HIGH TRASH DENSITY MODE

[Steveba]

I've had my Quattro for over a year and must say it's a great machine. I hunt in all-metal mode with auto-sensitivity. In Andy Sabisch's book, he says that in the high trash setting, you can recover faster, and swing faster, but the number readings will be off somewhat. I haven't tried it yet, mostly because i'm not sure of what to do.
Has anybody out there have a helpful comment or expierience in this high trash mode that can help me out? I will be useing it in an old site that has a lot of iron.

 

[jjwest]

Take a look at the recent post titled "how is it" and read a couple of entries I made about settings on the Quattro. One of the settings I run is high density. Yes the Quattro runs a little faster in high density and the readings or slightly different but nothing to bother you. Be careful of running auto sensitivity. Look at the "how is it" post where I found out my Quattro could only picking up a military button at 4" in auto. Going to manual the same button can be found at 8" to 10". Once again look at both of my postings in "how is it". Take care and enjoy life.

 

[Golden]

:Hello Steveba, I've hunted on old building sites in trashy ground for years with the Quattro, particularly on old goldfields. I use High Trash setting when detecting, and it does speed up the recovery time a little, but the accuracy of pinpointing your targets will be slightly off, but I wouldn't be alarmed about it. Just takes a little practice to get it right on. I don't use any mode except All Metal Mode when hunting. I use manual sensitivity, and run my setting from as low as +9 right through to +18, depending on the type of ground. For instance, if the ground is high in iron rubbish, and you get a barrage of sounds while working the ground, turning your sense down to about +9 or +10 will even things out for you. Don't think you won't find the deeper targets, say to 8 or 10 inches deep because the detector has no problen picking up these targets. Some people make the mistake of raising their sensitivity up with the intention to finding deeper targets, but it doesn't necessarily work that way. If the ground condition is dry and compact for instance, the deeper targets may be harder to read or differentiate from the other signals you get, because in higher settings, the detector is trying to read too much all at once, so lowering your sense helps the detector to read less, you could say, and pinpoint those targets better, without overloading it with too much information. This particularly works in ground that's highly mineralised, very trashy with rusted iron rubbish that while disintergrating in the ground will give off halo effects, and the detector will be reading targets either bigger than they really are, or plainly give you the barrage of signals including the falsing ones, that will drive you insane. Keeping the sensitivity down to about +9 or +10 will ease the detector into reading the ground with a bit more simplicity, if you get my drift.
I'm going to say this once and for all time, the detector is adverstised time and agin as a switch on and go machine, and it's hardly the case. If you've been used to using gold detectors, you'll have to re-train your mind to a totaly different concept of machine. The signal you get with a coin/relic machine such as the Quattro or Explorer are totally different to gold machines. This is where people sometimes have a problem up-grading to a coin/relic like this machine. The other thing is, learn to use the machine in one type of ground alone so you become accostom to what to expect by way of signals when hunting for keepers. hunting different types of ground conditions in a short space of time without allowing yourself to get use to the detector and what it's telling you while hunting, is enough to put you off it, and feeling like you're getting no where. I hate to say it guys, but, it's a known fact that you guys can be a little more impatient and less tolerant by a barrage of signals than the girls sometimes, not in every case. When I first bought the detector, my hubby went out a few times and thought it was broken. He didn't persist with it, mentally he had resigned himself to the "fact" that the detector was faulty as it wasn't performing the way he expected it to be. I went out and persevered with it, almost every day, and soon things began to fall into place. Had him wondering how in the hell I was finding the relics and he wasn't. So with the passing of time and lots of practice he found the detector began to make sense too.
Anyway, the settings I've suggested here is the best way to go with hunting trashing building sites: High Trash, manual sensitivity, All Metal Mode, lower the sense to +9 or +10 and with a bit more confidence raise the sense up as you go or feel it's working for you. Take your time, swing slow and delibrate and work small patches at a time, grid the area with rocks, pieces of wood or whatever, and work the patches from different angles to make sure that relics such as coins, when buried on end, will be targeted, you may get a signal coming at it from one angl;e and not another. Sometimes with relic hunting, you have to be particular, and think of all senarios of how something might be buried. All the best with it Stevebo.
HH Golden

 

[Steveba]

Thanks GOLDEN, I know that you have a lot of time with the Quattro, and read your posts for years.
Everything you said made sense to me, and I will try them out . This forum is the best for Quattro owners, because there isn't much info on them anywhere else.

 

[backslyder]

Boy, Golden, that was a great post. I don't have nearly the experience you have, but I think I have enough to know what your saying, and I agree with it all except maybe, and I mean only maybe, the part in the beginning of your post where you say practice with the high trash setting and you'll get it right on. I think you mean, as I think, that it's not that big of a deal, to have things off a number or two, but I have noticed that the numbers can be off a couple of digits, in high trash setting, but WHO CARES, most of the time. If it allows you to swing a little faster, and picks up targets quicker, makes sense to me. I may even be wrong on that, because I haven't used the high trash for a while, but man you said a mouthful when you talked about us guys not being patient enough to REALLY GET TO KNOW WHAT THE QUATRO IS TELLING US. I couldn't agree more, that it takes time and practice to really start to learn the little nuances, and just basically what it's telling you. I've had the same experience with "sens" settings, and couldn't agree more. If there's a bunch of spurious noises on manual, turn the darn thing down to where it's stable enough to make sense. I thought my detector was broken a couple of times, when after through investigation, I realized it was me or the ground I was in was loaded with too much trash, or something like that. It really wasn't the detectors fault. To me your still a true professional at this, if not only from your vast number of great finds, but the way you hunt. I've often thought if you can consistently hunt in all Metal Mode, on manual, and still find what your finding and put in as many hours as I think you put in, you've gotta be tough. Those kind of settings are not for the "faint at heart", or should I say faint of mind or a little more subtle way to put it: "Dog gone this all metal setting", it's driving me crazy, and so is this darn manual sens' setting." I think you get my drift. It takes time, and P A T I E N C E, and P R A C T I C E. Marc Trainor, (the impatient guy, who just wants to hunt beach sand on auto everything, and gets bummed out if he doesn't find a wheat back once in a while).

 

[redsumit]

ok this question is mostly for golden but whoever can answer. ok if im in all metal mode there is no nulling so how would putting it in high trash mode make it faster? also, would u say in all metal mode it would be best 2 leave it in ferrous tone? this way u can determine if its an iron sound or conductive sound. the problem ive had is alot of people say in all metal mode put it in conductive sound by cross saving and dont look at the numbers listen 2 the tone, BUT the problem i have w/ that is in that mode if its high iron content then u get a high tone and think its something good. so wouldnt u say its better 2 leave it in ferrous tone? thanx

 

[Golden]

Gidday Marc,
just to clear things up about what I meant when I said that losing a little accuracy in pinpointing in High Trash setting:
I'm not meaning that pinpointing mode in itself is inaccurate in High Trash setting. In relic hunting, I don't go by the numerical readings. You can't afford to rely on them when you are dealing with relics that give negative readings, and relics of the same type that give off several different number readings or different readings for the same relic. . With High Trash hunting, the recovery is sped up slightly, so it may seem to some that pinpointing accurately the targets is not possible. But it is. It takes your mind's eye to do it, with plenty of practice there is a trick or two to achieving this. You can learn to pick up as you pinpoint where the target is exactly likely to be, even though the detector won't tell you, there is a way of "guessing" you could say, where the target is possitively buried, and mostly I do this with my coil by slow strokes over the target from different angles, and as I move the coil over the target area, I deliberately slow the sweep right down to almost a stand still, then when I believe I have the target directly underneith the coil, about the centre of the middle strip b/w the DD, I raise the coil and lower it again listening for the signal at the same time. It's a trick I've learned to use in High Trash, particularly when I suspect it's a coin or something smaller, and to get a truer indication of the exact position. As I said, this technique takes a little practice. I don't know if you can visualise it guys, but I've shown another associate of mine this very technique, just one of the nuances of hunting in High Trash mode.
This is what I meant about how when hunting in High Trash setting: you can't learn to pinpoint accurately by just simply relying on the pinpointing mode to give you an accurate reading, especially if you are hunting in very trashiy ground and a lot of your target are in close proximity to each other. You need to learn to use the detector in ways that will advantage your hunt, not simply relying on numerical readings to give you all the information, or purely relying on the pinpointing mode alone to give you accuracte readings. High trash doesn't just allow the unit to re-set itself quicker when going over multipule targets, but the down fall is that if you like to use the ID numbers it will bounce around a little from one number to another for a target. But this doesn't bother me because I totally rely on signals and tones when relic hunting. What I would say to Quattro users is, learn to rely soley on tones and signals when learning this detector. You'll get a lot further in finding your relics, even in very trashy ground, than simply rely on the ID numbers. Hope this helps.
Ps. Just a side point, the smaller the coil, the better the hunt. A 10inch coin in trashy ground just doesn't cut it. I hunt with the 7.5 inch and am happy with it.
Golden

 

[Golden]

[quote redsumit]ok this question is mostly for golden but whoever can answer. ok if im in all metal mode there is no nulling so how would putting it in high trash mode make it faster? also, would u say in all metal mode it would be best 2 leave it in ferrous tone? this way u can determine if its an iron sound or conductive sound. the problem ive had is alot of people say in all metal mode put it in conductive sound by cross saving and dont look at the numbers listen 2 the tone, BUT the problem i have w/ that is in that mode if its high iron content then u get a high tone and think its something good. so wouldnt u say its better 2 leave it in ferrous tone? thanx[/quote]


The High Trash setting allows the Quattro to detect targets in closer proximity to each other as in trashy ground, so the re-setting is slightly quicker to enable you to read those targets a little easier. You certainly don't want to be nulling over targets, you want to hear the barage of sounds from trashy ground because it's how you're going to learn to pick up what you're likely listening for, especially when hunting for specific relics. I personally wouldn't cross save to conductive tones or use those tones. I specifically use ferrous tones for hunting relics, as a lot of the trash is ferrous, and ground conditions can be mineralized. Even at the beach where we get "hot rocks" I'll still hunt in ferrous tones. If you want to find the relics in high trashy ferrous ground, than you need to detect accordingly, in ferrous tones. Or you will lose on relics. I don't believe the conductive tones give you all the information you need to make a decision if the signal you're concentrating on is a keeper or not. You'll find you will have to dig most things just to see if it is a target worth digging for. But in having said all this, your type of ground conditions and metals could be different. All I can say is through trial and error, you'll pick it up. But in my opinion, for what it's worth, stick to your ferrous tones and don't deviate from them when relic hunting, particularly in ferrous trash. Either way, I've found ferrous tones are the best way to go in most cases. Get used to hunting in ferous tones in trashy ground, get in plenty of practice, pick an old building site you can hunt on and work it for a while. You'll be surprised at what you might find, that you otherwise would have missed jumping from different settings and tones.

 

[redsumit]

hmmm ok relics r ok but im more into lookin 4 coins, not so much relics. although ill look 4 relics just 2 see if i can date the site. but i want me old coins

 

[Ratman]

What's worked great for me is to run in high trash density with a manual sens setting of 14 to 18 , dig all high squeeks or high tones , and then all numbers from 30 to 39 . Your high tones in those numbers almost always turns out to be a coin or silver ! As for relics I don't know cause I only hunt for coins and jewelry . Primarily silver coins and jewelry . If hunting in auto sens you will get a little more stability (less noise) but loss of depth . All Metal Ferous tones no disc , manual sens 14 to 18 , High Trash Density , listen and dig all high repeatable tones ! Works great for me .....

 

[jjwest]

Redsumit, what the high density does is just reset the Quattro faster so it can detect the next target. Put a coin and a nail close together on the ground and swing the Quattro over it both ways using low density. Change to high density and swing again. You should notice an improvement in hearing seperate targets with high density.

All metal mode has ferrous sounds already programed into it. I try to listen to high sounds only but I look at the numbers a lot to give an indication of what coin, carthridge, military button it might be before digging.

 

[jjwest]

Golden, I'm a little confused about where on the dd coil you are talking about when you are pinpointing. Is it the toe or middle of the coil(between the toe and heel)?

 

[Golden]

n/t

 

[backslyder]

Ok, I'm gonna take a stab at this one, but I'll try and be v e r y careful at what I'm saying. This thread about high trash setting, which also includes questions about using ferrous or conductive and even getting into Golden's response which seems to mainly concern "what type of target are you hunting for", seems to embody a "WHOLE BUNCH OF INFORMATION", which seems to be about half of Andy Sabischis book. Whewwww! Where do we start here. My understanding is that the High Trash Setting "recognizes" the targets quicker, because the detector algorithms "re-set" quicker. However, the numeric readings in that mode, can be off a number or two. I'm not sure about the pinpoint mode, but getting back to Golden's response--She talks about some kind of "way of guessing", that absolutely intrigues me, in the hight trash mode. I haven't used this mode that much, but it sounds like she's saying there's some kind of subtle nuance about finding where the target is and of course doing the 45 degree angle thing it narrows it down, but I'm not sure whether she's lifting the coil up and down in regular mode or pinpoint mode. I'm not sure about that part, but I know she knows what she's talking about and I would agree on using Ferrous most of the time, which, (if I'm not mistaken) ferrous audio,gives you a higher tone on the higher numeric readings like copper and sliver versus low tones on iron, etc. I'd certainly vote to use ferrous most of the time. I know Andy talked about in some cases it could benefit you to switch to conductive, but I can't honestly remember why. I need to re-read that section of the book. I understand why she wouldn't be that concerned with numeric readings while she's hunting for relics, because a lot of relics might be in the iron or negative numeric region of the detector.
As kind of a response to Resmumits response about mainly "wanting to look for coins", and kind of an overall wrap up on what I think Andy's book preaches and what I've experienced personally with my Quatro. ------- It first of all depends on what your hunting for. Are you looking for gold, coins, relics or all three. Like Andy says, you can set this detector any way you want in terms of what your looking for, and a number of other characteristics. I'd say if your looking for relics, put it in all metal. If you know you're only looking for coins, I'd ether set it in coin mode or "notch out the types of metals" you don't want, which "thank goodness" this detector can do very well. The different tone modes, ferrous and conductive, are gonna give you different tones and pitches for different targets depending on what your listening for. I think the numeric readings are telling you mainly what type of metal your looking at. The one thing that I know for sure is, if you want a quicker response time on separating targets, USE A SMALLER COIL. Your not gonna be able to cover as much ground and won't be able to go quite as deep in most cases, but it'll separate the trash and targets far better than the High Trash mode, in my experience, if you go to about a 4 ore 5 inch coil.

 

[backslyder]

n/t

 

[backslyder]

I know this is nuts, but I think I need to respond to my own post here about the high trash setting. I'm specifically referring to what I said about the 5" coil being able to separate trash better than if you used the standard coil with high trash setting. I'm not sure if I'm right on that one, because I haven't had that much experience with the high trash setting. I do believe strongly, that using the 5" coil, (which I have one) and using the standard search setting, it separates the trash far better than using the 10.5 inch coil, however, I think your depth suffers a bit and you certainly can't cover as much ground "per swing" as the standard coil. Marc.

 

[jjwest]

Hey Marc, I'm responding to 2 of your post on "high trash density mode". I agree that a smaller coil for seperating targets is better than the stock 10.5" coil. After a lot of air testing with the 10.5" coil and the 4.5" x7" in auto and manual sensitivity the small coil has to be cranked up to a higher number of sensitivity than the large coil in order to get the same depth.

Just from my experience and the recommendation from Minelab tech support is to use alll metal mode all the time no matter if you are relic hunting or coin hunting. The Quattro works better in all metal and high trash density modes. I resisted using these modes after purchasing the Quattro. Unfortunately that is the way the Quattro is. It took me about a year to buy into using these modes. After I did my finds of good targets started increasing. Also some sites are so heavy in trash that I was going nuts also from the constant target chatter. One of the things for survival from this constant chatter was to unplug the headphones and listen to the Quattro's built in speaker. Also, Golden digs for relics but she also finds coins and might just sweep the area for coins first then dig everything that has a repeatable solid sound to it.

 

[backslyder]

Boy, was that ever an informative post!!!! Thanks, jjwest. You know for some reason, I kind of forgot about cranking up the sensitivity, especially on the smaller coil. I'm now wondering, (because I haven't tried it yet), if you can crank up the sens higher on a small coil than a bigger one, with less problems.? Hmmmm. At any rate, that sounds like the thing to do, if the "ground can stand it" (so to speak). In other words, if the ground, or "area conditions", aren't so treacherous, that a higher sens setting might cause unbearable chatter. Great idea, and the other thing I plum forgot, is that Golden doesn't just hunt for relics, she hunts for coins too. I'm not sure either if she grids the area first for coins, and then goes back for the relics. Interesting concept. It would be a lot more work, but there might be some "pluses" there by hunting them separately. The other thing you mentioned, and I'm feeling pretty sheepish here (because I've read that thing about All Metal being a more responsive, better mode to use in past posts), I forgot about that, and you know the God's honest truth, is I don't use it that much, because I'm too lazy to try and read all the numbers and listen to all the tones with all metal, but listening to what you just said: how you resisted it, but now it seems to be working better for you now in All Metal, AND....., all the past posts by Golden and others about being a real "trouper" and hunting in all metal, and just relying on the numbers and tones to decide whether to "dig" or not. I'm thinking here, now::: "If", I want to get serious, I need to hunt in All Metal, "hone my skills at tone and numeric target recognition", run the sens in manual as high as I can stand it, ground balance as often as need be, and now if I'm really up for it, run the darn thing in High Trash mode, or use the smaller coil for the really trashy areas. I'm probably gonna fight the High Trash mode the most, but you know it not only makes sense what you and Golden are saying about all this stuff, but I also know Golden is a "monster" when she has the Quatro in her hands. I've seen enough of her finds, and charted with her enough to know that she's an extremely successful detectorist, and now what your saying only backs up what I think she's saying. I'm gonna take this to heart, and try and get off my lazy (you know what), and start utilizing this valuable info. It makes sense to me that at least if your running all metal, and using all the above settings, it would at least give you a "choice", whether to dig or not, where using only the coin or other settings, definitely notches out the other stuff- but I like what you said about All Metal being a more viable setting, whether you use discrimination or not. Heck you could just use all metal, and notch out what you don't want, and maybe have more success (if I'm reading you right on all this). Please respond, and straighten me out if I'm " off" on any of this stuff. Marc Trainor.

 

[redsumit]

hey backslider, i thought about notching out some stuff like all the iron (-10 and -9) BUT u will get nulling which will slow it down a little bit even in those 2 notch setting. of course unless theres no iron in the ground.............................hahahahahahaha yeah rite like that will ever happen

 

[backslyder]

I never felt I had a problem with the nulling part of detecting, only because (I figured) that all that is is you hear a little dull noise or whatever you could call it, to let you know-"oh, this is notched out or discriminated ground", but what I may be missing here, and I'm honestly not sure about this, but MAYBE, and I mean maybe, the notched out areas could affect the non discriminated areas, but I don't know if that's true at all. I would think not, but I'm not sure if theres any reaction between the two of them. This is getting into the fine points here, but you know this is what this forum is partly about, trying to "hone" our skills to get the absolute most out of our detectors. My feeling at this point is- I don't worry about the nulling, but if someone, you included, knows or thinks different, please reply on this one. Marc.