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Back to the future part 2. Tried this yesterday and it got lost in transit

N

NH Bob

New member
[size=medium]I have come to visit this forum because I have back to the X-Terra 70.
Yup. 3 Explorers, Shadow X5, Ace250 and now the 2nd X70. Why? cause its such a nice efficient machine to run. Paired with the 10"Round DD coil its a match made in heaven.
I hunt old sites almost exclusively.
 
Hi Bob,

I've been following your post on the SE and X-70, always a pleasure reading your post. You live in an extremely old area and the places you hunt generally seen to be older sites.

I've had the X-70 for about 2-3 weeks, Must say it's a fun detector and appears to be a well performance unit as well. My 10.5" DD coil should arrive tomorrow, So I'm hoping it does as well as the Explorer SE on depth.

Currently, I'm using the 5X9 elliptical coil. That coil does well for relic hunting but I feel the 10.5" DD will be the better coil for deep park turf hunting due to the lower kHz.

I Have a question, Maybe you've noticed it or maybe it's me. It appears "maybe only to me" the recovery speed is not as fast as the Explorer when searching older areas laced with iron, It appears the iron masking effects the recovery speed? I find myself slowing down the sweep allot more so than the explorer, The signal comes after the coil has passed the target a second slower? Not the quick response as the Explorer as the coil passes the iron masked signal?

Anyway, Thanks for your positive post and looking forward to reading more.

HH, Paul
 
I feel sure that once you use the 10"DD you will not want to take it off. It is also very sensitive to small gold such as small gold wire rings. They sound off loud and clear. As a colonial copper or old site unit, it is very efficient and has lots of depth.
For us old farts it is a great machine to get out and spend a full day hunting and not regret it later.
On your extra deep old coppers you will notice a faint audible signal and the digital ID will most times show lower than the 42 it should show for a Large cent. But as you pull the plug and try your signal again you will see it move up in the digital scale. I have dug colonial coppers at 14". 31 of them from one three day outing at an old stage stop. Oldest being a 1736 Farthing.
 
its not just you Paul. Remember if you are not already doing it...leave the tracking on. Much less iron masking. The tracking does more than adjust to the ground response. It acts as sort of a pre-filter to man made iron. If you noticed the X70 does not seem to perform as well as the X50 that you tried earlier around iron, that is the reason. It had to be designed with the ability to turn tracking on/off due to the proespecting mode. without that mode it would have been left on permanently by the engineers.

Tom
 
Hi Jackpine. Glad to meet you.
Being new here and not knowing anyone can you tell me how you got your info. I'm interested in the tracking as the manual only touches on it. From what I understand if you run tracking and swing back over the target too much you lose the signal do to the tracking.
Now please fill me in.
Bob
 
At the time I was first testing the X70 Minelab sent me I also had an X50 on loan from Barnacle Bill. So of course it was a natural to do some comparisons on undug targets. I discovered that on iron co-located targets which gave a signal from only one direction of approach with the X70 the 50 was capable of hitting the same target from off-angles the 70 could not duplicate. Remembering what I had seen with the CoinStrike I turned the tracking on and after a few sweeps over the ground (including the iron) the 70 was then able to duplicate the X50's target response on the off-angle approaches. One of the prototype field testers told me of the "why".

I have posted this info a couple times but have never seen anyone else comment on it. Mine was a production machine Ser# 420.

Tom
 
Well I'm convinced enough to give it an honest try in the spring. If it works like you say its another plus for the coin hunter.
Thanx for sharing.
 
Thanks Jack,

I think you're right, I remember the X-50 signals jumping out from an old iron masked site. Not like the X-70, Slower response.....

I'll continue to experiment using the auto tracking and regular GB in the trashy man made iron sites to compare both.

With the MXT at the iron masked locations, I will do a proper GB at a clean area in the auto tracking GB mode and then lock it. This assures the abundance of iron will not effect the GB tracking. But, Maybe the X-70 is different so I'll be experimenting.

The X-70 has features I really do enjoy, hopefully it becomes one of my main detectors.

Thanks again,
HH, Paul
 
that most of the engineers have added a tracking inhibit feature like the one George Payne developed so that they do not track to iron. Any iron response that you can hear should not negatively impact performance. I dug 4, 14-15" deep copper memorials one after the other at a site one time and could not get the 70 to track them out using a normal sweep. Only when I tightened the sweep and hovered over the coins did it have an affect on the signal and one or two quick sweeps over adjacent ground was all it took to get a good response back.

I see a few complaining about low audio volume also. Forget the 150 Ohm detector phones. Koss QZ-99's, while a bit cumbersome, should solve that problem.

These new DSP detectors are totally different from what we are used to in the past. The Coinstrike and EDGE are clean sheet designs and NOT based on anything built previously. The Xterra series I'm sure, is the same. I don't know the how of why they act like they do but you have to forget everything you "know" about how others work to get the best from them. If there is a function that they let you adjust then you have to try it in different scenerios and against known performers to see what if any affect that control really has. Manufacturers sometimes have a habit of labeling controls with familiar names when they should be explained better on these new machines.

Tom
 
On New Year's Eve I found a rock referenced in the last paragraph of this post: http://www.findmall.com/read.php?55,452121,452121#msg-452121

Recently I finally got a chance to take the rock out in the back yard to do some rudimentary tests. I chose three machines to test:

CZ70 w/ Hockey Puck Coil
ID Edge w/ 5.75 inch Coil
X70 with HF 18.75kHz Elliptical

I chose the small coils so I could GB over the rock as the dominate area of soil.

Since I already knew the rock would ID as Iron, I took two US Nickels which I cross checked the ID on in air, and ground, with each machine. I wanted to see if the rock would pull the ID down into the Iron range whether on top of or below the rock. I located a target free area and set one Nickel acting as the control on top of the ground, and kept one to put on top of and underneath the rock.

First up was the ID Edge, I GB'd to the surrounding ground and swung over the rock from 6 inches height. It ID'd at -36 as expected and would go into overload if swung within 2 inches height. Placing the Nickel on top of the rock at 6 inches height gave a solid -36 but at 4 inches the ID would slip up into the -25 to -28 area. With the Nickel under the rock it's a big chunk of iron(-36) as far as the Edge is concerned. I then repeated the routine but GB'd over the rock, however the results were exactly the same.

Next up was the CZ70 in ID mode which I performed the above routine with. First thing I noticed was that the CZ would ignore the rock completely from six inches no matter where it was GB'd, over soil or rock. Only when getting down to the three inch area would it even begin to respond. This by the way confirms my anecdotal field experience with hunting cobble fields in lakes and rivers over the years, as the CZ's have been the quietest and most stable even at high sensitivity levels that make other VLF's cranky. GBing to the rock with the CZ was a Bear, half the thickness of a piece of paper movement, would cause a negative to positive response. I finally left it at a very slight positive setting. And the Nickel response was Iron whether on top of or below the rock. The target sounded good and solid, but never wavered on the screen or audio.

Last was the X70 in Coin mode. It reacted very much like the Edge with the Nickel beneath the rock showing a solid -8 and on top of the rock an occasional pull up to -4. I also tried the Tracking ON/OFF etc to see if the Nickel could be found. No luck, reads as a big chunk of Iron just like the two Fishers. Then on a whim I thought I would try the Prospecting mode with the expectation that I was going to get my eardrums blown out by the rock on it's own.

With the X70 in Prospecting All Metal mode & GB'd to the surrounding soil the rock nulled over dead center but gave an Iron edge like pull-off tone on either side of the rock. I then switched Tracking ON to see if it would have any effect, and it did, the pull off tone was reduced to about 25% of the original after a couple sweeps.

Next I re-GB'd to the surrounding soil Tracking OFF, and read the Nickel above and below the rock, it came through loud and clear. I couldn't believe it so I switched to IM @5 and it was still loud and clear. I ran the IM up to 20 and it was still loud and clear. There was still some minor edge pull off effect but it appeared the Nickel was getting most of the machine's attention probably vis a'vis the SAT release time. I was so surprised I picked the Nickel up to make sure the earthworms hadn't snuck a target under the rock.:lol:

I then turned Tracking ON and tried the Nickel above and below the rock, and the pull off effect was almost completely gone, maybe 10% of it's level solo. This has left me scratching my head and facing some painful realities. I have undoubtedly walked over hundreds of good gold targets over the years that have ID'd as Iron on the VLF's I have been using. The X70 in prospecting mode will see them, but without ID though, which would mean the gruesome task of digging a whole bunch of trash.

So your point of not being stuck in a particular technological rut is very well taken. I honestly would have probably argued the point with you that NO VLF was going to see through that rock based on my previous experience with VLF's. And in this instance the Tracking did make a difference, it caused the target to stand out even more from the background minerals. I had to see it myself to believe it.:shrug:

HH
BarnacleBill
 
rocks are you? Good example of the response from a negative or "cold" rock. I shoulda tried the prospecting mode last summer out at Lk Michigan dang it! With the lakes down and the sand moved out some of the beaches are solid cobble stones.

Yeah those CZ's are victims to that type masking. I rehit an area with the Cointrike that I had waded the day before with the CZ5. It was a small area of glacial gravels exposed when the sand moved. The C$ saw thru it in disc and got many targets the CZ missed just hours before.<p><center>[attachment 47089 TL0807.jpg]

No way I missed all those with the coil in that small area.
 
Hi Kelley,

I used a Nickel for two reasons. Since the rock reads like a big chunk of iron, a Nickel is closest in conductivity of a standard US coin to iron, and would be most easily pulled down the discrimination ID scale. So I guess in that sense I chose the easiest victim that would fall prey to a cobble field laced with these type rocks.

Second reason is more of a belly button issue, which is that I really prefer hunting gold jewelry and the Nickel is closest in conductivity to a gold ring. Therefore I wanted to know more about how these rocks in the rivers and lakes I hunt are effecting my favorite targets.

I will have some time this weekend for another short test, so if you have a request please pick a coin, quarter, dime etc and two machines out of the following list, and I will give it a go:

CZ70 4" & 8"
CZ20 8"
CZ20 10.5"
Tesoro Stingray II 8"
ID Edge 8" & 5.75"
BH QDII 8"
X30
X50
X70
I have all the X-Terra coils except for the 10.5" DD rounds.

I also have another overseas machine coming that I want to test, but I don't think it will be here by this weekend.

HH
BarnacleBill
 
Hello Tom,

I tired both this week at an old lot full of iron, Regular GB and auto GB tracking.

I didn't see using the auto GB tracking missing signals in the iron, But the hunt was for a short period. I did notice when switching back to manual the GB tracking was allot higher than what the ground reading should have been if operating with regular GB.

I will be heading to the gold country soon, I search for relics at an old gold mining town so this will be a good location to try out the GB auto tracking. My T-2 does well here, Handles the poor mineralization well. I'm sure the X-70 will do well too.

HH, Paul (Ca)
 
Good luck at that old gold camp Paul, I envy the areas you have to hunt out there.

I also noticed that the GB numbers run high around iron with tracking on. I'm not sure what that means unless its the magnetic signal causing it. Check your MXT that way, it does the same if I recall correctly.

Let me qualify a bit here. I do not always use auto tracking, mostly just in the areas with lots of small to medium size iron which is typical around old homesteads here. Also, uneven plowed fields need a little experimentation as to GB settings (manual or tracking). Try manually raising the GB a couple numbers higher than the actual GB point. Lots of guys have good success doing that for added depth and stability in certain conditions, it depends on the mineralization I guess. Heck I have even set it manually back to the default GB of 27 on occasion when in extremely low (ie: non-existent) mineralization areas.
FYI: Low mineral wet quartz sand ground balances in the same number range as higher Fe soils.



Tom
 
[attachment 47219 COINSONLY493.jpg]
And as Skully says. the nut.
[attachment 47220 COINSONLY018.jpg]
 
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