FT came though, I have my Alien back again

[Rick(ND)]

Just did a quick check on it and looked at the new owners manual a little as I wanted to get it turned on. First thing I notice is the new coil, but what happened to my coil cover as it is not there, Oh well I will get another one. Next I notice the detector was left on when I went to turn it on,so I felt the batteries were dead, but when I opened it up my brand new set of batteries were gone,Oh well I just so happened to have 4 new batteries so I was in good shape. Now I see where the battery problem may have been repaired as there is thicker foam in the case so they will hold tighter now and those with the problem may want to take the batteries out and put a thicker piece in before you put the batteries in again. I fired it up and notice it looks like the FE3O meter is maxed out as it is all black, but wait a minute that is the battery meter. I did a get test in the new mode and I think I am going to like this. I took it outside for just minutes and it seem to work fine, even shook it and banged it around a little and never reset, so I think that Battery problem is gone. I see where the adjustable pinpoint is going to work great at my competition hunt tomorrow. I did notice that I have a Reading on the FE3O meter all the time now, before it was rare to see any black in it.It is only 2 bars, so it is not bad. The auto ground balance on the blacktop in front of my business read 84.

Now we will see what this alien will do in the hunt tomorrow.

Rick

 

[Mike Hillis]

I was lucky, I took my cover off and batteries out before I shipped it. I noticed my Fe3O4 meter works better than it did before, much like the second prototype.

Good luck on your hunt and on promoting and selling few T2's, too.

HH

Mike

 

[Jackpine Savage]

n/t

 

[BuckeyeBrad]

n/t

 

[jeff@middlesex]

n/t

 

[KCK]

I'm betting your going to love it!
KCK

 

[Rick(ND)]

First thing is I didn't impress anyone to buy one right now with the T-2 and wished I could have had more time to use it before the hunt. Other than a few air test I wasn't able to use it before the hunt.
Now when it come to the hunt I made sure after i turned it on i set my disc up a bit as the first hunt was silver dimes and didn't want to get any trash. I set my sensitivity lower than factory preset as i didn't need the depth, but fast response. The tones I set at the 3 tones as I like the high tones as I can hear them better. I also went to pinpoint and lowered the sensitivity so it would be easier to pinpoint if I used the pinpoint switch. So I felt this would work the best for me. Now the problems I seen is the T-2 is not made for competition hunting as it would chatter when any detector got within 6 feet of the T-2 even tried switching freq and lowering the sensitivity, but still chattered bad. I did see when it seen a target with the faster sweep I was using it would lock right on and easy to pinpoint too. I did OK in the hunt, but nothing real special like i had hope to do, some of this was me too as i am not as fast as I used to be. The only complaint was the chattering it would do when close to any detector.I didnt use it in any of the other hunts becauseof the chatter when close to other detectors.
Now I didn't hunt the second hunt, so I decided to see what it could do in this old park we were at and see what i could understand about the updates. I found if I tried to run the disc at 0 it would chatter even when I turned down the sensitivity to almost nothing. Now if I run it at 6-10 it would stop and didn't notice this before it was updated. What i remembered on my way home the next day was my Minelab Advantage I was not able to use at this park as it chattered too bad and felt it was some interference from a Coast Guard tower 2 miles away, so I wonder if this is why with the low disc with the T-2 it was chattering. I set my disc low and went to the 3b tones to get the signal, then thumbed the control to the db to check the signals if they sounded good. This is something that is easy to do as I leave my last setting the tones this way I can change the tones at any time. I seen where I got a few very nice signals in 3b, but when I went to the db I could tell they were not good signals and dug them to see they were rusty bottle caps, so this update looks like it will work good for the rusty bottle caps. I found I couldn't run in the db tones as it was hard to tell the good from the bad, but using the 3b first and then check them in the db it worked much better.
One minute it run so quiet you wondered if it worked, then the next it was a lot of signals,but in the hour I tried it i didn't find more than 2 coins and a few small targets that sounded good.
I just need to get some more time out with it to see how it will really work and hope to sometime this next week and see if it will be a keeper or not.

Rick

 

[jeff@middlesex]

Hey good report. I can't say I have ever had a machine that did not get interfernce from other machines at competition hunts. Some so bad you had to walk away from some participants. But I guess thats the idea.
I had my first bout of RF interference. I got permission to hunt in a cornfield/house site. I turned the T2 on and had that familiar flicking of information on the screen from RF interference. I looked up and I was standing right underneath the main power lines for the county. I switched the frequency to F1 and that helped a bit but found that raising my disc to 40 pretty much stopped the problem. Lowering the sens did to but I wanted to leave it at 80. I could still hear the flicker of RF once in a while but it did not effect my machines performance and the tone ID(2+) was not effected either. Hope you get out with the T2 some more and post some reports. Heres what I found at the house site. Not sure if it is a railway token or what. It locked dead on nickle at 5"
[attachment 27906 onc.jpg]

 

[Mike Hillis]

Bummer id didn't show up sooner so you could get some time in with it before the hunt.

Figuring out the ground is a chore sometimes. I know I'm going through that now. I'm finding that reading through the manual several more times is being helpful. If I remember correctly, at one place it states that at a zero disc, it is possible to hear a bit of threshold response, so part of the chattering could be from the threshold hum carrying over. Now I haven't got to verify that yet, just remembering what I've been reading this week.

HH

 

[mtdoramike]

that both of them worked great with no cross talk or intereference from other detectors, not even the same brand. Matter of fact, I hunt with my Xterra 70 and Ron Dugger was hunting right next to me with his Xterra 30 and there were no interference at all.

Now, I can't say that with the Cortes, CZ5 or CZ70 that I have previously used at comp hunts in the past. Also this comp hunt was on the beach at Daytona.

 

[Rick(ND)]

The Sovereign GT at the second hunt in freq 2 the Explorers cause it to chatter, in freq one the other Sovereigns cause a chatter. The last two hunts with the X-Terra 30 I had no interference I could hear,but it is silent search so maybe I never noticed it.

I took the T-2 out for a hour and a half today at a old farmstead I worked hard last year with the Sovereign and field tested some Concentric coil and even used my Explorer there too to see what I may have missed. With the T-2 I ground balanced and it showed a 74 when using the grab feature and set my sensitivity to factory presets and tried 0 for disc. It ran fairly quiet at time and others is would chatter a bit. I found when I raised the disc to 10 a lot of chatter was gone. Was digging some very small pieces of alum foil and seen where some small rusty wire and screws gave a good signal that sounded deep. but when I used my Uniprobe they were surface target. I decided to run the db for tones and got a round pull tab that was reading high like a zinc penny only to find the round pull tab, but these were deeper than you normally would find them. I alway say when they are deep the ID will read higher than normal. I got a good signal that was bouncing from 48-55 and when I went to pinpoint I seen I had an problem as when i lowered the coil the threshold went louder, so I felt my ground balance was off and tried the grab feature, but it wouldn't ground balance, so I had to manual ground balance and seen where it was 32 when it was ground balanced. I went back tot he signal and it sounded better now and when dug was a 1938 S nickle.This nickle was around 8-9 inches deep and gave a great signal. I went on to hear some other signals I wanted to dig, but on some it was very repeatable, but no ID numbers at all, now in the 3b it would give a visual ID most of the time. I dug some alum foil so small that my Uniprobe would not even see it,but the T-2 sure did, but it ID it most of the time as alum foil too. I got another good nickle reading around 8-9 inches deep and that one was a dateless buffalo nickle, but after putting date restorer on it it is a 1916 D. I found that it run much better when I manual ground balance than when I had it set at first for 74 and seen where it wouldn't ground balance when it was 32 for some reason.
I can see where that new tone mod db will help a lot with iron along with that pinpoint sensitivity as that worked real nice for me. The biggest thing is to get to know this detector and the only way is by experience with it and dig some of the signals.
I also picked up a 32 caliber bullet that had never been fired at a good 9 inches deep that gave a good tone, but no ID numbers.

Rick