Sensitivity - Too much - Too little - when to adjust?

[TONE JUNKY]

What is the best sensitivity. That is the question. Too much sensitivity can cause you to mask a good target. Too little Sens. can miss a good target. Different coils may require different sens settings. What are your opinions on this.

Also, different types of ground conditions may warrant adjusting the sens level.

I hunt 2 old parks that are 200 years old. They are full of trash, but have a lot of good targets under the trash level. I use the 5", 4.5 x 7", 8", 5 x 10 Joey & 10.5 FDS. I've tried the sens at just about every level but can't seem to teel much differents.

Let me know your thoughts.

 

[Old Sox]

Good question Tone Junky! I am learning my SE and thought about this very thing today. I went around midrange today and did pretty good, I think I hunted mostly around 20. I will be watching this and hope to learn somehing, too!!

 

[NH Bob]

I run my sensitivity just below unstable. If the SE falses or digital jumps around, I lower the sens. so the SE runs quiet.
I also run in manual sens. so I control the degree of sensitivity.
Let me clarify that this is after I've noise canceled.

 

[TONE JUNKY]

Thanks for your input, Bob. I've read many of your posts & trust your opinion.

And, yes, that is usually what I do. But, Sometimes I'm just not sure Its set right.

I guess the problem for me is too much shallow trash around to see deep targets. I very seldom get any good deep targets. I have found some nice targets that just weren't very deep.

Again, thanks for your opinion.

 

[Big Fang Coin Biter]

I think you may be worrying too much. I use probably too much sens. With SR8" coil I use 32 most of the time. Like you and Bob I run the std coil as high as possible without falsing. I always use manual sens.

With that said... I dug probably the deepest coin way back when I first got my XS. It was my first time out, and the machine was in factory preset except I set the sens. up to 24. I think the preset was 18 or 20. Factory preset also had auto sens turned on! I dug a tiny peep of a signal and it ended up being a wheat cent down at a measured 11 inches! Note: auto sens. with sens. of 24 - 11" cent.

I also dug a seated dime at about the same depth at a different spot. It took me probably three minutes to figure if I really wanted to dig. Like the penny it was just a tiny sound with that null on either side. This time it had a hard time repeating at 90

 

[NH Bob]

I have only used the ML800 for a small coil. Most of the guys here have used other different smaller coils in trashy areas and have great success.
Maybe ,if you haven't yet, try a smaller coil in the trash.

 

[BlackX]

I also have mainly really trashy spots to hunt. I was out yesterday for a while and was wondering the same thing. I'm new to the Explorer but often had the same question with my Sov. By the time my SE arrived, I was coming to the conclusion that I'd probably be better off backing off the sensitivity so I'm not as distracted by falses off the edge of iron. (Seems with the SE I also get falses off the edges of crown caps(?) too, which I didn't tend to get on the Sov--though I could have been and just didn't have the info that's what I was hitting.)

[quote NH Bob]I run my sensitivity just below unstable. If the SE falses or digital jumps around, I lower the sens. so the SE runs quiet.[/quote]

My experience with the Sov was that, when dropping the sensitivity, the point where 95%(?) of the falsing stop is significantly below the point where other instability stops. That seems to be holding true with the SE as well. Do you find the same? If so, do you drop it so the falsing stops or some percentage of the way down to that point?

[quote Big Fang Coin Biter]Both of these signals would have been easy to miss. They were very quiet and had a sort of null around either side. My guess on your lack of deep targets is one of two things, there are no deep goodies or you are not digging the tiny iffy signals. ... Do try paying more attention to those very little sounds. They will act pretty much like the regular hits only the volume will be way low. Find one that repeats and dig it up. It will be deep (or tiny).[/quote]

With the Sov, evertime I thought I heard those faint sounds that might be a good, deep object, it's turned out to be something tiny on the surface. Then I've done the same thing twice now w/ the Sov. (which sucks in frozen ground. ) Will lifting the coil off the ground distinguish those two for me? i.e., if it's faint sound and I lift the coil a couple of inches, will I still get sound from the tiny surface object but not a deepie?

 

[minelab locust]

my experience has been that if you lift the coil a couple of inches and the signal is still present its a tiny shallow target and if it is a deep coin it will disappear BUT don't exclude the possibility of it being a shallow 3cent piece or half dime shallow as well or maybe even a tiny dollar gold coin as i have seen the shallow 3cent piece as well as the half dime at less than 3inches dug up by a friend of mine right before my eyes so i would say DIG IT ALL shallow or deep...just my 2cents worth

 

[NH Bob]

Digging all repeatable that fall in the first 1/3 of the screen at an old site is correct.
I should have added that at a modern trashy site (which I don't hunt) some say lower the sens. for less distraction of surface trash.
Or at least that is the way I understand it.
Help on extremely trashy sites should come from others that hunt them.

 

[Mike Moutray - St.Louis MO]

Sensitivity isn't that critical... set it where you don't get a lot of falsing, or use semi-auto. In a really trashy spot, target seperation is your biggest worry, not sensitivity. Slow down and overlap your swings by at least 50%... any coin reading you get, do VERY short and rapid swings over the target and swing at slight angles... if the signal is repeatable - dig it. many coins masked by trash will only hit in one direction and if they are in a group of trash targets, the very short and rapid swings will let the detector lock on to that coin better. You'll find a lot of coins in between the trash this way, shallow and deep. Good luck and HH, Mike.

 

[Big Fang Coin Biter]

I cannot say that lifting the coil helps much. I have noticed though that a tiny shallow object will usually sound too loud for the depth indication. Say you are scrubbing the ground with the coil and get a hit. The depth says it is deep, you lift the coil an inch, the signal goes away (also indicating it is deep), but the sound when you are scrubbing the ground seems too loud to really be down 11". Then it is usually something tiny or on edge.
HH - BF

 

[minelab locust]

[quote Big Fang Coin Biter]I cannot say that lifting the coil helps much. I have noticed though that a tiny shallow object will usually sound too loud for the depth indication. Say you are scrubbing the ground with the coil and get a hit. The depth says it is deep, you lift the coil an inch, the signal goes away (also indicating it is deep), but the sound when you are scrubbing the ground seems too loud to really be down 11". Then it is usually something tiny or on edge.
HH - BF[/quote] well in a case such as that i myself would dig....after all how much time could it possibly take to dig a shallow hole for recovery...at least that way if it WAS an on edge coin you still make the find versus if its trash you are only out a few seconds or a minute of dig time

 

[SNOWY]

Tone Junky, I have done this at times...

First find a target free area.
Engage "manual sensitivity" then swing your coil left and right, while listening to your threshold.
If the threshold is unsteady ~ keep swinging your coil to and fro while reducing your sensitivity.

Do this until your threshold becomes stable; at this point you are at the best sensitivity level for that particular ground.

If the threshold is steady when you first start this procedure, do as above, but increase your sensitivity until the threshold gets wobbly.

Then decrease the sensitivity until your threshold is stable once more...

 

[BlackX]

What do you do if you can't find a target-free area?

(I went out for a short hunt in my yard last night before bed (even though it was starting to snow) with the X-5 on and tried a couple new things: Sensitivity at auto 32 and a faster sweep speed than usual--about 3 seconds per sweep--to see if I get anything different than I do during my normal slow (crawling?) sweeps in the yard. It was a constant low [ferrous on] beep-beep-beep witth an occasional higher beep. Only dug two mostly-repeatable targets: one was a bent nail at about 8" and another was a piece of flashing. (The ground has thawed some.) I seem to get a fair amount of repeatable possible targets between adjacent iron targets but when I turn on the pinpoint, there's nothing there. There was was less falsing than I get in manual. I think I mainly need to start in one area and start digging out all the nails.)

 

[grumpy]

Bob;
I knew the sens to high would make it false but I run mine as hi as possible but I did not put the digital jumping around as to much sens??? Learn stuff on hear every day :)
Thanks for the added info
Grumpy

 

[NH Bob]

I don't know about you but where I live the ground is rock solid. Can't wait to get out and do some diggin.
Some machines run best with sens. high enough to make the machine talk back to you. T2, F75, MXT, Some of the CZs just to name a few.
They get their best depth by tweaking the sens. or gain as it's called in some of them like the MXT. But the Explorer, though it can be run hot is best when stable. More so for the SE than the II. I believe the SE is already tweaked at the production line. That is one reason the SE falses so easy.
Again this is just my thought on the subject. I'm not the Technician.