Just received my Explorer SE Pro . . .

[Tony N (Michigan)]

I was going to town and saw the uber cute postal carrier girl and got her to stop.
I asked her if she had a package for me. She said "Yes" with a sly grin.
She handed me my package of my new Minelab Explorer SE Pro. I said "Thanks!"

As I was pulling away, I glanced to see if she was looking at me. She was. LOL.

I'm charging the batteries now, though, I could put the Lithiums in her. No, not "her." I
mean the detector! LOL

 

[Explorer.se]

Awesome Tony you should ask her out if you see her again and congrats on the Explorer. Please keep us updated as to what you find AND I want to know how the NEL Tornado coil works out for you. Please keep us posted on both fronts!

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Awesome Tony you should ask her out if you see her again and congrats on the Explorer. Please keep us updated as to what you find AND I want to know how the NEL Tornado coil works out for you. Please keep us posted on both fronts!

I've put the coil through its paces. It has found some modern quarters for me so far. I think it's too big for hunting in iron infested sights. It's better for less trashy sites.

I probably should have gotten the Detech 8 x 6 S.E.F. butterfly coil. I'm not sure if it would be any better than my Minelab 8" round coil though. Sure wish I knew rather than blowing my hard earned money to find out.

[size=large]If anyone has experience with the Detech 8x6 S.E.F. butterfly coil, I'd love to hear what you have to say about it.[/size]

 

[mascard1]

Get the Sunray X8..and the
(stock coil..Or 13" Ultimate)...and your set!!!

 

[Elton]

n/t

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Get the Sunray X8..and the
(stock coil..Or 13" Ultimate)...and your set!!!

Thanks for the tip.
I have the Minelab 8" coil plus other larger coils. I just don't have a really narrow coil for getting in between iron nails.

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

The Minelab 8 is a killer coil for iron infested sites, I'm talking a house burned down pile of nails. Don't give up on the factory SE Pro coil I have waded right into rusty nail/trash heaps with it and scored. You won't get the same depth out of the 8, that's the reality.

Trivia - What determines a coils depth? Answer: Coil width left to right, not length front to back so take that into consideration when buying coils.

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

The Minelab 8 is a killer coil for iron infested sites, I'm talking a house burned down pile of nails. Don't give up on the factory SE Pro coil I have waded right into rusty nail/trash heaps with it and scored. You won't get the same depth out of the 8, that's the reality.

Trivia - What determines a coils depth? Answer: Coil width left to right, not length front to back so take that into consideration when buying coils.

Sounds logical.
Took the Pro out yesterday into the driveway. Only detected some modern coins. Found a merc dime near the edge of the yard. Only about 6" down. Pretty squirrely sound. Maybe too much sensitivity or there was trash nearby.
I've been using the stock pro coil but playing with the sensitivity. I'm seeing if I can find any coins between the nails and top of the soil so the nails aren't messing with the signal. Don't know if that's the right approach.
I put sens around 6-10 as a trial.

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

What is your gain set to?

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

What is your gain set to?

Sometimes I set the gain to 10, sometimes between 5 and 8 to differenciate the really deep hits.

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

Lower gain, increase sensitivity.

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Won't increasing sensitivity also pick up the nails even more?
What would you lower the gain to?

 

[Andy Sabisch]

The 6x8 SEF coil is my go-to coil for 90% of urban hunting . . . great depth - close to the stock coil - and the separation needed to pull keepers from trash

Andy Sabisch

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

The 6x8 SEF coil is my go-to coil for 90% of urban hunting . . . great depth - close to the stock coil - and the separation needed to pull keepers from trash

Andy Sabisch

Hi Andy, a person on these boards sold me his NEL 5.5 x 9.5 sharpshooter coil. Man, that coil is very sensitive to very small conductors. I could probably go gold detecting with it.
Thanks for taking the time to help us. Don't know if you remember me but years ago you wrote a book on the Minelab Advantage and put a picture of a barber dime I detected right next to a big rusty nail in my driveway?
I still remember the day I found it and reported the find here on the Minelab board. I said "Yes there is a God!" and you replied, "Tony, there is a God even if you didn't find that coin" or something to that effect.
That was around 15 years ago.

 

[5900_XL-1]

The 6x8 SEF coil is my go-to coil for 90% of urban hunting . . . great depth - close to the stock coil - and the separation needed to pull keepers from trash

Andy Sabisch

That's the first coil addition I made after geting the SE Pro. I need to put more time into it. It's always produced in places the Pro coil missed. I just keep thinking the coverage of the Pro, plus the insistense from the Minelab veterans that the Pro coil seperates as well...I've run my Pro coil 90%. Time for a change.

8x6 found me a Barber quarter just a month or so ago. Tough terrain for the Pro. The SEF fit well. I still went back to the Pro. Why?

 

[MikeO]

Congrats. You have made a good choice in detectors.

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

Won't increasing sensitivity also pick up the nails even more?
What would you lower the gain to?

Depends on your soil but a gain of 7 is a good target. Think of Gain and Sensitivity this way...Sensitivity turns your depth up and down, Gain turns your volume up and down. If you reduce your sensitivity it may eliminate a deep target BEFORE gain has a chance to do anything because the Explorer first applies your sensitivity setting to the signal. If you lower your sensitivity too far you can crank your gain to 10 to no avail because the deep target has already been eliminated by your lower sensitivity setting.

Also as a refresher, the Explorer transmits at max power no matter what your settings are. You can't for example dial back the transmit power by lowering your sensitivity it doesn't work that way. Since the Explorer transmits at max power always, regardless of settings, any signal received back from a target, mineralized soil, will be the best possible signal the machine and coil is capable of. Its fundamental to understand this so that you know what you are doing when you change various settings on your Explorer.

So the machine receives the 'whole' of the signal back from the target, now with your settings you will filter, slice, dice, and carve up that target signal. Reducing sensitivity begins chopping off the faintest, weakest part of the signals, deep faint targets may get sliced off if you lower it too far. You can practice this in the field on real targets in the ground. If you get a deeper target rather than rushing to dig it, take advantage of the learning opportunity. Begin lowering your sensitivity, at some point the target that may have been a solid hit will begin breaking up and eventually vanish altogether. Depending on the target and depth a target can vanish surprisingly quick. What may have been a solid hit with the sensitivity on 28 will begin breaking up at 25 and vanish at 24 or be so broken up it wouldn't have been something you would have noticed or dug. You can do similar field tests with Gain.

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Won't increasing sensitivity also pick up the nails even more?
What would you lower the gain to?

Depends on your soil but a gain of 7 is a good target. Think of Gain and Sensitivity this way...Sensitivity turns your depth up and down, Gain turns your volume up and down. If you reduce your sensitivity it may eliminate a deep target BEFORE gain has a chance to do anything because the Explorer first applies your sensitivity setting to the signal. If you lower your sensitivity too far you can crank your gain to 10 to no avail because the deep target has already been eliminated by your lower sensitivity setting.

Also as a refresher, the Explorer transmits at max power no matter what your settings are. You can't for example dial back the transmit power by lowering your sensitivity it doesn't work that way. Since the Explorer transmits at max power always, regardless of settings, any signal received back from a target, mineralized soil, will be the best possible signal the machine and coil is capable of. Its fundamental to understand this so that you know what you are doing when you change various settings on your Explorer.

So the machine receives the 'whole' of the signal back from the target, now with your settings you will filter, slice, dice, and carve up that target signal. Reducing sensitivity begins chopping off the faintest, weakest part of the signals, deep faint targets may get sliced off if you lower it too far. You can practice this in the field on real targets in the ground. If you get a deeper target rather than rushing to dig it, take advantage of the learning opportunity. Begin lowering your sensitivity, at some point the target that may have been a solid hit will begin breaking up and eventually vanish altogether. Depending on the target and depth a target can vanish surprisingly quick. What may have been a solid hit with the sensitivity on 28 will begin breaking up at 25 and vanish at 24 or be so broken up it wouldn't have been something you would have noticed or dug. You can do similar field tests with Gain.

Thanks Charles.
I have a question concerning old square cut nail littering my driveway. They are about 3 or so inches down. If I lower my sensitivity, and used a smaller coil, would the lowered sensitivity cause less reaction to the nails to help find the elusive coin that may be near the nails?
If, say, I crank up the sensitivity all the way but the detector is still stable, would this cause the detector to be more overwhelmed with the iron nail than the coil?
Or, as you say, the detector puts out the same transmit power no matter what sensitivity setting one uses, does that mean the iron nails will overwhelm the masked coin no matter what sensitivity setting I use?

Man, this is getting complicated! But it is a needful lesson!

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Now where's that dang 1/8 male to 1/4 female adapter!

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

Won't increasing sensitivity also pick up the nails even more?
What would you lower the gain to?

Depends on your soil but a gain of 7 is a good target. Think of Gain and Sensitivity this way...Sensitivity turns your depth up and down, Gain turns your volume up and down. If you reduce your sensitivity it may eliminate a deep target BEFORE gain has a chance to do anything because the Explorer first applies your sensitivity setting to the signal. If you lower your sensitivity too far you can crank your gain to 10 to no avail because the deep target has already been eliminated by your lower sensitivity setting.

Also as a refresher, the Explorer transmits at max power no matter what your settings are. You can't for example dial back the transmit power by lowering your sensitivity it doesn't work that way. Since the Explorer transmits at max power always, regardless of settings, any signal received back from a target, mineralized soil, will be the best possible signal the machine and coil is capable of. Its fundamental to understand this so that you know what you are doing when you change various settings on your Explorer.

So the machine receives the 'whole' of the signal back from the target, now with your settings you will filter, slice, dice, and carve up that target signal. Reducing sensitivity begins chopping off the faintest, weakest part of the signals, deep faint targets may get sliced off if you lower it too far. You can practice this in the field on real targets in the ground. If you get a deeper target rather than rushing to dig it, take advantage of the learning opportunity. Begin lowering your sensitivity, at some point the target that may have been a solid hit will begin breaking up and eventually vanish altogether. Depending on the target and depth a target can vanish surprisingly quick. What may have been a solid hit with the sensitivity on 28 will begin breaking up at 25 and vanish at 24 or be so broken up it wouldn't have been something you would have noticed or dug. You can do similar field tests with Gain.

Thanks Charles.
I have a question concerning old square cut nail littering my driveway. They are about 3 or so inches down. If I lower my sensitivity, and used a smaller coil, would the lowered sensitivity cause less reaction to the nails to help find the elusive coin that may be near the nails?
If, say, I crank up the sensitivity all the way but the detector is still stable, would this cause the detector to be more overwhelmed with the iron nail than the coil?
Or, as you say, the detector puts out the same transmit power no matter what sensitivity setting one uses, does that mean the iron nails will overwhelm the masked coin no matter what sensitivity setting I use?

Man, this is getting complicated! But it is a needful lesson!

Lowering sensitivity will do little to nothing to quiet down rusty nails, your average square cut nail is a huge target. Using a smaller coil (I like the Minelab 8 inch for this) is a great idea. But here's another trick, wait until the soil is bone dry. Nothing worse than a rusty nail in sopping wet soil, nail patches that are virtually undetectable in the spring when the soil is sopping wet are much more detectable in late summer after the soil dries out. You will lose a bit of depth due to the dry soil but nails get small in dry soil. One other tip from the late great Dave Z (RIP Dave) if you are convinced there are good targets begin digging the nails out of the way. A rusty nail can pollute quite a large area of ground. After digging the nails you may have to let the soil rest for a season, Explorers hate disturbed soil, but it sounds like your nails are shallow so may not be as much of an issue. Another strategy is to detect the area from multiple angles, having hunted many nail patches in NY many of my silver spills and big silver finds were masked by iron such that I could only get a signal from 1 angle, say 12 o-clock. From 9, 6, 3 o-clock nothing but iron with no hint of a coin. Mind you from 12 o-clock it was a textbook silver ID on the screen. Don't let a nail falsing talk you into digging, the rusty nail bounce pattern (top left corner to right edge of screen, cursor half off the right edge, down about 3/8 inch from the top is nearly foolproof 99% rusty nail falsing. The only other thing that will hit in that area is a silver half/dollar and a target that large won't be bouncing left/right in the rusty nail bounce pattern. Quarters, large cents will ID higher along the right edge. Finally, the rusty nail target there's no defense for, a bent nail. The quality of the tone will be crappy compared to a large silver coin but that it will false right edge and not bounce to the top/left corner much...I can't not dig those. lol