I got the new Makro Racer2 and was itching to test it out at an iron infested ghost town'ish kind of site that it should excel at. My detecting buddy was gracious enough to take me to one of his 'worked out back pocket' sites to see if it could eek anything out from amidst of the sea of iron. This is an early California site, nothing to do with the Spanish or missions, but was a camping site of John C. Frémont and his men early on. The R2 has adjustable iron audio and tone break that can be set in either two or three tone audio mode. I have to say that adjustable iron audio is a tool that all detectors should be equipped with, it's a big asset hunting in the sea of nail type of environs that we encounter at these old sites. The first time I ran iron audio (at 2), it actually sounded like I was getting a ton of EMI, but I quickly discovered that it was simply the slew of iron I was detecting in.
It did pretty well for it's first trip. The cross is made of lead, and was in the midst of the iron, but the target that most amazed me was the No. 26 Phoenix cuff button. It was a squeaker that came out of thick iron that was about 6-7" deep, and it was on edge. I got a fairly repeatable signal that was just begging to be dug, but it was mostly iron signals, with this button peeping through and with the iron audio set low it allowed the signal to be clearly heard. I wish I'd taken a before and after photo of the button, because it was so crudded up that we thought it was just a flat button, but I decided to try to clean off some of the crud and I could start to make out lettering around the parameter of the button. After several soaks in ezest and picking the crud off with toothpicks, the button started to come back to life. You can still see iron rust lines on the front where it was next to nails, but it's clean enough now that you can fully read it and see that it's a No. 26 Phoenix button (number 11 for me).
Also got a large flat button, a pistol ball, and some trash. The group of three nails with the large square nail were in a hole that I had Tom check and he felt there was nothing but iron, but I was getting a decent dig me signal. After getting the nails out I found a piece of melted camp lead that was the signal.
My detecting buddy is a die hard Explorer2 user (and he does very well, even in iron infested sites amazingly) and we flagged a lot of targets to check. I was able to find a few that he couldn't hear, and everything he flagged not only could I hear just fine, a couple of them I called as crap targets, and sure enough when he dug the hole there was nothing there, so hopefully that will reduce digging some trash in the future.
Also wanted to do a shout out to Craig of Show Me Treasure. I pre-ordered a R2, and he went out of his way to get the unit to me before the weekend as I had a detecting window and he delivered! When I opened the unit, it quickly became clear that the detector had been used. After some checking around, it turned out to be no fault of Craigs at all, the manufacturer had inadvertently mixed some field test units in with the new ones when they shipped them to the disty, and when it was brought to their attention, Makro stepped up and made everything right. You cannot go wrong ordering a machine from Craig, and as always Makro stands behind their business with integrity and is quick to own and resolve any mistakes. Thanks to Craig and Makro I'm excited to see what the R2 can do in the future.
HH,
Brian
It did pretty well for it's first trip. The cross is made of lead, and was in the midst of the iron, but the target that most amazed me was the No. 26 Phoenix cuff button. It was a squeaker that came out of thick iron that was about 6-7" deep, and it was on edge. I got a fairly repeatable signal that was just begging to be dug, but it was mostly iron signals, with this button peeping through and with the iron audio set low it allowed the signal to be clearly heard. I wish I'd taken a before and after photo of the button, because it was so crudded up that we thought it was just a flat button, but I decided to try to clean off some of the crud and I could start to make out lettering around the parameter of the button. After several soaks in ezest and picking the crud off with toothpicks, the button started to come back to life. You can still see iron rust lines on the front where it was next to nails, but it's clean enough now that you can fully read it and see that it's a No. 26 Phoenix button (number 11 for me).
Also got a large flat button, a pistol ball, and some trash. The group of three nails with the large square nail were in a hole that I had Tom check and he felt there was nothing but iron, but I was getting a decent dig me signal. After getting the nails out I found a piece of melted camp lead that was the signal.
My detecting buddy is a die hard Explorer2 user (and he does very well, even in iron infested sites amazingly) and we flagged a lot of targets to check. I was able to find a few that he couldn't hear, and everything he flagged not only could I hear just fine, a couple of them I called as crap targets, and sure enough when he dug the hole there was nothing there, so hopefully that will reduce digging some trash in the future.
Also wanted to do a shout out to Craig of Show Me Treasure. I pre-ordered a R2, and he went out of his way to get the unit to me before the weekend as I had a detecting window and he delivered! When I opened the unit, it quickly became clear that the detector had been used. After some checking around, it turned out to be no fault of Craigs at all, the manufacturer had inadvertently mixed some field test units in with the new ones when they shipped them to the disty, and when it was brought to their attention, Makro stepped up and made everything right. You cannot go wrong ordering a machine from Craig, and as always Makro stands behind their business with integrity and is quick to own and resolve any mistakes. Thanks to Craig and Makro I'm excited to see what the R2 can do in the future.
HH,
Brian
