I went out today for the first time with the x1 probe on my etrac. It is awesome! Being new to the hobby I have left quite a few holes without recovering anything. Not today!!
First things first, It made it so much more fun. It was EASY to recover my targets and I really did not dig one hole and come up empty handed. It made me 10x more confident to go over to the school and cut plugs in their nicely mowed lawn. The boss lady even watched me for a minute and I was confident there would be no more wild goose chases in the dirt.
For the last week I have gone to the park, but gone to the very back where I assume there has been very little foot traffic. Just to practice and try to learn. When my back got to hurting I would pull up a seat under the shade of the pines and read Andy's book.
So today when I went out armed with the x1 it was the best learning experiences I have had yet. I would do my best to pinpoint, in pinpoint mode and out of pinpoint mode. Then I would use the probe to see how close I was. I got lots of tones down deep but I did not want to dig any fox holes in the schools lawn while I had an audience, so i only dug what was shallow. Never seen a detectorist here besides myself, not to worried about the silver getting dug up anytime soon.
Yet another benefit for me with the x1 was something simple that I never thought of until yesterday when I put it on my etrac. You guys might laugh at me for this one, but maybe some newbies like myself will appreciate this. I have 3 coils, the 6" eq2, Stock coil and the 18" SEF. To change coils was quite the task, I kept a coat hanger and a spool of my braided fishing line with me. I used it to pull the cable up from the lower shaft to the main unit. I dont know what other guys do to change their coils but thats what I was doing. Now that I have the x1, the cable for the coil plugs into the outside of the shaft (how do you describe this?) and changing coils is a 5 minute job and I can leave the coat hanger and fishing line at home! That by itself is enough reason to have the probe.
I still have not found any silver, but I am having a blast. I found my best trophy yet today, a 1964 nickel.. To my amazement it was worth a nickel.. Imagine that.. hahaha! I dont care though, this is one of the funnest and most healthy hobbies I have had.
Like most everyone, I asked the question about what coil(s) were best a couple weeks ago when I made my order. The advice I was given from the beginning was to buy a smaller coil instead of the monster 18" SEF. Well my screw up was not checking back to this forum before I made my purchase. I ended up getting that 6" eq2 from kellyco and the 18" SEF.
To my fellow newbies, dont pull a Brandon. Get the smaller coil and a probe before you go out and throw down all that money for a bunch of coils. I had the 6x8 SEF on backorder, canceled that and bought my coil from detectordepot, talk about good honest people. They gave me some GREAT advice about detecting and some other issues that had nothing to do with detecting. I will be a life long customer to them!
Brandon
First things first, It made it so much more fun. It was EASY to recover my targets and I really did not dig one hole and come up empty handed. It made me 10x more confident to go over to the school and cut plugs in their nicely mowed lawn. The boss lady even watched me for a minute and I was confident there would be no more wild goose chases in the dirt.
For the last week I have gone to the park, but gone to the very back where I assume there has been very little foot traffic. Just to practice and try to learn. When my back got to hurting I would pull up a seat under the shade of the pines and read Andy's book.
So today when I went out armed with the x1 it was the best learning experiences I have had yet. I would do my best to pinpoint, in pinpoint mode and out of pinpoint mode. Then I would use the probe to see how close I was. I got lots of tones down deep but I did not want to dig any fox holes in the schools lawn while I had an audience, so i only dug what was shallow. Never seen a detectorist here besides myself, not to worried about the silver getting dug up anytime soon.
Yet another benefit for me with the x1 was something simple that I never thought of until yesterday when I put it on my etrac. You guys might laugh at me for this one, but maybe some newbies like myself will appreciate this. I have 3 coils, the 6" eq2, Stock coil and the 18" SEF. To change coils was quite the task, I kept a coat hanger and a spool of my braided fishing line with me. I used it to pull the cable up from the lower shaft to the main unit. I dont know what other guys do to change their coils but thats what I was doing. Now that I have the x1, the cable for the coil plugs into the outside of the shaft (how do you describe this?) and changing coils is a 5 minute job and I can leave the coat hanger and fishing line at home! That by itself is enough reason to have the probe.
I still have not found any silver, but I am having a blast. I found my best trophy yet today, a 1964 nickel.. To my amazement it was worth a nickel.. Imagine that.. hahaha! I dont care though, this is one of the funnest and most healthy hobbies I have had.
Like most everyone, I asked the question about what coil(s) were best a couple weeks ago when I made my order. The advice I was given from the beginning was to buy a smaller coil instead of the monster 18" SEF. Well my screw up was not checking back to this forum before I made my purchase. I ended up getting that 6" eq2 from kellyco and the 18" SEF.
To my fellow newbies, dont pull a Brandon. Get the smaller coil and a probe before you go out and throw down all that money for a bunch of coils. I had the 6x8 SEF on backorder, canceled that and bought my coil from detectordepot, talk about good honest people. They gave me some GREAT advice about detecting and some other issues that had nothing to do with detecting. I will be a life long customer to them!
Brandon