Now, your a man and soon you'll be a master of the Explorer, so when my video comes out... please get one. I will also be having one as a prize exclusively on this forum only...
It will explain all the sounds the Explorer uses for signals, but just like any other detector, the Explorer has three basic tones when you are coin shooting...
The high pitch for Silver with the cross hairs in either the far right corner for Quarters, Halfs, Dollars, and Large Cents. Half the cross hair box hanging off the tops for the dimes. For you a secret, seated coins come in at the right of the screen, but about a quarter of an inch down from the extreme right, and the cross hair box is half way into the screen.
The Mid Tone for Nickels. Nickels have a distinct sound and very few gold rings sound like them, you'll see what I mean when you hunt the beaches G. The V Nickel sound a tad bit lower than a Jefferson, and a Buffalo may sound like either one.
Lastly, and the most difficult to understand except at the beach... is the higher mid tone for pennies. Zincs will sound very close to dimes and the cross hairs may even hang half way off the top, and to complicate matters, even the numbers may show as 3-29 6-29 on the digital screen.
Wheaties can come in with three tones, high like a zinc if it rained hard the day before you hunt, like a penny and you'll learn that tone at the beach, where you'll begin to say to yourself, now that's a penny and only less than 1% of the time will that tone be gold, as compared to the Indian Heads and older Wheaties which will sound like, now get this, in between a Memorial and a Nickel tone. That means, that the cross hairs will be just a little higher than a Nickel and just a bit lower than a Memorial penny or even a wheat back. Dig these solid or mixed signals as they are like a box of chocoletes, you never know what you going to get...it could be a button, indian head, or even gold, a nice relic...
The problem you'll have with the Explorer will be the in between tones of the many different type pull tops, Brass, pewter, and lead, because many objects are made of these metals and they have a sound all their own. To complicate matters worst, if you are not careful you'll be walking away from some keepers.
When you hunt in Conduct, coins come in on the high right of the LCD, but rotted iron will also come in as a high pitch, but at the left of the LCD screen. When you run into a deepy, say, 8 to 10 inches and the coin is mixed with iron, the cross hairs will jump from the far left to the far right, with a high tone.
Now comes the matter of choice in how and what you are going to hunt for, because you can hunt in what I've been having a lot of success with and that is hunting in the Ferrous mode. The Ferrous mode changes the tone around a bit... That low sounding foil tone you receive in conduct is now almost a pull top tone, Iron comes in as a low tone and as a high tone in conduct, crown tops come in very high like hot rocks or rotted iron, but the cross hairs sticks to the button right hand of the LCD instead of the top extreme right corner, so if you are in Ferrous mode, dig those high pitches which will be Large Cents, Dollars, halfs, and Quarters. The dimes, you have to go by the bit lower silver tone and verify that the cross hairs are half way off or hanging off the top of the LCD screen.
Now, you must remember that there are many metals that come in with a high pitch. The worst are the tops of soda cans without the pull. They sound just like silver, but once you train your ear to how silver sounds, you'll notice that the can tops are a bit higher than silver. There are metals that I thought were silver and turned out to be other lids, screw tops, the pipes plumbers use for sinks, chrome is another heart breaker, but you also get a nice relic because many pendants, medallions, company name plates and other silver rings, and medals will come in like silver.
You must decide if you want to just hunt for Silver or mixed bag. In this case you can exclude relics, pull tops, nickels, and of course gold. If you are certain that an area you are hunting is very very trashy, you may want to discriminate from the select screen... the Foil, Pull Tops, Crown Tops, and you'll notice that only the top part of your LCD screen will be open, but man your going to bring home the silver.
I usually hunt with heavy discrimination on to weed out the other metals and look for the high pitches. I'm in Ferrous now Joe, once I'm satisfied that I gave the area a good slow looking over. I go on and open my Iron mask to 16 and hunt with that on, if I bump into a high pitch I missed, I turn to the smart screen again by just pressing the iron mask button once and your back in the smart screen mode with all the discrimination and just pin point the silver out. Now in the open screen, if I get to a spot where there are not too many pull top or nickel tones, I dig all of those...say 5 of those tones in a twenty square foot area... I have found nice rings that way...
If you are in an area where you are not bombarded with a lot of Pull Top and Nickel tones, dig all these as well and you'll be surprise at the nice jewelry you find. Now for the last part of this course, Knowing the tones to the Explorer 101...is of course buttons.... Buttons are sometimes my favorite finds, especially when you happen to get a nice one... Buttons, make up 40% of the tones on the Explorer and most of the time, they are the tones you are not digging because, a lot of the time you'll dig relics... Brass Locks, Keys, subway tokens, hard times tokens, Bullet casings, shot gun casings, broaches, plaques, etc... but buttons have a distinct sound unto themselves like silver, if you learn how they sound, you'll be picking them out from the brass and other relics.
Learn where the cross hairs land in a solid tone and make a note of it. The most difficult task with the Explorer and I have walk away from some nice finds, is that when you have a keeper and it's mixed in with other metals, man it's hard to know which one is the good target or if both are worth digging.
We see all these guy's and no offense to them when they make a testing garden with all these targets in different location and depths, but if you are not mixing in iron and other metals with what you are hunting for, you are for a rude awakening, because when you get out in the field, it's all nice and well when a silver dime is picked up and no other metal is there, it's easy... cross hairs jump to the right and half of the cross hairs are in the middle of the upper screen, you dig and there it is a nice silver dime, but...you have people who have thrown 5 or 8 different types of metal along with the years of other stuff being thrown there and you have a problem.
You may say, hey OK, I just discriminate all these metals out and find the silver...not that simple. In any detector, especially the Explorer, if you begin to use too many filters, you may actually make it more difficult to find what you are looking for, believe me...sometimes it's better, no matter how trashy an area is, is to go in there with your iron mask on and set from -10 to -16 and hear everything.
Today, a hunting buddy left because he wasn't finding anything especially silver. I stayed and work very trashy areas and came home with three silver, two mercs and a rosie.
In conclusion, when you hunt for silver, pay attention to the cross hairs and only dig when you see the cross hairs either in the far extreme upper right or half of the cross hairs box hanging half way off the top and from the middle of the screen and to the far right.... Happy Hunting....
Philo_NY
Here are the pictures of my silver. The silver in the plate are from last year and the years before, now the silver in top of the picture is all the silver for this year alone, 48 came out of one spot. It's amazing how much silver you can find with research and a little presistence and working at the hobby and learning your machine....
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