I could find.

 

[Big Boys Hobbies]

Wow!!! Such a high rating for a non tesoro!! Must have impressed you!! lol Glad you liked it!!

 

[Digger]

I dont' want to discourage you from learning what number typically represents each coin. But instead of tying a number to a specific coin, I would recommend that you look through the coin chart I made (in FAQFAQ above, or in eBook) and "memorize" the TID numbers for the coins. The reason I would encourage you to use the numbers is because the amount of "good targets" (rings, jewelry, tokens, buttons, etc.) that would be ignored if you simply dug targets whose numbers correlate with a coin. I made a TreasureTalk blog post titled "ever wonder what you're missing" that talks about the targets we may be ignoring by using too much discrimination. (such as when only digging coin numbers). This can be found in the TreasureTalk blog posts at Minelab's website, or (again), in the eBook, which is available free via the link at the top of these posts.

Having used the X-TERRA as long as anyone out there, I still believe the best way to implement discrimination is to use my three rules of consistency. (location, audio and TID) If the target remains in the same location when X-ing over it, listen to the tones. If the tones are consistent no matter which way you sweep across the target, take a look at the TID. If the TID is a number that represents something you could benefit from digging, pull out the digging tool and recover it. After you get use to hearing the tones of good targets vs "bad" targets, you'll find yourself hunting "by ear" and will likely only glance at the TID to get an idea as to what to look for, once the hole is opened up. Granted, there are exceptions when you consider multiple adjacent targets and targets on edge. But you have a better chance of finding those type of targets if you use the 3-rules, compared to only using the "coin numbers" on the TID. JMHO HH Randy

 

[SkiWhiz]

Wow!!! Such a high rating for a non tesoro!! Must have impressed you!! lol Glad you liked it!!

Hi Bart, yes it is a good detector but after using it a few times with no disrespect meant I personally prefer a Tesoro. I started with them many years ago and it is hard to change to a digital detector when your roots are analog. But I will say the X-50 is one of the better non Tesoro's I have owned.

Thanks for all the reply's everyone.