Osage said:
I recently discovered several videos by Norfolk Wolf (I believe) showing recovery speed of different detectors. He placed a coin and an iron nail on a board and moved the nail to determine the distance between the two that would allow the detector to identify the coin after passing over the nail. ( recovery speed ) Some of the results were surprising.
Has anyone tried this type of test with a 1236? I don't have a big old iron nail to test this. I would sure think that this recovery speed would be an extremely important ability for a detector. I read on another site that the 1236 was only average in this ability.
Thanks,
Did he call it that, "recovery speed?" I thought that was "separation." The two are different.
Recovery speed is more about response, as it relates to sweep speed. Separation is about masking distance between two targets.
In my experience, the 1236X2 is good on both counts. Just for fun I tried your test.
I placed a large, 3" nail near a US dime.
At 4" there was no problem getting the dime.
At 2" again no problem, although the response was clipped a bit.
Inside of 2", however, you can forget it. The dime was undetectable.
With the nail lengthwise to the dime, it was different.
At 4" the dime was still clear when the sweep crossed it
first, but clipped when the nail came first.
This was repeated until the nail came within the magic 2" - then the dime was pretty much toast, either way.
Smaller nails, 2" or less, caused another change - the dime was detectable almost all the time, even with the nail directly on top!
So the size of the iron target definitely makes a difference to the amount of masking exhibited.
For what it is worth, this is very good. Better than average, in fact. I have tested detectors costing more that don't do as well.
Part of this good response has to to do with the coil. The Fisher 8" epoxy "Spider" coil is, one of the best on the market, hands down. The rest is the detector itself. It was designed for this sort of performance around iron. I'd say it worked.
Here's a report from Gary's Detecting in the UK, just in case you're interested.
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Fisher 1236x2 field test
The Fisher 1236 X2 is a very well made metal detector . It has a solid, robust 8 inch spider coil, the controls are solid and have a smooth action, the box can be removed and hip mounted.
The older Fishers have a reputation for finding unwanted iron. But with this machine, while you still hear it - you know what it is (a big help). This is not to say you will totally ignore iron like some others, but it is acceptable. The discrimination can bet set to a preset iron reject or any user position, like most other machines. I set mine at exactly 3 
