Is it true???

[Anonymous]

The book by Andy Sabisch (at the top of page 8 and somewhere near pg 24 more specifically) states custom discrimination patterns can be made "in the air" at home as the design of the FBS circuits are not affected by mineralization and therefore those patterns will work properly in the fields. Is this a true statement??
If the cross hairs( or the TID numbers for conductivity and inductance on the Exp2) do not lock onto the correct position for a known target like a dime when found deep in highly mineralized soil, then this report is not true. All detectors with single frequencies I have owned report a lower reading of conductivity for deep targets in mineralized soil and could only be detected many times by running no higher than iron or foil rejection only. Comments greatly appreciated on this operational aspect of the famous Explorer.

 

[Anonymous]

What I would worry about more is the target masking factor if hunting with too much disc in the first place but I find it hard to believe because a lot of good targets fall far left on the screen than they should because of nearby iron ect. pulling it that way. My two zincs....George

 

[Anonymous]

I think the big difference is that single freq. detectors will see two targets as one by blending them but the Explorer sees both. A coin beside a nail can still give a high tone through the null which happens when swinging over iron. I have never been a fan of using Disc. and never will be.
ps I think the question you really need to know on this is....in a disc. pattern does the sound override what the screen shows? I believe the answer is yes and just because the screen shows iron if the sound is good it will come through (please someone correct me if I'm wrong). That said I still believe with any disc. you will miss targets. A detector always sees every target and its a matter of what we want to hear. I have used the explorer for a few years now but have never had the need to use a pattern or high disc..

 

[Anonymous]

As CC said most have best luck with as little discrimination as possible. I can't swear that mineralization changes the results but my gut feeling is that it does. As targets get deeper things sound more like iron, expect that mineralization makes this happen at shallower depths. But I am sure that proximity to trash can make the cursor appear in a different location.
Andy wrote the book before people had many miles on the explorer, you can learn in coins but for all practical intents it is pretty worthless. Coins will only hit there if they are shallow and well away from any other targets.
Chris

 

[Anonymous]

That statement and other statements in Sabisch's book (that I have read) are not accurate when taken at face value. There is some grain of truth, but I have no doubt that the author likes to use his name to promote brands and pen books and articles that also function as sales tools.
He also implies that a crosshair position has only one possible type of object, but in the field one quickly learns this is not true. For example, nickels usually have a consistent location on the crosshairs, but some pulltabs, half tabs, can shards and other junk often come in at the exact same location, as do some gold objects.
As you said, deeper coins in mineralized ground will not ID as they would if shallow. I find that other soil conditions such as moisture, temperature etc. seem to effect crosshair locations on my XS. For example, some days shallow dimes can easily be told apart from shallow copper pennies by the crosshairs, but at other times dimes and pennies do not differentiate.
Back to the original question, yes, you can program disc. patterns at home and recall those programs in the field and they will work just the same as if you programmed those patterns on site. However, don't try to do what he suggests with "learn" to say learn silver and copper coins and disc out everything else and expect that to work. That is hogwash. Deeper coins or coins near trash will cause erratic bouncing ID's on the Explorer just like any other ID detector.

 

[Anonymous]

[No message]

 

[Anonymous]

FBS/BBS was designed by the military to prevent the enemy (or weather) from jamming UHF communications. No matter how hard they try, one or more frequencies will always make its way through the interferance and ensure reliable communications. This technology allows the Minelab transceiver to get better depth regardless of the level of mineralization, salt moisture, etc as compared to a single freqency detector but it is still subject to the laws of electromagnetism as we know them at this time in history.
Iron oxides are used on the skin of stealth bombers to aid in distoring/defelcting the radar signal to prevent or minimized its return to the radar receiver. This translates in science fact meaning the nonferrous notch discriminator used on the Explorer (or any other detector) will actually cause one to unintentionally disc out "good deep targets" if used in more than moderatly mineralized soil because the signal will be degraded to a lower level of conductivity and if it falls in one of the disc out zones, it has been technically "masked" by mineralization.
Minelab's Iron Mask circuit, because it allows one to disc out part of all of the induction (ferrous) signal, and amplify even extreamly weak conductive signals,I believe is the best innovation in the detector world and combined with FBS is without a doubt the best detector technology todate even though it and multi-million dollar radar receivers are still subject to the target masking effects iron oxide mineralization causes.
Other mfrs are coming out with effective iron mask circuits and combined with a frequency between 15-19Khz., gives one simular performance but in a lighter package, quicker target response and faster coil scan possible without losing targets due to quicker signal analysis on only one frequency. Minelab really needs to come out with a meterless, hipmounted, weather proof unit to stay on top.

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Dave,
I don't believe it either. My friends and I create coin programs in the air too. From experimentation, it seems like there are plenty of coins that give off iffy signals that are rejected by these programs. So I think that if the coin signals are obvious nice signals, the programs work. But if you have a corroded indian head at an angle with trash around, you might get signal alteration that causes rejection.
If the coin programs were not affected by signal alteration, then we would not have to use low settings of iron mask to go after the hard-to-get coins.
Mike

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Dave,
I thing that using a coin program is very useful if you want to quickley cruise around and unknown area just to see what you get with respect to easy coin hits.
My friend Richard uses his coin program in trashy-as-heck areas and finds many coins. I've done it too. I watched him pull out a standing liberty quarter at 8 inches, and an 1898 barber quarter at 7.5 inches with his coin program. They were easy hits. But when those easy hits are gone, it's time to switch to ironmask -10 or -13, etc. and open that machine up for consideration of iffy signals.
Mike

 

[Anonymous]

Air tests don

 

[Anonymous]

But even the mighty Explorer is prone to a deep iron false now and then. The main culprit continues to be bent nails for me but they are usually pretty deep. Guess they can't be perfect but they sure do come close in my opinion. HH George

 

[Anonymous]

Hunt in IM -10 to -14 and pay more attention to what you hear and NOT what the crosshairs are doing. Also use conductive tones and learn the difference between how iron and silver sounds (iron has a higher screechy sound while silver's just a tiny bit lower and kinda jingly). You can hear a nice sound while your crosshairs are boucing around, sticking to the left, and generally LOOKING just like iron. If that sound is constant and you repeats itself when swinging from different directions than DIG IT!!! You WILL find very rust-encrusted bent nails and other iron BUT you will also dig old silver that you'd otherwise miss. I have a 5-gallon bucket that I've been tossing all of my "nice sounding" junk in to show people what kind of crap you will dig up in order to find the deep goodies. If you're just going out and just digging signals that are hitting on the upper middle to right of the screen then I GUARANTEE that you are missing coins. I used to get all hung up on patterns and such too until I was shown that they SIGNIFICANTLY decrease the Explorer's abilities. It's just like cranking up the disc on an analog machine. There's some good tips and reference material in that book but a lot of people take what's in there as Gospel and it just isn't so. Yeah, I have a nice pattern that works well in clean ground with less trash but most places I hunt aren't like that. I also use a pattern on the beach that knocks out clad so I can concentrate on the lower-sounding stuff like gold jewelry. (some day I may even find some! <img src="/metal/html/wink.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=""> ). But 98.8% of the time you will find me running in IM -12 with conductive tones. Another thing about air testing: There isn't any mineralization in the air and more importantly....Explorers HATE air!!! Put that coil right down in contact with the ground when you hunt with it (make sure you have a coil cover! <img src="/metal/html/smile.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=""> ) Explorer's seem to like old undisturbed ground best, I've found. If there's a lot of mineralization in the ground, then turn down your sensitivity. I just found an IH last month that was down 8"+. My sensitivity was set at 10 manual at the time. If I was running in 28 auto like I usually do, I defintiely wouldn't have hit it because the high sensitivity would have been very badly affected by the mineralization.
Anyway, just my rookie 2 cent's worth.
HH,
SgtSki