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question ?

sasquache

sasquache

Well-known member
Hello other minelab users i own a explorer XS and have had some nice finds with it and I'm fairly familiar with its settings but there is one thing that happens that confuses me at most of my sites first let me say i run in advanced /smart mode and have all but jewelery and coins notched out also run iron mask off until i need too check a target. Sensitivity is between 16 and 25 depends on ground my question is why at times I'm at a site and in certain areas the thresh hold disappears constantly in that i mean it goes silent for long periods of time with out hearing it again what causes this ? I noise cancel every 1/2 hour or so and i turn the sensitivity down but it doesn't help. Hope this can be solved or maybe someone else has had this happen too them? thank you
 
any target that you have discriminated out will null...another reason to not use too much discrimination.

a lot of us would prefer to hear all the trash, and then decide whether or not to dig. after a while, the good targets really begin to stand out.

others would rather not be bothered with all the extra noise, but it's a trade-off...it took me a long time to get used to trashy sounds, and i am a better detectorist for it.
 
n/t
 
The silence is when your machine is going over something you have discriminated out.
I personally dont notch out anything,i just select coins,i found a barber dime at about 8 inches just in the coin setting
with an XS i had.also have a low setting for iron mask,i think around -6 is about right on the XS.
it will go deeper in iron mask.Because of less discrimination.
Learn where the coins register,and have fun,the explorers are designed to be hunted very slow,
but you will find very little if your hunting behind another explorer user!:ranting:LOL
 
I think many of us have found that switching to IM seem to work better. To much disc will make the machine null. I hunt with almost no disc... only enought to disc out most iron and minerals. In trashy area you just have to move slow because if your machine nulls the coils' sensitivity is reduced temporarly. It takes a moment for it to recover. It does that for every target... but nulls take longer to recover than a tone. The explorers dont have the fastest recovery time so move slow and you wont miss too many target close together. I still use patterns on occassions when im looking for certain targets, have hunter the area before, or there is just an ungodly amount of trash. As far as your sensitivity goes... in areas that cause a lot of null i turn my sensitivity up until the smartfind seems to hang then i back it off a bit.

Dew
 
LabradorBob said:
I personally dont notch out anything,i just select coins,i found a barber dime at about 8 inches just in the coin setting
Click to expand...

with all due respect, Bob, i believe that if you use coin settings that you are, by definition, notching out everything but coins. therefore, everything else will null. please correct me if i'm misunderstanding you.

i used a 'learned' coin pattern for the first year i had my SE; now i run Iron Mask -14, and i hear quite a bit more these days...including a lot of interesting brass & lead objects that i used to pass up. gold will also show up outside of a typical coin pattern.
 
thank you for all of your help every one i will try less disc and less iron mask see if that helps but i understand the nulling of the thresh hold for the most part and maybe im missing some relics? I will experiment some next time im out getting colder and the snow is getting closer here in maine so not sure how much longer we will have too dig.thanks agane
 
I guess my point was if you hunt in IM say about half way even you dont need to keep switching to check targets. Same with digital vs smartfind... if you learn smartfind which some dont you will only refer to the digital reading rarely. Plus you tend to dig more in smartfind which beleave it or not is what you need to be doing. I think too many people try to find a reason NOT to dig a target and pass over some really good stuff. Listen carefully to those deep targets and dig a few bent nails especially if you are huntin relics most of them arent going to be found with disc. Relic hunting to me requires almost AM setting and digging those deep weak setting... almost all of them will have some iron reading. A lot depends on what you are hunting for and where.

Dew
 
Mr. SQ.

The threshold disappears whenever the hot spot of your coil is over an item you have discriminated out. No discrimination no nulling, lots of discrimination- constant null. Actually many sites are so junk filled that even a little iron mask leads to an almost constant null.

However, there can be times that nulling is caused by too much electrical noise. You stated in certain areas it nulls constantly, but not in others. Generally this means you are in a trashier area.

When you loose threshold stop and/or hold the coil up in the air. If it is still nulling or sounding off then it means you are picking up electrical noise and the machine is trying to process it. You can try noise cancel, but in most areas electrical interference is caused by power lines, which tends to be a broad noise source and will affect the different channels more or less equally. I find that a noise cancel will sometimes gain me a notch or two of sensitivity. Your sensitivity control is designed to deal with this noise, not ground conditions. In semi-auto it is does this by itself; but many of us feel it over compensates. In semi-auto you can have it set at 1 and it may really be running at 15, or set it at 26 and it will really be running at 15. Basically you need to turn the sensitivity down until the machine is not nulling or giving off signals when you are not moving the coil. I find that in town I can often only run between 12-20 when near power lines. Out in the country or in big parks I can crank it up to the high twenties. Guess where I find the most deep coins?

If it is only nulling when you are moving the coil then you are knee deep in trash. You can still find good stuff in trash if you hunt using the setttings you describe; stronger signals from good targets will break through the nulling, and if you slow way down and give the machine time to recover from each null you can improve your chances.

Chris
 
Thanks to everyone for your comments on this subject. It has been interesting and helpful. I have been running a lot of discrimination and finding many modern coins (over $1900), but only two gold rings. I changed the settings recently and, in the first hour, dug up a great ring that would never have registered on my old settings.
 
Put the machine in all metal (open IM screen and you will hear all the iron). If you put your sounds in ferrous mode instead of conduct you will get low growls from the iron, medium pitched tones from lead, nickel and gold, and pulltabs, and high tones for silver copper.
 
...and i have found that i like the level of control vs. letting the machine make the decisions for me. if i'm running too high (i.e. falsing), then i turn the Manual Sensitivity down a couple notches until it stabilizes. until i started experimenting with it, i was unaware of what a difference it could make. now i pay careful attention to it, and i believe i'm getting better depth and more accurate readings because of this. however, Bryce swears by Semi-Auto, and he does better than i do...a lot better. so i guess it's up to the individual to figure out what works best. something to try out, though
 
Thou ive tested and tested semi vs manual sensitivity on found targets im still using manual as well. There have been very very few target in manual that i didnt hit with semi as well. I guess what bothers me most is when im hunting and waive my ring across the coil in semi i get like 4 inches... but in manual its twice that. Air testing may not be an accurate test of depth... buttttt thats a pretty good difference.

Dew
 
i'm starting to get confused. what is better 1 or 26, semi or manual. i always ran my sovereign at full sensitivity. i've tried semi and manual, 16, 26, and 32 on the explorer xs but i haven't got anything deep yet. thanks.
 
Chuck,

You and many others have thought that in semi-auto the machine will not go higher than the sensitivity number displayed. This is a common misunderstanding. Find some clean ground and put a coin on the ground. Sweep it with Sensitivity set at 1 manual. See how far away you can still get a good reading. Very shallow. Now switch to semi-auto. Sweep and you will find you get a reading much farther away. The explorer thinks you have sensitivity set too low and cranks it up.

The same thing happens at higher settings. You may have it set at 26 in semi-auto, but the explorer thinks that is too high and lowers it to 15 or 16. Try the same experiment but inside your house with the TV and computer on. Lots of Electrical noise. You may not be able to turn it up above 10-12 manual without it going batty. But you might be able to run 20 semi-auto and have a smooth threshold. This means the explorer turned it down below the 10-12 level. Basically the sensitivity control is to deal with electrical noise. There are very few places you can run wide open in manual. I've found you need to be pretty far away from any power lines to do this. Semi is doing what it thinks is best. The problem is that many of us feel it sacrifices depth for a smoother threshold.

My gut feeling is that when you are in the field and swing over lots of trash that the explorer thinks it is seeing too much electrical noise and lowers the level in semi-auto. This may or may not be a bad thing, but generally to get depth you need to be running at a higher level. There are many instances where in semi people still find deep coins; and there are many hunters who hunt exclusively this way and make many good finds. I'm convinced the would find more in manual; BUT.... you need to deal with a noisier machine, and that can get tiring after awhile.

Chris
 
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