hairymonsterman said:
In my ground (3-4 bars on the R2) the screen ID was next to useless over 5" as are many other detectors, ...
As has been discussed, 3-4 bars [size=small]
(or any bars)[/size] of MMI read-out will be most accurately determined with an All Metal mode iSAT setting of '0'.
So if your iSAT is set low, and you get a 3-4 bar readout of MMI when bobbing your search coil over metal-free ground, then yes, you are dealing with some higher iron ground contamination. However several other things need to be considered, such as what was the Ground Balance or Ground Phase read-out for that ground as well?
You didn't state the particular search Mode used, the Gain level used, or the Discriminate level used, and all of those can play together to get the best performance out of a detector. And you correctly stated the visual Target ID display was inaccurate on some targets over 5" in that soil,
as are many other detectors. To that I will say that almost all other detectors are because these laws that are at work in electronic detection and signal processing of metal targets will be skewed by outside reasons such as depth, target orientation, nearby masking targets, and ground mineral make-up and dry-to-wetted conditions.
hairymonsterman said:
... and with UK hammered silver and even later small pre decimal silver falling into the foil range it struggled bad. The reason was it would high tone off the edge of iron and high tone on coke and with no reliable screen ID you were digging unwanted items too often, even good targets would have a scratch to the audio unless they were shallow.
Regardless of make or model, when you have any targets, such as UK hammered silver and smaller pre-decimal silver falling in the "foil range" [size=small]
(meaning both a lower-conductive visual TID response and a low-conductive audio response)[/size] it is the same for anyone anywhere else who also confronts challenging sites but is seeking lower-conductive targets.
In the USA we have coins such as thin silver 3¢ pieces, Nickel-based 3¢ pieces, and even some that read in a more scattered fashion above the US 'Nickel' or 5¢ piece and up to our modern Zinc Cent, such as the Flying Eagle and very early Indian Head 1¢ coins, the latter revised size and content Indian Head 1¢ from late 1864 to 1909, and our early Wheat-back 1¢ coins from 1909 to about the 1920 era. We also look for small buttons and pieces of uniform insignia and many other targets that can produce a lower-than anticipated response.
You also commented:
"it would high tone off the edge of iron and high tone on coke " and that makes me wonder if you were using the 3-Tone search mode and not one of the 2-Tone search modes? You followed that with:
"and with no reliable screen ID you were digging unwanted items too often" which is also pretty common with any detector where good-and-bad / desired-and-undesired targets happen to share the same or similar Target ID responses, especially with a visual display. I wonder because the 3-Tone mode is the one I use most often for urban Coin & Jewelry Hunting where there is a lot of modern trash, but it is also the mode I most often use for Relic Hunting remote places where there is a lot of discarded junk, especially nails and other iron junk, especially flat-iron.
The 3-Tone audio helps to 'classify ' a lot of the iron trash I encounter, and it does that by producing the Low-Tone Iron Audio just prior to, just after passing, or on both sides of a ferrous target
most of the time, and this "processed audio" in the 3-Tone mode seems to be most useful when using a smaller-size search coil and working areas that are trashier, or those where most desired targets are likely to be shallower, such as 5"-6" or less. I personally never use the standard 7X11 DD coil w/3-Tone when hunting more open areas or sparse-target areas because any of the 2-Tone modes have the ability produce better depth-of-detection and a cleaner non-ferrous target response..
hairymonsterman said:
In good ground it does lots better, but it just doesn't get mineralised ground, ....
Yes, in favorable ground conditions the Racer 2, like most detectors, can do better than hunting in more challenging ground mineral conditions. That said, I happen to live in very mineralized ground area, and places I go Relic Hunting are just as bad or even worse than where I live, and the Racer 2, like my other preferred detectors, handles this highly mineralized ground quite well.
hairymonsterman said:
... a perfect example is the video above, watch how it struggles on the mineralisation test compared to the Golden Mask 4 which excells.
The video you provided was a link to the Golden Mask Pro 'basic test' evaluation, and it 'Passed' all 10-out-of-10 tests that ZiggyJinx did. I am not sure about all the settings he used, however, such as where the Gain/Sensitivity was set. I believe I saw enough Disc. notch rejection bars to guess that he used a Discrimination [size=small]
(ID Filter)[/size] setting of at least '4' and possibly '5' or '6', but not sure where he had the iSAT setting or the MMI read-out for his "test tote" of material.
I generally run the Racer 2 with a Discrimination/ID Filter setting of '3' and rely on using the Iron Audio Volume to reduce the iron tone range response loudness. He might have used a setting of '4' which is just a little high for me in some types of iron nails and trash. I could only see the Disc. segments at the top of the display on an angle, and you get a segment for every two numbers you increase, so I am guessing it was set at '4' or just a bit more.
Let me add here the link to Ziggy Jinx's 'basic test' of the Makro Racer 2, and a reminder that the Golden Mask Pro is a model that is audio only w/o any visual TID. Therefore the Racer 2 should be compared with the Golden Mask for audio responsiveness, and you will note that you hear it, and he states, it also got all 10-out-of-10 tests. In addition, it did display some visual TID
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kOla9tkfnQ
Oh, I'll also add the other things I have noticed about Ziggy's video testing and Keith S.'s video linked to by 'Stoof' in his response. In the Ziggy Jinx 'test tote' he has a mixture of soil and the Racer 2 showed a Ground Balance setting of '72' but I don't know the fractional part of the number, nor the MMI read-out based on whatever iSAT setting he used. The "Highly Mineralized Brick" he used had a balance point of 84.[size=small]80[/size] but still seemed a little off [size=small]
(positive)[/size] due to the intensity and likely the Gain setting. I would have manually tweaked the GB closer to spot-on.
In Keith's video, which he did to point out how to get the more accurate MMI read-out by using a minimum iSAT setting, he Ground Balanced over about the same spot of natural ground, perhaps a few inches apart between the GB maneuvers, and the Ground Phase read-outs were 83.[size=small]80[/size] and 85.[size=small]00[/size] which is notably more mineralized than the 'test tote' dirt matrix make-up Ziggy used. In addition, with the iSAT at the lower setting for a more accurate MMI, Keith was getting a solid '3' and '4' bars out-of-'5' which reflects a greater challenge. Also note that the 2-Tone search mode was used and not the 3-Tone processed audio mode. Using 2-Tone, especially with no flat-iron trash or only with an iron nail as a test sample, the audio response will be better than 3-Tone 95+% or the time.
Stoof-tabsallday said:
Just for good measure, double check your isat setting in all metal. Kieth southern has a video where he had the r&d version and his production version were displaying different mineralization bars and the one reading 4 had his isat set too high and when he turned it down it somehow fixed the issue. He said one of the nokta/makro guys told him to check it. After that even in his bad soil it was only reading 1-2 bars.
The "Nokta/Makro guy" he mentioned was Alper, the lead software design engineer at Nokta/Makro. Keith did that video sometime about mid-March and I was pleased to see it provide helpful information to curious viewers.
I had already been using my prototype Racer 2 at some Gold Mining Ghost Town sites where the bulk of the ground reads between '82' and '85' and I encounter several mineralized 'areas' or specific nasty rocks that have a read-out of '85.[size=small]60[/size]' to '87.[size=small]40[/size]' and that is coupled with an MMI of at least '3'-'4' bars generally, and '4' or all '5' bars of MMI in many places. I had my iSAT set at a few settings when I was first evaluating my prototype Racer 2 in January and quickly noted the need to use a lower iSAT setting in All Metal mode in order to achieve the most accurate MMI response in any search mode. Mine is often set at '00' and usually I run it at '01' for a little Threshold retune in All Metal and that still provides a more accurate reading.
The main thing I can say is the Racer 2, like the other Racer series and FORS series models, continues to be a very reliable performer in all the challenging ground environments I deal with.
Monte
