First thing is the cable. It's short and I like to hip mount so I'll need to pick up an extension if I keep it. The coil is less prone to electrical interference both inside and outside.When testing inside the house. Max sens. with steady threshold is at 10:00, Sunray S-8 at 12:00 and Tornado 10 inch at 3:00. Quick air test outside away from the house on a silver dime sens. at 12:00 matches the 10 inch Tornado in distance. My results when setting my sensitivity for my very mineralized ground in my yard was expected being a concentric. This coil is a lot hotter than my DD coils and the sensitivity had to be set even lower than the 10 inch Tornado using my usual slow sweep speed and to keep nulling to a minimum. Using auto sens. I was able to sweep fairly fast without nulling. I'll have to do some field testing this weekend on the beach and on land on deep targets to see if this hot coil will be manageable in my mineralized ground. Something tells me this coil might work well on the beach. I also did some quick testing with my older minelab bar graph meter and it worked just as well as my other coils.
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First impressions of the Detech 8 inch concentric coil.
- Thread starter crazyman
- Start date
I Crazyman. I'm just an old dirt sweeper and beach hunter from Northwest Florida. I'm not particularly interested in dissecting the electronics of metal detectors. What I want is equipment that works. I have used the 8in Ditech hooked up to my GT for over three years now and for me its a winner. When I first got it I found that I could not get it to settle down and hold a threshold setting if I had my digisearch meter and inline probe hooked up. I tried everything including sending it back for a new one. The new one wouldn't work with that setup ether. It worked fine as long as the meter was not hooked up.
I eventually found out that the Concentric was more sensitive then my 10in Tornado and did not mask out good targets or null out on close iron like the 10in would. In my test garden the 10in would miss targets close to iron (deep or shallow) and null sometimes in a one direction sweep sometimes both-ways. The Concentric NEVER did that. Maybe because of the Cone footprint of the Concentric. I'll leave that to you tech guys. So I started using my GT without a meter and never looked back. I literally never looked back at the meter that is, because I also found that without the meter I got really focused on the tones. Then I read CJC's Sov book and picked up on A/M tones (AM tones can be very revealing) and found I could double check target ID by switching from Disc to A/M . I don't hunt in A/M (A half hour of that and I need sedation) but switching to A/M when locked on a target to double check tones has worked well for me and Disc mode has always been deeper in my ground. I can usually pick up a deep signal in A/M too. I know, I know -- most who do reverse discrimination go from A/M to Disc. I highly recommend the reverse of the reverse.
Here is something to think about in lengthening the coil cable. When I finally decided the 8in Concentric was going to be my go-to-coil (I no longer used the 10 inch) my new puppy dog decided he liked to chew coil cables. He chewed my 8in coil cable almost through down close to the coil. The only way I could repair it was to cut a foot and a half of cable off. SURPRISE------The coil works even better with little interference from external power sources. In my view the standard Ditech cable is way to long unless you are going to hipmount.
So here is a little run down. In my area of Florida we have very low mineralization. I never hunt my GT in AUTO I run the Concentric sometimes as high as 9 o'clock , usually at eleven o'clock in the dirt. On the beach this baby is really hot. Get anywhere close to a target and it sounds off no matter how deep. Up in the dry sand I usually can't run higher than 12 o'clock. In wet eleven is good. Swing speed on the beach I usually swing a lot faster than in the dirt. But it will start screaming if you go to fast. Beach coverage - -well it is only an 8incher I like to use my Ditech 14 inch to really cover the sand.
Some have tried the Ditech Concentric and found it wanting. I found it to be a coil that worked very well for me. HH
I eventually found out that the Concentric was more sensitive then my 10in Tornado and did not mask out good targets or null out on close iron like the 10in would. In my test garden the 10in would miss targets close to iron (deep or shallow) and null sometimes in a one direction sweep sometimes both-ways. The Concentric NEVER did that. Maybe because of the Cone footprint of the Concentric. I'll leave that to you tech guys. So I started using my GT without a meter and never looked back. I literally never looked back at the meter that is, because I also found that without the meter I got really focused on the tones. Then I read CJC's Sov book and picked up on A/M tones (AM tones can be very revealing) and found I could double check target ID by switching from Disc to A/M . I don't hunt in A/M (A half hour of that and I need sedation) but switching to A/M when locked on a target to double check tones has worked well for me and Disc mode has always been deeper in my ground. I can usually pick up a deep signal in A/M too. I know, I know -- most who do reverse discrimination go from A/M to Disc. I highly recommend the reverse of the reverse.
Here is something to think about in lengthening the coil cable. When I finally decided the 8in Concentric was going to be my go-to-coil (I no longer used the 10 inch) my new puppy dog decided he liked to chew coil cables. He chewed my 8in coil cable almost through down close to the coil. The only way I could repair it was to cut a foot and a half of cable off. SURPRISE------The coil works even better with little interference from external power sources. In my view the standard Ditech cable is way to long unless you are going to hipmount.
So here is a little run down. In my area of Florida we have very low mineralization. I never hunt my GT in AUTO I run the Concentric sometimes as high as 9 o'clock , usually at eleven o'clock in the dirt. On the beach this baby is really hot. Get anywhere close to a target and it sounds off no matter how deep. Up in the dry sand I usually can't run higher than 12 o'clock. In wet eleven is good. Swing speed on the beach I usually swing a lot faster than in the dirt. But it will start screaming if you go to fast. Beach coverage - -well it is only an 8incher I like to use my Ditech 14 inch to really cover the sand.
Some have tried the Ditech Concentric and found it wanting. I found it to be a coil that worked very well for me. HH
Don, It didn't take long to see that the concentric is a very sensitive coil. In my ground sensitivity at about 1:00 is about max using the Sunray S-8 and 3:00 for the Tornado 10 inch. I rarely hunt at those maximum settings though as it makes my sweep speed a little to critical to keep a steady threshold. When I'm hunting in iron I use auto sens. the majority of the time. I wasn't real surprised that I had to set my sensitivity at the minimum setting in manual to keep the threshold from nulling. After some experimenting auto sensitivity is a must with this coil but that's OK because I bought this coil to try in some old iron infested logging camps and mill sites where I use auto anyway. Brief testing on in ground targets (not freshly buried) shows promise that even in auto this detector still has very good depth. I will have to do some actual hunts outside of my backyard to get a better idea of what it can actually do. I live on the beach so that will be the first place I hit this weekend. Even though our beaches have a good deal of black sand and hot rocks the Sovereigns still work well here and sensitivity can be set a bit higher here than on land.
Critterhunter
New member
Good reviews from both you guys. Either in this forum or the beach forum I remember coming across several posts from somebody who loved this coil for beach hunting. I can't remember the specifics of why he liked it but I'd do a search for those messages and you might find more useful info on it.
I rarely use the meter so that won't be a problem. We've lived in this house for many years and it has been in the family since around the turn of the century and is loaded with iron and other junk. There was a saw mill at one time on the back part of the property also. I've hunted and tested so many detectors here over the years that I know almost every piece of metal intimately. In my short time so far playing with it I can see that this coil is a different animal but need some field time to see if the difference is a good thing or a bad thing. I've always believed that when all the conditions are the same the concentric coils have a bit better discrimination than DD coils. After seeing how it handles and responds to the large and small iron so far on my property I'm optimistic.