Explorer SE - First FBS machine coming

[Kapok]

Well, I made the leap and have purchased an Explorer SE. This is my first FBS machine, so we'll see how it goes. I'm currently using the Makro Racer 2, but have also used an X-Terra 70, Tesoros, AT-Pro, T2, MXT, etc. etc. I've been reading the manual pretty carefully and ordered Sabisch's book. I'm not expecting miracles my first time out and will just have to be patient since this is an entirely new platform for me--like going from Mac to Windows.

I know I'm going to have to search much slower than I'm used to. Other than that, any advice for me?

 

[IDXMonster]

Watch some YouTube videos...unless you're in really heavy trash you don't have to creep around everywhere. I get along fine with just "normal" sweeping. Congrats on your new toy,you'll learn to love it. Operating word here is " learn"....

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Well, I made the leap and have purchased an Explorer SE. This is my first FBS machine, so we'll see how it goes. I'm currently using the Makro Racer 2, but have also used an X-Terra 70, Tesoros, AT-Pro, T2, MXT, etc. etc. I've been reading the manual pretty carefully and ordered Sabisch's book. I'm not expecting miracles my first time out and will just have to be patient since this is an entirely new platform for me--like going from Mac to Windows.

I know I'm going to have to search much slower than I'm used to. Other than that, any advice for me?

When you are in an area where there is not much trash you can really chug along quite nicely.
For instance, when I started out detecting, I got an Explorer XS years ago. I knew nothing. I just turned on the machine, hit the Noise Cancel (make sure detector is about 1 foot off the ground when Noise Cancelling) and boogied.
I I would be marching down the field I would listen for a very faint hit, stop, dig down about 10 inches and pop out a coin.
Now I hunt in trashier places which take a very slow methodical approach to listen for the sweet hit in the midst of iron nails.
Some iron nails will sound pretty good one way when swinging the coil but when swinging differently over it may sound bad. But you never know, there still might be a coin hiding next to a nail.

Hit Iron Mask and then, there are three arrows on the left side of the screen and three on the far right. Press the bottom right arrow to increase iron rejection and if you can tolerate more grunts, hit the lower left button to make the black line thinner on the left side of the screen. Then hit the "Detect" button. If you get a good high signal, hit the "Detect" button again and you will be in "Digital mode." In this screen it will give you the Ferrous/Conductive numbers for the target. Usuallly a 00 (zero,zero) on the Ferrous side and a high number on the Conduct side means it's probably silver. Now hit "Detect" again and you are back into the original screen. If the cursor is in the upper right, it's probably a good coin. If it is near the bottom, half way across the bottom, it could be a nickel or a gold ring.

When you get the detector, set it up like the above insctuctions and set some different coins on the ground spaced a foot or so apart and see where they hit on the screen and the sound they give. Hit Detect again and see the numbers of each screen.
Take your wife's/girlfriend's silver and gold jewely and see what they sound like and where they hit and what their Fer/Cond numbers are. Write this down. Hide the jewelry, sell it and get a good pinpointer.

One more point:
When the detector is on, you can adjust the sensitivity at all times. The three arrows on the left? The upper one, when pressed, adjusts the sensitivity higher, the lower arrow lowers sensitivity and the middle one sets it to let the detector make the decition as to what it things is best. When you let the detector figure out the sens, a line will circle the number just to the right of the middle arrow button.

Set gain to at least 8.

If you really screw up the detector, you can always reset it to factory settings by turning off the detector. Then to reset, press the power button and hold it down until it resets then let off.
Get a really good set of headphones to hear those very deep hits.

 

[Kapok]

Well, I made the leap and have purchased an Explorer SE. This is my first FBS machine, so we'll see how it goes. I'm currently using the Makro Racer 2, but have also used an X-Terra 70, Tesoros, AT-Pro, T2, MXT, etc. etc. I've been reading the manual pretty carefully and ordered Sabisch's book. I'm not expecting miracles my first time out and will just have to be patient since this is an entirely new platform for me--like going from Mac to Windows.

I know I'm going to have to search much slower than I'm used to. Other than that, any advice for me?

When you are in an area where there is not much trash you can really chug along quite nicely.
For instance, when I started out detecting, I got an Explorer XS years ago. I knew nothing. I just turned on the machine, hit the Noise Cancel (make sure detector is about 1 foot off the ground when Noise Cancelling) and boogied.
I I would be marching down the field I would listen for a very faint hit, stop, dig down about 10 inches and pop out a coin.
Now I hunt in trashier places which take a very slow methodical approach to listen for the sweet hit in the midst of iron nails.
Some iron nails will sound pretty good one way when swinging the coil but when swinging differently over it may sound bad. But you never know, there still might be a coin hiding next to a nail.

Hit Iron Mask and then, there are three arrows on the left side of the screen and three on the far right. Press the bottom right arrow to increase iron rejection and if you can tolerate more grunts, hit the lower left button to make the black line thinner on the left side of the screen. Then hit the "Detect" button. If you get a good high signal, hit the "Detect" button again and you will be in "Digital mode." In this screen it will give you the Ferrous/Conductive numbers for the target. Usuallly a 00 (zero,zero) on the Ferrous side and a high number on the Conduct side means it's probably silver. Now hit "Detect" again and you are back into the original screen. If the cursor is in the upper right, it's probably a good coin. If it is near the bottom, half way across the bottom, it could be a nickel or a gold ring.

When you get the detector, set it up like the above insctuctions and set some different coins on the ground spaced a foot or so apart and see where they hit on the screen and the sound they give. Hit Detect again and see the numbers of each screen.
Take your wife's/girlfriend's silver and gold jewely and see what they sound like and where they hit and what their Fer/Cond numbers are. Write this down. Hide the jewelry, sell it and get a good pinpointer.

One more point:
When the detector is on, you can adjust the sensitivity at all times. The three arrows on the left? The upper one, when pressed, adjusts the sensitivity higher, the lower arrow lowers sensitivity and the middle one sets it to let the detector make the decition as to what it things is best. When you let the detector figure out the sens, a line will circle the number just to the right of the middle arrow button.

Set gain to at least 8.

If you really screw up the detector, you can always reset it to factory settings by turning off the detector. Then to reset, press the power button and hold it down until it resets then let off.
Get a really good set of headphones to hear those very deep hits.

Excellent, thanks. I do hunt some areas with lots of big deep iron junk. I'll get my legs under me before I try those spots.

 

[Kapok]

Watch some YouTube videos...unless you're in really heavy trash you don't have to creep around everywhere. I get along fine with just "normal" sweeping. Congrats on your new toy,you'll learn to love it. Operating word here is " learn"....

I think I've watched every Explorer video on YouTube that is in English. Maybe I'll move on to the Russian ones next.

 

[UtahRich]

Congratulations on your new arrival.

There is a wealth of information on the Explorers if you go back thru the posts in the forum. LOTS. When I purchased my XS back in 2000 there wasn't much help until I found this forum. Findmall made all the difference for me. Plenty of EXPERTS here to draw from. Don't forget the Minelab Explorer Classroom lower down on the Findmall forum list. The Explorer / Etrac handbook is very helpful.

You are going to have a couple big changes to get used to; the display and the audio. My personal preferences are Smartfind Display, Conductive Tones and Max Variability. Whatever you decided on, hang in there. Stop by the forum for encouragement if you need it and practice if you have your own test garden. Test Garden practice will help you become acclimated to the sounds your detector will give you as you sweep the coil along and where the targets hit on the display. Practice with different sensitivity settings as well.

Hang in there and before you know it, you'll have decided that your Explorer is pretty awesome. Hope to see some of your show and tells here shortly.


Rich -

 

[Kapok]

Congratulations on your new arrival.

There is a wealth of information on the Explorers if you go back thru the posts in the forum. LOTS. When I purchased my XS back in 2000 there wasn't much help until I found this forum. Findmall made all the difference for me. Plenty of EXPERTS here to draw from. Don't forget the Minelab Explorer Classroom lower down on the Findmall forum list. The Explorer / Etrac handbook is very helpful.

You are going to have a couple big changes to get used to; the display and the audio. My personal preferences are Smartfind Display, Conductive Tones and Max Variability. Whatever you decided on, hang in there. Stop by the forum for encouragement if you need it and practice if you have your own test garden. Test Garden practice will help you become acclimated to the sounds your detector will give you as you sweep the coil along and where the targets hit on the display. Practice with different sensitivity settings as well.

Hang in there and before you know it, you'll have decided that your Explorer is pretty awesome. Hope to see some of your show and tells here shortly.


Rich -

Thank you, Rich!

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

Tim send Kapok all those Explorer tips I sent you over the past few weeks, we'll turn him into a feared Explorer hunter like you

 

[tiftaaft]

Charles... Happy to!! I will send it when I get back to my desk computer.

Kapok, Charles' experience and wisdom in operating an explorer is incredible. He really helped me unlock the magic of the explorer. I hope you learn as much as I did (and am still,) I will pm you later tonight.. headed out to hunt right now

Tim

 

[MNCoinhunter]

Congrats ! Just dig a few hundred holes and it will finally click .. haha. No really, it's one of the best detectors out there. Have a blast !

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Tim send Kapok all those Explorer tips I sent you over the past few weeks, we'll turn him into a feared Explorer hunter like you

Can you send them to me too? I might learn a thing or two or three or for or five or . . . .

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

Tim send Kapok all those Explorer tips I sent you over the past few weeks, we'll turn him into a feared Explorer hunter like you

Can you send them to me too? I might learn a thing or two or three or for or five or . . . .

Ahahaha Tony go to the store, purchase a large bottle of Tylenol. Poor Tim I brain dumped 15 years of Explorer on him I thought he may pass out a time or two.

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Tim send Kapok all those Explorer tips I sent you over the past few weeks, we'll turn him into a feared Explorer hunter like you

Can you send them to me too? I might learn a thing or two or three or for or five or . . . .

Ahahaha Tony go to the store, purchase a large bottle of Tylenol. Poor Tim I brain dumped 15 years of Explorer on him I thought he may pass out a time or two.

I wouldn't mind being challenged. I love learning new things especially when they are from someone who really knows what they are talking about. I just take cheap aspirin. Can't handle Tylenol or whatever else. Wine doesn't hurt either.

 

[MikeO]

Takes a while to really learn it from front to back and all its ins and outs of what its telling you but, once you do you will never look back.

 

[Kapok]

Takes a while to really learn it from front to back and all its ins and outs of what its telling you but, once you do you will never look back.

I'm seriously going to try to do that, Mike. After my first two times in the field, my biggest challenge coming from quick-response detectors is target separation--where does one signal start and another begin? That's much easier with the other detectors I've used--especially the Racer 2, or the Teknetics T2, even the AT Pro, or the Tesoros I cut my teeth on. With the Explorer, everything seems to smoosh together, with numbers and tones jumping all over the place. But I'm going to start with the basics and work on it step by step. Got Sabisch's book and some good resources here and elsewhere. So the journey begins! Thanks for the encouragement.

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Takes a while to really learn it from front to back and all its ins and outs of what its telling you but, once you do you will never look back.

I'm seriously going to try to do that, Mike. After my first two times in the field, my biggest challenge coming from quick-response detectors is target separation--where does one signal start and another begin? That's much easier with the other detectors I've used--especially the Racer 2, or the Teknetics T2, even the AT Pro, or the Tesoros I cut my teeth on. With the Explorer, everything seems to smoosh together, with numbers and tones jumping all over the place. But I'm going to start with the basics and work on it step by step. Got Sabisch's book and some good resources here and elsewhere. So the journey begins! Thanks for the encouragement.

While in the field detecting, the best thing to do is just dig a plug, put a quarter in it about 6 or7 inches down. Then step away about 5 feet and detect your way to that plug. It should give a very distinct high hit. Those are the kind of sounds you listen for.
Don't watch your screen as you are swinging. Look at it after you get a hit. It will be a very distinct hit. You can't miss it.
As you get better with your Explorer, you begin listening for those hits that are deeper. If you set your gain around 7, it gives a more noticeable idea of depth. A deep coin will not be nearly as loud as a more shallow coin.
After you have cleaned out an area of coins, then set the Gain higher to go after the deeper coins.

 

[MikeO]

To be honest its going to take you a bit, to understand the cursor movements. Personally using the Smartfind Screen with the cursor is far more better at offering up a better idea of what is in the hole then then the digital numbers. Understanding where and why and how the cursor reacts is key imho.
When I say key I mean key as a guide but, trust the tones and use the Smart Find cursor movements as a tool/guide.
Be sure to check out my sticky at the top somewhere in there is a link to Mike Moutrays cursor movements. It will give you an idea of how certain coins will and can react on screen.
Enjoy your SE its a great machine and reward you well if you take the time to learn it.

 

[tiftaaft]

To be honest its going to take you a bit, to understand the cursor movements. Personally using the Smartfind Screen with the cursor is far more better at offering up a better idea of what is in the hole then then the digital numbers. Understanding where and why and how the cursor reacts is key imho.
When I say key I mean key as a guide but, trust the tones and use the Smart Find cursor movements as a tool/guide.
Be sure to check out my sticky at the top somewhere in there is a link to Mike Moutrays cursor movements. It will give you an idea of how certain coins will and can react on screen.
Enjoy your SE its a great machine and reward you well if you take the time to learn it.

That reminds me of a question Charles, MikeO and others...

On the Explorer and CTX, a deeper target or masked target will move lower in the conductive, and/or higher in the ferrous readings as compared to say an airtest on the same item. To your comment MikeO, I am using the cursor screen and starting to understand where certain items are hitting... digging a lot of targets to increase my knowledge base.. but in general, does the cursor move to a different position if the target is deeper, and/or does the tone ring lower for deeper/masked targets (similar to how the etrac and ctx drags the target down in id and tone in those situations)? Or can I expect a quarter to hit with two of the 4 cursor boxes and a high tone no matter the depth, as long as the machine detects it. (probably a newbie question, but I don't want to make any assumptions). Similarly... what about cursors off the screen on the bottom and right of the screen. I know off the screen in the exact right corner is most likely a bottle cap (plenty of field verification on that one... and thanks to Charles for pointing that one out to me). But what about further left on the bottom edge, or further up on the right edge (again, with two boxes hanging off the edge).

Thanks.

Tim.

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

To be honest its going to take you a bit, to understand the cursor movements. Personally using the Smartfind Screen with the cursor is far more better at offering up a better idea of what is in the hole then then the digital numbers. Understanding where and why and how the cursor reacts is key imho.
When I say key I mean key as a guide but, trust the tones and use the Smart Find cursor movements as a tool/guide.
Be sure to check out my sticky at the top somewhere in there is a link to Mike Moutrays cursor movements. It will give you an idea of how certain coins will and can react on screen.
Enjoy your SE its a great machine and reward you well if you take the time to learn it.

That reminds me of a question Charles, MikeO and others...

On the Explorer and CTX, a deeper target or masked target will move lower in the conductive, and/or higher in the ferrous readings as compared to say an airtest on the same item. To your comment MikeO, I am using the cursor screen and starting to understand where certain items are hitting... digging a lot of targets to increase my knowledge base.. but in general, does the cursor move to a different position if the target is deeper, and/or does the tone ring lower for deeper/masked targets (similar to how the etrac and ctx drags the target down in id and tone in those situations)? Or can I expect a quarter to hit with two of the 4 cursor boxes and a high tone no matter the depth, as long as the machine detects it. (probably a newbie question, but I don't want to make any assumptions). Similarly... what about cursors off the screen on the bottom and right of the screen. I know off the screen in the exact right corner is most likely a bottle cap (plenty of field verification on that one... and thanks to Charles for pointing that one out to me). But what about further left on the bottom edge, or further up on the right edge (again, with two boxes hanging off the edge).

Thanks.

Tim.

Two things will move a silver lower on the conductive axis, first the target is small or thin say half dime, 3 cent silver, silver stud earring, the back off a silver stud earing. Second extreme depth but so extreme Tim not even the Explorer will have much of a chance on those in our soil. The Explorer must be pretty stable and quiet to detect those which means clean nearly mineral free soil. You are looking for a steady threshold and listening for something that just barely upsets the coil balance and makes a chirp. Best example I have was a deep 8 reale in beach sand, cursor was half way down the screen and left about 3/4 of an inch from where that giant silver coin should land.

In our soil by the time we back off the sensitivity enough to settle the machine down we have eliminated those deep signals by lowering the sensitivity too far, thus accomplishing nothing. Even getting a hit on coins I would not even consider deep in NY in our soil is a challenge. I have lost my cool a couple times out here, cranked my sensitivity to 30 and dug some but the machine is literally going nuts. Basically my threashold is the machine falsing about 8 times a second and I wait for a target to interrupt that and latch onto the coin for a few swings. lol

 

[tiftaaft]

Thanks Charles, that is what I thought, just wanted to verify. And I love hearing about that 8 reale treasure!!