ID segments

[BarnacleBill]

n/t

 

[BarnacleBill]

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[Tinfoil]

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[Tinfoil]

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[David]

Hot doggie Randy, heeehaw!!! Was a some good postin'!! Ain't too much better than that!

Also it is important to know that 3 kHz coil that you love for silver coins and also for rejecting iron will still pick up an old small and very fine gold ring on an old homestead with good depth, for an example as showed in your test here:
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?55,899272,page=3

6-inch 18.75 kHz DD coil vs 9-inch concentric at 3 kHz on a fine small gold ring

Randy wrote:
"When airtesting it tonight, I find it reads a solid TID of 8 when using the all metal mode. Switching to the 9-inch concentric at 3 kHz, it bounces a bit between 4 and 6. Depth wise, it will hit at 4.5 inches on either coil. However it locks on better with the DD."

David wrote:
Thank you, for doing that test for me Randy it is appreciated! Shows to me the 9-inch concentric at 3 kHz WILL detect and find a fine small gold ring with the LF. Also will find small gold nuggets, if need be, if they ever make a 3 kHz DD someday.


And I didn't know that about the E-Trac's 2 number system? It is not as I thought it was. I wonder if that means it is not as precise and surgical as I thought it was?

 

[Tinfoil]

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[Digger]

Thanks David. As to whether or not the E-Trac is as "precise and surgical" as you thought????? Maybe! Think of the X and Y coordinates (CO and FE, if you prefer) as a piece of graph paper. To keep this relatively simple, lets say the sheet of paper is 20 boxes wide and 30 boxes high. And lets number them 1-20 left to right. And 1 - 30 bottom to top. That gives us 600 "box choices" in which to categorize any one target. The box in the lower left hand corner would be box number 1. The one directly to the right of it would be box number two. The box directly above box number one would be called box 21. And the one to the top - right corner would be box 600. If a 1901 Barber dime always shows up in the box represented by the fourth row down and second column from the right, it would have been assigned to row 26, column 18. That would be box number 538. Now, as a software engineer, you can call any box, anything you want to call it. Frankly, if I were designing software for a high tech metal detector, I'd be tempted to call it a 1910 Barber dime and actually display those words on the TID. 1910 Barber Dime. But then you'd have someone find a 1932 Mercury dime with the same "box assignment", of 538, and wonder why you called it a Barber dime. Or someone would find a 1901 Barber dime that showed up in the next column to the left (box 537), and wonder why the detector didn't ID it properly. Coins vary! Wear, year, mint, angle, mineralization effects, etc. My point is that the E-Trac is just as precise as the information gathered by the coil and ran through the software. In a lab situation, it would probably be "spot on" 99% of the time. However, actual field hunts are typically far from a lab environment. So as they say on TV ads, your results may vary. Regardless, there are many more "box options" on the E-Trac than on the X-Terra. But on the other hand, how many do we need? For some of us, we'd rather have a target lock on to one notch segment of the 28 notch X-70, than to watch a target bounce between rows and columns of a detector that has so many more "box choices." Simply a matter of choice. HH Randy

 

[utmike]

It is great how you can take a five dollar word and convert it into something us lower tech guys can use in the field!!! The forum is a better place for all of your time and effort. THANK YOU!

HH

 

[Steve(MS)]

I have to agree with you Digger even though I haven't tried the newer mid-line detectors available,
I have friends to fill me in on how the other ones perform.
What I look for in the way of a detector is something that is physically well-built, has useful features
and isn't fidgety as far as stability is concerned.
I still get amazed at just how well the 6" DD can find targets mixed in with trash, those that haven't tried it need to, go slow and dig those signals that give an indication that there is something there besides iron.

 

[jspeedy]

This was good reading guys! I had not seen much on this topic before so I thought I would throw it out there. It makes me feel better about my X-70.
One thing though, some of you say "when it sounds good I dig it" well so do I and I get a lot of trash. Could some of you experts start a post on the "relativity of sounds good"

 

[Jackpine Savage]

Does this mean that true beep-dig detectorists have lost their marbles????

If you take the engineers word that audio/TID functions are seperate on most machines, I find it an interesting subject to gauge how different units handle the TID on co-located targets. That has to have the engineers losing sleep just as much if not more than how many marbles to put in the buckets.

I would like to hear from the guys that regularly use both the Explorer and CZ's for turf hunting. They are miles apart in resolution and tone capability but seem to satisfy many users as "complimenting each other".

Tom

PS I just know that at that old site where I started to ignore the reading on the X70 from deep jar lids that I passed up a cache!! Curses "foiled" again by TID!!!

 

[BarnacleBill]

One of my favorite little phrases hidden in the X70 manual that only a great wise man like yourself would pay attention to:

Target ID Stability
The X-Terra 70 has a fine Discrimination Scale, but this may result in some instability of the displayed Target ID in some areas with highly mineralised soil. In these cases, the Target ID numbers may be further stabilised by using the Target ID Stabiliser. The Target Tone may not always match the stabilised Target ID.

Split filtering? 2 filter applied to the audio, but 3-4 filter applied to the ID? Angels dare not tread. And yes I know it's not a analog detector, but it's the only terms available to even discuss the subject.

HH
BarnacleBill

 

[Jackpine Savage]

From the Omega manual by memory so not an exact quote. ground suppression combination of 2nd and 3rd order... TID 3rd order. So does that mean a slow to moderate sweep for best depth ability and a medium or faster sweep for best TID? Best of both worlds??? De mode vs SL mode, thats another one.

It is a failing of many "field testers" to not note how the "filtering" effects performance in different ground conditions.

Carl @ Whites recently posted that rather than stating an equivalent of analog filtering they should just come out and say what type of ground they work best in.

Tom

 

[Canewrap]

Very well said, this piece should be part of the FAQFAQ

 

[Steve(MS)]

Hey Tom, I can't help myself on the jar lids, I dig them up.
I've always thought the audio/ID were derived from the same place regardless what the engineers
say, what do they know anyway?
About the "true beep-dig detectorists", once the disc control is advanced beyond the bare minimum, aren't they using a form of ID? ......wonder if beep-diggers ever get a signal and say to themselves "that doesn't sound right, I am going to pass on this one"?
HH

 

[David]

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?18,870835,876957#msg-876957
Canewrap wrote:
"Well, I'm near Huntsville and I can tell you that of all the ones I've tried (MXT, F70, F75, Tesoro Eldorado, Tesoro Cibola, ACE 250, and Minelab X-terra 70), the X-terra has been my favorite machine, by far. It works well in the bad dirt, as well as the good. Its worth the money if you can scrape it together. Lightweight, fast, deep, and versatile, its a great machine. I'm not a shill for the company and in no way benefit from anybody buying them. I just tell it the way I've experienced it.

Sincerely,
Bill"

Canewrap wrote:
The Tesoro Eldorado (now Vaquero) would definitely be a close second for a do it all kind of machine that's a good price. I started with Tesoros and I still have my Eldorado. The Vaquero would handle Alabama ground just fine, just has a little longer learning curve because you have to learn to identify trash based on the subtle differences in sound. Don't buy a Cibola, the ground balance is fixed and you need adjustable in this ground.

wayne_etc wrote:
"I'm in Huntsville as well. I'd have to agree with Cane's mention of the Eldorado. The Eldo and Vaquero do really well in our red clay. But I have to say the deepest and most stable machine I've used here is the Minelab Musketeer Advantage."


Bill(Canewrap), looks like you found the X-70 better than the MXT and F-75 in Alabama. The MXT and F-75 both have many more TID segments than the X-70 and you found this feature as no superior advantage?? (Maybe more segments jump around, have errors, and of no extra value?)

Also maybe did you ever try the Explorer SE, E-Trac, or Sovereign GT with the TDI meter in the red clay in Alabama or not? (Yes all heavy and slow machines I know.) Thanks!

 

[Jackpine Savage]

wonder if beep-diggers ever get a signal and say to themselves "that doesn't sound right, I am going to pass on this one"?

It's those that don't sound right (not like iron breakin thru and not like non-ferrous) just different sounding that get my blood pumping. I don't know about others but that always works for me!

Mebbe some pass on those but I look forward to hear'in em. Yeah I'm an old iron hound.

Yeah those engineers can make a lotta claims but its us who gotta use their creations that are left to figure the dang things out.

HH to you ole buddy!

 

[Canewrap]

David, great questions. No, I did not consider the machines you mentioned because of weight. I have no doubt that an Explorer SE will get a smidgen deeper than the X-terra 70, under the right conditions. However, when I tried the X-terra 70, which was a fluke anyway (see F75 trade below), I just clicked so well with that machine that nothing else has interested me since. The F75 is a sore point with me as I lost 200 on that trade. It really doesn't help that First Texas has a non-transferrable warranty policy. It pretty much guarantees that if you buy a new machine and don't like it you're stuck or will lose money in resale or trade. I went through two of the F75s and decided that I had wasted my summer trying to figure out how to make the machine work for me, even though those particular ones seemed to have an EMI problem (have not had that problem in any way with the X-terra). As to your question about segments. I actually do not use the segment idea much at all. I tend to run in all metal, 2 tones and listen for the high tones. If I start getting good targets I start working to maximize depth by using a combination of prospecting and coin/treasure to determine how deep my targets are and actually dramatically increase my recovery rate and dig most things. I try not to use discrimination at all, if I can help it as it robs the machine of depth and masking becomes a lot more of an issue. That's another reason I sold off my MXT as it didn't have more than two tones and you couldn't run with no discrimination and retain two tones.

One of the the only downsides to digital machines over analog that I can see is durability (even though I have not experienced it myself). The old analog machines have always been built like tanks and will last a good long time, where the digital machines seem to suffer breakdowns more frequently (my perception only as I have no facts to back up that assertion, just want to make that clear). Oh, and with the analog machines you can actually squeek out a little more depth by carefully listening for a break in threshold on targets at the edge of the detectors range. The digital machines either register or do not. But, I have not found that to be an issue with the X-terra as it has enough versatility that when you learn how and when to use its features together you can get depth that is beyond what you might want to dig. Yeah, I am a firm believer in the X-terra 70 because it works for me. The MXT was a good machine for me, but the X-terra is proving to be better for how I operate. Hope this helps.

Bill

 

[Digger]

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[Steve(MS)]

Still using those old Fishers, like the 1236, 1270 and Edge?
These new ones, I figured you would have thrown those away by now....
from what I read the newer ones are far superior......
just messin with you...keep the beep-dig faith, I use it too, just not
all the time.
HH