beach settings for new explorer se

[saltwater jim]

greetings all after being laid up for 3 months with neck surgery , i have ordered a new se explorer that just arrived. would appreciate any ideas how to run the badboy on the beach as i never had a explorer . i have used for the past 10 years a sov and a excal for the water, with whites xlt and pi as my backup.
after reading the insructions a few times lol very hard reading for me anyways , seems to be written for pirates that have had a earlier explorer i have a few questions to say the least but know most of my answers will come by using it and learning the badboy.
my first question is how to get it in manual sens and manuel mode the instructions tell u that u can adjust sens in manual mode or semi-auto mode but does not expain how to switch from semi auto mode to manual
from what i have read and learned from MY other metal detectors i dont want to run in factory preset semi- auto but not sure how i get the beast in manual mode. my plan will be to try following settings
SENS
once in manual my plan is to run sens as high as i can without making the machine unstable as i do with my soveign

THRESHOLD-run just barely able to hear like my excal

IRON MASK - not sure on this think maybe run with it off or use facoty preset of 22 ANY IDEAS ON THIS

FAST -OFF
DEEP -ON

RESPONSE- this one i plan on using pitch hold i believe the excal runs this way as i have noticed it changes pitch as i go along on the beach

RESPONSE- planning on conduct to hear the different tones

GAIN- as high as i can like sens would be curious to see what others run these at

VCO - i know im gonna love this from my xlt



any help with my choices or settings that u have found good on the beach would be appreciated esp how i get it in manuel lol


i plan on getting out tommorow time to get my PT in . should be interesting to see how deep this se goes compared to my sov and to see if i can avoid zinc pennies bottle caps which i have avoided with sov by sound and no i dont thinks ts possible not to dig pull tabs and not miss any gold

thanks all that can give me a few pointers on this new badboy waiting to dig up panama city beach
jim

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

You didn't mention anything about discrimination. I assume that at the beach you don't use any on the Excal or the Sovereign and that you realize that to run disc at the beach you will be missing the small gold. So assuming that you want to run in All Metal and then dig what you decide to dig, you would want to run with Iron Mask on and set it up all the way to the left until it says "AM" and you'll be in All Metal.

As for the Conductive tones, that's fine...Conductive or Ferrous tones....matter of preference.

I agree with you on the Pitch Hold, if you want similarity with the BBS machines.

As for the Gain and the Sensitivity, I think the biggest mistake people make with the Explorers is to run the sensitivity too high. Running it too high will COST you depth. I have a test range with some tough ground and deep targets and it hits them all at sensitivity of 18 to 20 but at 22 to 24 I start to lose some of the targets and above that it goes to hell real quick. Not to say that you can't crank it up at some spots, but at the beach I think you would do well to run sens at about 22 to start and lower it down if you need to if you get in the water at all. In the wet sand it should do well at 20 or 22 and you will get PLENTY of depth. I also agree with you on Fast Off and Deep On. On the Gain, I like to run it at about 7.

To get the SE into manual sensitivity all you do is to press on the touchpad button to the left of the sensitivity indicator. When the sensitivity number has a box circling around it then you're in Auto sens. Press the button to the left of the number and the circling box goes away. You're now in manual.

 

[saltwater jim]

wow thanks mike for the good info i think i will try at starting at sens at 20 with gain as high as i can get it as long as se stays stable
will be interesting to see how deep it goes and if i can learn the numbers for zincs to not dig them . i plan on digging every signal thats not reading as iron until i learn the numbers. the iron mask im somwhat confused as my excal nulls out the iron which i guess is almost the same as running with a iron mask but u feel i might be missing some gold by using that feature. would u mean thats gold sitting next to iron and looking at it another way by not using ironmask and running it in all-metal like a pi but using the screen to decide what i dig might be the way to go.
anyways i dont expect to find much as beach is really sanded in bad and have md ed the last few days just getting 2 or 3 dollars clad using the sov on coins that have been washed up very shallow targets nothing deeper than 4 inches so will see tommorow if i dig anything deeper . will post how i do as far as depth and how the se runs i know i have a big learning curve ahead of me on machine but think the beach will be the easiest place to learn plus not ready for land hunting for a couple more months till my neck heals up had a couple discs removed. again thanks for the help gonna give it a run tommorow hh jim

 

[Foiled Again Jim in NC]

want to do some actual beach testing to determine this. I was told the same and for years never went above 25 with my Explorer. One day I was finding nothing and decided to play with the sensitivity and the threshold. I dropped the threshold to 6 (original Explorer) just below audible and then cranked up the sensitivity to 32, all the way up. It ran slightly unstable until I slowed way down and then I started finding targets....deeeep targets, deeper than ever before targets, a quarter at 20 inches and a dime at 15 inches targets. This would not be a good way to run normally but on a sanded in beach it might let you find some things you would not normally find. Get rid of the threshold, drop into the silent zone, unless you need to know how much iron is in an area. Just be aware that extra sensitivity may not cost you targets.

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

I've done a lot of actual beach testing with the Explorer II and I've had the SE out there once. Only because I prefer the Excal for the beach, seeing as it has that whole "waterproof" thing going for it. That, and because it got me more than a dozen diamond rings this summer.

But my point was that for general use, stability, learning the machine, and to get GREAT depth that you could probably not go out there and try to crank it up to the max. If you are going to get anywhere near the water (and I hunt strictly in the wet sand and water) then running the Explorer up too high will result in falsing and instability. And though the beach is a lot better than tough ground, in my test garden, I do much better on my deep targets at 20 than 24...the quality of the signal is better. At some spots the opposite is true. Again, the point was that more is not always better and I will maintain that is a fact.

Of course each user should experiment with their machine at their locations to determine the best settings for them.

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

I don't think you're missing much with the Excal due to the iron mask. I just like that with the Explorer that you can run it in All Metal and eliminate the nulling. I like to run with a smooth and audible threshold. I see that Jim likes to get rid of the threshold but I see that as a mistake for the beach because the threshold can tip you off to a very deep target or one that you have nearly missed by coming CLOSE to it. You get a break in the threshold and you go back and take a closer look. It's true that with the built-in iron mask of the Excal that you can possiblt miss something like a deeper stainless steel watch or perhaps some small gold or a chain. But you usually still get something better out of those things than a null. But with the Explorer, running Iron Mask all the way down in All Metal range means you are running no Iron Mask at all. You're using the Iron Mask function to ELIMINATE Iron Masking. The folks that get the best stuff on the beach are the ones who discriminate the least stuff out, listen to everything, and dig MOST of it. As you know, the best diamond rings come in as foil the majority of the time. I hear you on the zincs...I hate them too. I usually dig them though, even though I can tell them on my Excal from the sound. I do it as a public service.

 

[ikon]

i have to agree with what mike says about the explorer on the beach. i like having my explorer when i go to the beach. you have a whole lot of adjustment you can use and it always runs smooth plus i feel it takes some time to really get to know your machine no matter what. i use a 12 inch sunray coil and use no discrimation and being its so easy to dig on the beach i'll dig every good sound. even zinc pennies. it lets you know how your machine is working and what it telling you.
just my thoughts,
stan sjmdc