New XP Deus Struggling with the Learning Curve

[walimu]

I upgraded from my AT Pro to a Deus recently. I have about 30 hours on my new machine and find myself struggling to get good results. With my AT Pro I was always hunting at the edges of the machines ability. I had a well trained ear for those whisper tones and those tones that had just a hint of something good mixed with undesirable noise and I was consistently pulling good deep finds. I bought the Deus hoping to do even better with those deeper targets and the ones I know are just beyond the range of my AT Pro. I thought the learning curve would be a bit quicker since I was used to hunting mostly by sound. I hunt parks that are not very trashy. I am sticking to the basic program and Andy's coin program. I have read his book. I sometimes change frequency from 12 to 8 to 4. I ground balance as I see it changes and even negative balance by 2 occasionally. I know learning a new machine takes time. Any tips would be appreciated. Hoping for a NY boot camp. I did have another question too. I read that dropping frequency gives you more depth but you may miss smaller targets. What is smaller target? A dime? Smaller?

 

[Lodge Scent]

That's a good program but you may need to pump it up a bit. Try Sensitivity at 95 and if your ground isn't highly mineralized set your TX at 3. If the park isn't that trashy, don't use any Notch and reduce your Silencer. Does your GB change that much? If so use Tracking. My ground usually reads 86. I set GB to 83 and forget about it.

Regarding "dropping frequencies"..... it's a balance. The higher conductors like silver, will hit harder on the lower frequencies. But the higher frequencies like 18 kHz, are more sensitive to smaller targets. So if you have a dime laying flat at 8 inches, 4 kHz might hit it harder, but if that same dime is on edge, you might have a better chance with 18 kHz.

 

[Sleepyjim]

Great advice Lodge Scent!


Jim

 

[walimu]

Thanks for the advice. My GB is usually stays close to 87. All of my finds so far have been in the 4-5 inch range. I know from hunting this park with my AT Pro the good stuff is 8 inches and deeper. I am getting some of those faint repeatable good tones but in all cases I end up digging a very deep hole that leads to nothing. I recently put ID norm on hoping this would help a bit, but I generally dig everything that has a good tone regardless of the number. The XY screen has helped reduce the number of bottle caps I dig. I am wondering if I would be better off learning this machine in full tones, or I read recently about setting your tones to match up with your old machine to help learn it faster. With a week of days in the low 50's for Upstate NY in February, I will be out there every day this week figuring it out.

 

[Lodge Scent]

Sounds like you need to tune for depth. 4 or 8 kHz will give you the most raw depth in mild soil. Sens 95, TX3, Reactivity 1, Silencer 0 might be a place to start. Slow your sweep speed down.

I used to use Full Tones all the time, but now use mostly Multitones...and usually only 2 or 3 tones. I like to use a low Audio Response (3). It helps my brain ignore the shallow loud targets and key in on the softer deep targets. If you are looking for deep coins, I think you need some iron volume. Those deep coins can have a bit of an iron wrinkle to them because the signal is so weak. If you set Iron Volume to "0", you might miss them. I set mine to 2. That is my approach. There are other ways for sure. A lot of this is just personal preferences based on how your brain deals with the onslaught of information.

 

[walimu]

I had some better luck yesterday. Short hunt, 10 wheats and a mercury dime all 4-6 inches. I was running basic 1 with some changes: sensitivity 95, 8khz, -2 below ground balance, 5 tones. I noticed that all of the coins had a clipped off tone. That is a sound on the AT Pro that usually means trash. I may have been passing those over until now. When air tested I don't get that clipped off tone. Is there a setting to adjust to clean that up? I remember reading about silencer causing this; I'll look into that.

 

[Lodge Scent]

Yeah, Basic 1 has Silencer of 2. Try "0" or "1". It might improve the tone. You won't get good depth with high Silencer either.

 

[Bigtom123]

I set my ground balance at 90 and it helps a lot,,I don't ever move it or try any other way..since doing it at 90 I get great results..I tried dropping it to 88 and I get falling..try it at 90 for awhile,might help

 

[digginrelics]

I had some better luck yesterday. Short hunt, 10 wheats and a mercury dime all 4-6 inches. I was running basic 1 with some changes: sensitivity 95, 8khz, -2 below ground balance, 5 tones. I noticed that all of the coins had a clipped off tone. That is a sound on the AT Pro that usually means trash. I may have been passing those over until now. When air tested I don't get that clipped off tone. Is there a setting to adjust to clean that up? I remember reading about silencer causing this; I'll look into that.

The clipped sound is the reactivity, the higher it is the faster a target comes in and gets clipped.

Just remember every single time you change the reactivity speed to change the silencer directly after it.

 

[walimu]

I used many of the suggestion given above on my hunt today. When I got to the site I had the idea to bury a coin and tune up my machine on it. Is that a common practice for Deus users? I know a freshly buried coin does not read the same as one that has been in the ground for decades but it did give me confidence that my machine could read a coin at a given depth. I dug mostly nails today but had this one good find. 1882 Canadian Large Cent 7 inches down, very clean and loud tone. I feel like I am making progress. Thanks for all the advice

 

[detectorfreak74]

If you are digging nails your settings are messed up pm. Me I will give you my number. I can set you up with a program that will help with much less iron and more nonferrous finds
I hardly dig iron or bottle caps my settings will give u more time to hunt