First APEX Hunt Yesterday At An Old River Crossing, Hunt #2 Was This Afternoon.

[John-Edmonton]

I hunted an old river boat crossing yesterday. I specifically chose this site, as there is a lot of hot rocks and black sands too. I hunted in multi-frequency setting, and ran the APEX at 5/8 sensitivity. Any higher sensitivity, it became too unstable, due to the multiple ferrous objects in the gravel and water. I was using the wireless headset, and it performed well, even with the coil in about a foot of water. The new 6” x 11” DD Viper search coil designed specifically for the APEX will not work on any other ACE detector. It covers a lot of area per swing, yet is very sensitive to tiny conductive targets. I remember getting a high tone on a target, and when I finally found it, was about 1/8" x 1/8" buried at about 3-4 inches. The hunt lasted about 5 hours, with absolutely no fatigue from swinging the APEX. The separation between targets was very clear audibly. I had to hunt with the iron audio set very faint, otherwise I was going to suffer burn-out.



I really like the ID capability of the APEX. It really locks on well on a target, both with VDI numbers and audio. A very enjoyable machine to use. I haven't really tested it's depth capabilities, as I was more concerned with getting comfortable with this machine. But, so far, the ID capabilities are excellent. If you have an AT Pro, the audio is very similar, or perhaps even better with the ability to adjust the iron audio. Also you have more tones to utilize. Just for interest sake, the lead targets all came in at about 65 +/- a few numbers. Heck, I even found a couple of modern two dollar coins together. They read in the 80's, a definite target I would dig.

As I familiarize myself with the APEX, I will continue to get out information. I still need to figure out how it reads Canadian coins and how deep it can go.

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Hunt #2 Today, After it stopped raining



Hunted for coins at a park for a couple of hours this afternoon. I need some practice to pin-point targets. After many attempts of trial & error, I came to the conclusion that if I lift the coil about 5-6" holding the pinpoint button, the search area is much smaller and much more accurate. Or, you can de-tune the coil, which also creates a smaller area to pinpoint.

Now, I am really liking the ability of the APEX to ID numbers. In my instance, I have copper pennies, steel pennies, zinc coated pennies and memorial cents to contend with. The APEX consistently reads the different types with different VDI numbers. The proportional audio (deeper targets are quieter) allows the user to pick out the deep targets without looking at the screen. A headset of some sort is a "must." After hunting with the APEX for an hour, I thought that I was hunting with my AT Pro. The AT Pro is probably the best machine available to ID Canadian Coinage. If you have the AT Pro, you will love the APEX.

After hunting for about 7 hours, I was down 2 battery bars. In other words, this machine carry's a charge for a long time. Looking forward to some more hunts next week. Hoping some other people will soon start posting as the machines get sent out.

 

[Gord (Tecumseh)]

John, although I have been detecting for over 20 years, I still need help occasionally as well as needing some explanations. While you told us about pinpointing, you said " Or, you can de-tune the coil, which also creates a smaller area to pinpoint." Can you explain this process please?

 

[Monte]

Gord, I'm not John but I can explain it easily.

If you're using a detector with a true threshold based on metal pinpoint mode, remove the coil off to the side going to pinpoint and then move the coil in to pinpoint or isolate the target. Sometimes the target is too close to the coil and you have a louder router signal that you want to narrow down. To accomplish that, you want to detune that threshold setting in pinpoint

Simply move your search coil off to the side of the anticipated spot just slightly not way far away but just a couple of inches and stop. Remember not to raise or lower the coil from the coil to ground height oh, and when she was moved just off to the side of the target a little bit and stop the coil release the pinpoint button or toggle trigger and then press or pull it again to go back into pinpoint. You have now effectively detuned you are pinpoint mode do you have a smaller responsive field or area of sensitivity. It makes pinpointing quick and easy.

Then once pinpointed you just set your detector down recovered the target pick the detector up and go find more. D tuning is very simple process to learn to acquire it takes very little practice. You can do it at home using a coin on the floor or out in your yard.

Monte

 

[Gord (Tecumseh)]

Monte- Thanks for the explanation. Maybe I was just lucky, but that seems to be the procedure that I have used when I am not sure that I have an accurate pinpoint with my machine. Now I know what the procedure is called. So the saying "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" is false cause this old dog just learned something new.

 

[Monte]

Gord, I'm always willing and wanting to learn, and have been that way all my life, especially as it relates to metal detectors and metal detecting. But I'm not so certain I like some of the 'tricks' because with all the health issues I am dealing with right now, I don't want someone to tell this 'old dog' to "Roll over and play dead." That's a 'trick' I don't want to master because it might just happen naturally when I don't want it to.

Over fifty-five years of avid detecting and I spend a lot of time with any detector I can handle to try and learn something new, or at least refresh my memory of something I learned in the past. Just this past weekend I learned something different about one of my detectors in handling some types of ferrous junk.

Monte