Quattro Disc Range vs signals

[Daniel Tn]

Picked up a Quattro and it came a few days ago. I've not had the chance to get it out in real world conditions but have been reading what I can on them and on my 2nd trip through Andys book on the Quattro as we speak. I have found something that I thought I'd ask you guys about.

From what I've read, a person will lose up to two inches in depth using Auto Sensitivity. Here is what I've ran into. I know the Minelabs work better on objects that have been in the ground a while. I have a test garden with various things in it and in trying the Quattro out there, I found something about the disc I thought I'd ask about. In the factory preset modes...on a .58 cal minie ball at about 8" deep...it doesn't hit it. This is even when using the noise cancel button, auto sensitivity and even manual sensitivity on 15-16. What I get, is an every now and then high tone that will register around 32. It isn't consistent enough to dig.

Here is where it gets interesting. I can put it in all metal or even just edit the disc range of the other 3 presets...and get it to hit the bullet on every pass. I had to go all the way down to -6. Yes. Into the iron range. Once I unblocked -6 on up into the + numbers, the machine will bust that bullet with accurate depth reading and everything, and it will bounce...it goes -6 to +32, pending on what angle you hit it from, and from what I saw, it only does those two numbers on this specific bullet. I was just wondering if other Quattro or Explorer users had experienced similar findings. This is in Tn/Ga red clay dirt. I have a seperate garden in some good brown topsoil and the machine hits a similar depth minie ball in all the modes into the +30 range.

Also...looking at getting a smaller coil for the machine. I want an 8" as all I have is the 10. Of the three or so available, which is best? The stock Minelab 8", the 8" SunRay, or 8" Excellerator DD? I'm not interested in their 8" concentric.

 

[beachguy777]

Man, this is a good one. This sounds like one for "the big guy" i.e. Mike, but I can't help comment, just a little here myself. That sounds pretty freaky, because for one: Why would it pick it up in the regular soil and not the iron soil, since Quatro seems to do great in mineralized soil, especially after you noise cancel it? Next thing, I wonder too: Why the heck do you get such a variance in number readings, i.e. iron area all the way up to high conductive??? I wonder if the negative number has something to do with the iron soil??? VERY INTERSTING, as old Klaus used to say from Starlock 13.
As for the coils, I just bought an excellerator 5" coil from Kellyco and I love it for small trashy areas. It really does seem to seperate the trash from the good stuff much better. Well good luck and I'll bet someone's gonna figure it out. Marc Trainor

 

[Rick(ND)]

When you have a area blacked out (disc targets) it will null out the signal. Now when you open the area down to -6 you are in the iron area which now give you a signal, but notice it is a -6, so I would say you have some iron in that soil the Quattro is seeing and nulling out, then when it is seeing the mini ball it has to come out of the null to see it which is why you dont see it everytime. This also goes for coin hunting too in those areas with a lot of nails if you have too much disc out or the iron mask too high and why hunting with a more open screen so you hear everything and be able to hear those high pitched signals. With the Explorer you want to switch to the ferrous tone, but with the Quattro you can used the relic or all metal mod as these are ferrous tones.
I have one guy here with the Explorer that runs a pattern with the top opened up about where iron mask -8 would be and if he gets a real iffy one he will switch to iron mask at a -15 so it is more of a open screen to hear the signal better and decide if it is a false signal or one he wants to dig.This give him a better idea of what is beside the good target or if it is a good target. Doing this he is walking behind others that run only a disc pattern and picking up coins they are missing. He now has 245 silver coins this year with 12 of the silver halfs with most being very iffy one way untill he checked them out in a open screen of iron mask. With the Quattro you will find switching between your relic mode and one of the other modes to check out a signal faster than we can with the Explorer.

On coils the stock coil is too big for many people in some of the trashier area or even to learn the Quattro and I find the 8 inch coil is great plus the Joey coil I use more than any of the other ones as i find it goes deep and yet can seperate in some of the site I hunt. When it real super bad trash I find the 5 inch coil the best one to use, but if you are looking for the cheapest price on a 8 inch coil the Minelab ones are your best bet as many I see sell for $65-$80. The SunRay is a lighter coil, but very hard to find used as most that have them are keeping them, this also goes for the Joey coil as you see a few, but they are $150 and more used.
I would love to see you try the same test on the mini ball with a 8 inch coil as it may see it on every swing of the coil as the stock one may be seeing some iron you dont know is there.

 

[Sand Shagger (NMB)]

Hello,

Since I only hunt the beach, "Coin Jewelry" and "Relics" only two modes I have used hunting for gold jewelry, coins, etc.

I am interested to know where you read about loosing 2" when Sensitivity is in "Auto"? Sometimes I hunt at 16 or 17 and other times just stay with "Auto". I have tried and tried to to see difference in "auto" and "17" on the beach by doing comparisons on weak targets but found NO difference.

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

I agree with Rick's theory on the iron, particularly with that red clay thing you guys have down there. I have an Explorer II now but when I had the Quattro I dug quite a few 58 cal minnies, musketballs, and a few buttons and never had that happen to me. And as you know, the 32-ish range is about right for them, depending on whether it was fired, dropped, etc. Now as the depth increases and due to soil and iron masking, those numbers can and do change. Bottom line is if you are in a CW relic area and have a deep target that is bouncing and coming anywhere near the minnieball range, even if not consistent, you should did it. The other thing I have found with both the Quattro and the Explorer II is that in a really bad iron area, bad soil, or even trashy sites...it may be a little nerve-racking to open up your disc and listen to everything, but you still get target ID and tone ID and you only have to dig what you want to. But by "opening her up" you will have less masking of good targets by bad and less nulling for the machine to recover from and it just works better in those situations.

 

[Daniel Tn]

On a typical straight disc machine..say like the Tesoros or what not...what I normally do is set them to where they just pop on a square nail. What I found on the Quattro, is that the setting for it to do this, is at -10 which is the extreme left of the disc range. So in all technicality, I've been hunting pretty doggone low disc anyway and just basically using my ears to determine whether or not to dig. I wanted a target ID machine so I could hunt some yards with a fairly better idea of what I was digging. The Quattro still serves the purpose though...all I want it to do is block out nails and small iron trash as I still want the larger iron. I went through my display case of all the buttons I have and they varied from +9 to +16 in numbers so that keeps me into the foil to tab range digging everything. What I'm really going to like about the Quattro is the ability to knock out specific junk items that change with each site. And plus the depth indicator will help me too...you take a chance of passing something good that is shallow but for the most part once you get in a site you can tell how deep the stuff you are looking for is going to be turning up. Example being a site producing 6-7 inch bullets that has 1-3 inch pull tabs mixed in.

I have noticed that the Quattro loves coins. I have a small test garden with coins in it and if there is a coin in the ground that thing locks and doesn't move. Same tones. Same VDI numbers. I have a half dollar buried over a foot deep that you'd be surprised of how many top of the line detectors can't hit it. The Tejon barely whimpers on it. The Cibola and Ace 250 wouldn't even recognize it. The XLT doesn't know it's there. The DFX I had would hit it pretty good and the Quattro is on par with it. And I have a nickel buried about 8-10 inches that only the Tejon could hit that now the Quattro hits and gives a steady +16 on it. I just committed to buying a SunRay 8" coil so we'll see how it does when it gets here.

 

[Jackpine Savage]

Is not giving the ID circuits enough info for a solid reading hence the bouncing you see. The Coinstrike is that way on some small low conductors at depth with no other nearby targets. A bouncing reading of iron into the teens on weak signals is not always iron but can be small rivets, brass ect. If you have anything disced out they will not appear as a repeatable diggable target.

Tom

 

[beachguy777]

Dan, it's geat to hear that stuff. I especially like hearing the stories about your test garden, as I havn't built one yet, using hard clay ground as an excuse. I'm starting to get fired up about building one though, because it's such a good way to test signals, depth, other detectors, etc. Good to hear how good the Quatro is working for you and at such good depth. Marc Trainor

 

[Daniel Tn]

I was just emailing my hunting buddy about the Quattro. He hunts with a CoinStrike and I use to have a C$ as well. It was my favorite ID machine of all time. I was telling him how similar the Quattro and C$ were. I think this is the closest to a C$ that I've had. I like the layout and feel of the Quattro 10x better and the horde of coil options makes me smile. I may only get a 5" or the Joey for it down the road but smaller coils are my favorite coils.

The C$ does extremely well in the soil here. Alot of machines struggle. I think the C$ does better because of it iron disc setting that is seperate from the disc itself. The factory preset on the iron disc is basically 99 and that makes it act like alot of other machines. But I found when I lowered it to about 50 that I found alot of things that other machines could not and would not hit. Maybe doing that was the same as "opening up" an Explorer or Quattro. Thankfully that option is there as it is lacking on bunches of machines. I'll feel a whole lot better once I get the 8" for the Quattro.

 

[Jackpine Savage]

iron disc setting. No matter what machine, the worse the iron, the lower the disc setting goes. Takes some getting used to but you will out hunt guys that disc out iron every time.

Are you having any problem adapting to the slower sweep the Quattro requires vs the C$?. I have tried going back to the CZ's, but after using the C$ and Excel I just can't tolerate the less forgiving sweep speed range of the CZ's. I even tried a Vaquero and although it was great in trash, speed up just a little in open areas and it skips right over targets, probably the worst detector I have ever seen for that.

Tom

 

[Daniel Tn]

I have heard guys always say that the Explorers, Soverigns, and other Minelabs require "slow" sweep speeds. The problem is...nobody ever really details what is "fast" and what is "slow". Fast to me may be slow to others. When I'm in the process of finding a spot to hunt on say, 500+ acres I will hunt fast as to cover alot of ground. This is what I like about my Tejon. You can hunt it fast and when you find a specific spot to hunt, it does a good job pulling stuff out of it too. But once I get in a spot, I slow down to a crawl and will sometimes actually grid off places and hunt it then once I do that I'll come in from another angle and hunt it all again.

My purpose for getting the Quattro was to have an ID machine for once I did get into a spot, or for general searching in smaller sites like yards. When you only have a half acre to an acre to hunt...you can really slow down and hunt it really good. I think it is going to do good for that now.

It finally rained here...rained all night and off and on today. So early this week I hope to get out some when I get off work.

 

[beachguy777]

You know, Rick, I just re-read your post here and it makes a lot of sense to me. He might oughta try the 8 or 5 inch coil and see if it didn't seperate the iron from the mini ball, if there's some iron down there. The only other thing I could think of is dig up the mini ball and re bury it in some "clean" ground and re test it. I also like the switching modes idea, I need to do that myself.