I can't wait until next spring when I can get some full hunting days in, in the mean time I'll be getting some Explorer indoor testing and recording done, I try to learn more about the Explorer and also keep the battery pack in use.
Factory preset if I'm not mistaken is in between Fast & Deep Recover(medium recovery-Fast & Deep not selected), I used Deep mode most of the time last year because I was sticking to the open fields and wanted to use what I believe is the deepest setting -Deep goes deep. I did use Fast mode also, when it was needed in such spots as moderate to high trash areas, however, in these more trashy sites Deep mode also worked surprisingly well only in the higher trash did fast mode really shine through.
Fast and Deep modes must both be used, neither is a stand alone better mode. I have used Deep in a given area and after considering it picked semi-clean I would go back over it in Fast mode and start hitting way more goodies than should have been left. I attribute this to the Fast recover seeing the close to junk goodies that just wasn't meant for Deep mode to easily find.
I have hunted areas starting out in Fast mode also, and the results have been the same, after picking semi-clean a site and then going back over it in Deep mode again more surprising amounts of additional finds were found. I know when I have pretty much cleaned out a site and I know that no site is ever really cleaned out, but I also know when the pickins should be slim so when switching between recovery modes and seeing these results I have to say that both are important to use and if you don't use both in a given area then your leaving some easy ones behind.
Now, you ask about leaving it in factory preset Recovery mode, that's an interesting question because essentially you would be getting very close to the best of both Recovery worlds and not really have to go over any given site more than once. Maybe you will leave a certain percentage of findable targets because of not thoroughly covering the site in both Recovery modes, but you will be pulling out a variety of different coin in ground configurations such as real deep, on edge, and closer to junk, just not as many as you would going over a site twice once in each mode.
Sensitivity is I think mostly site related, the more trashy the less you use, just the opposite of discrimination. I use Manual Sensitivity in an extreme way, many times I will set it to maximun(32) and go with the continuos nulling -I believe it is one of the most advanced ways to hunt using the Explorer, it works very well only it does take some effort to learn what to listen for. I usually hunt with sensitivity set it either manual(23)thru(32), or Semi-Auto(2
thru(32) depending on ground conditions. Again, like Recover modes, sensitivity settings have no one setting fits all, but if I had to pick a single sensitivity setting to fit all I would choose 28 semi auto, it stay's fairly stable in all my hunting sites so far.
A little long, hope it helps a bit. Nothing is set in stone either. I have to believe that new and better set-ups will continue to be discovered in the years to come as the Explorer is brought in to more and more different hunting environments ground conditions, and certainly this is both my preferences and opinion but I don't mind passing it since it has worked just fine for me.
GL/HH
