Last night's Duel: X-terra 705 vs Racer

[Tom_in_CA]

Hey gang, I said I'd report back on some on-going tests of the 705 in/for iron-riddled ghost-townsy like situations.

The consensus on a previous post on the subject seemed to say you guys didn't see any particular merit to the HF coil, versus the MF or LF coils, for this task. In other words: It wouldn't "see through" (average) any better than the other coils. Thus no special magic in the HF, for that regard. Hence the only thing using the HF for that, is perhaps that it excells for tteennnsssy stuff (low conductors, etc..) , but not necessarily for the iron-see through task.

So here's what happened last night:

a) The fellow "Aaron" with the 505 and 6" HF coil was with us again . As you recall, he'd spanked various other machines with his combination-setup, which had caused me to run out and buy a 705

b) I was there with my 705, switching back and forth between the 6" HF and the 9" MF (unfortunately, the only two 705 coils I have right now).

c) Brian (aka "cal cobra") was there with his new Macro Racer. For those that don't know, this is newly introduced to the market just in the last few months. Supposed to be the cat's-meow for working in these type iron riddled sites. He was using the smallest coil, which is something like 4.75" x 6" (can't remember exactly, but it appeared smaller-in-size than our 6" 705 coils)

Observations:

1) Aaron and I traded off flagged difficult signals, and I was relieved that anything he was hearing with his 505, I could equally get with the 705. Ok, so far so good. Means I was/am using it right.

2) I tried Old-long-hair's challenge over a few of these flagged targets, and switched over to auto-track GB. It didn't seem to make any difference. Signal not degraded or muffled. I even tried purposefully scanning off to the sides of the targets (where multitudes of low beep grunts of nails were) to see if the concept of the machine slowly balancing to a mess like that, would subsequently muffle or dumb-down a conductor trying to peak through. It didn't seem to make any difference. I continued to equally get target-in-question. However: Does anyone here know how frequently the Auto-tracks takes a ground reading, to "update" ? I mean, like is it: "every 30 seconds" ? Because it's possible I didn't stay in this mode long enough, to truly solve this debate.

3) Then before digging several of these flagged targets, I put on the 9" MF coil. To my surprise, it got all the signals, if-not-better than the 6" HF. Hmmm. So therefore y'all were apparently right, that the HF holds "no magic secret" to this task. And since I'm not particularly seeking ttteeeennnssy BB sized stuff, well, then it seems to me that I'm going to investigate the 6" MF and 6" LF coils for future such tests. Because this 9", of course, would have an inherent difference, because it's a larger coil. But seeing as how it held-it's own even-being a larger coil, I was impressed.

4) All the signals we were flagging and comparing for each other, we could all equally get. To the degree that we would agree that we "would have heard it on our own" (if not pointed out, etc...) So the Racer, so far, didn't seem to be doing anything that Aaron & I's X-terra's were doing equally as well. Hmmm

5) I did get one signal, which could be heard on both the 6" HF and the 9" MF. And Brian's Racer was un-able to get any signal that he could say honestly that he'd have chased. Turned out to be a sizable pistol ball, and a good depth down, surrounded, like all other signals here, by iron. Hmmmm

Re.: #5: It was possible that Brian wasn't scanning the exact right spot. Because it was SO pitch black (we chose a no-moon night, like a bunch of numb-nuts), that you couldn't see your own feet hardly. So when it came time to point out to another person a signal to try, it was sometimes hard to see where they were pointing to exactly. Naturally the person invited to try a signal, would scan left, right, up, down, "to be sure". So Brian ...upon not hearing anything, probably scooched around the spot to be sure he wasn't on-the-wrong spot. Still though, it's possible that Brian simply didn't have his coil over it. But none-the-less .... made me wonder.

We had to abort the hunt after only an hour or so. Something came up and we had to bail. The other flagged targets to eventually be dug, were typically pieces of lead, or bullet shells, rivots, etc...

But when we re-group for some more hunts, I will report back some more. thanx for reading !

 

[7centsworth]

Good report. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Old Longhair]

Good real world comparison.
And frankly, the results were pretty much what I expected. As you acquire a couple more coils it will be interesting to see what your observations are under your site conditions.

With the Racer, it could also have been that his small coil was a limiting factor. Makes me wonder how his next larger coil would have done.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Thanx. Yes: If the racer has a *slightly* smaller square-surface area (length x width) than our 6" rounds, then it's *possible* that it was not a fair comparison. I see now that his coil's size is as follows: 5" x 4.5". Hence he's clearly at an 1" or more surface-area size disadvantage. So it might not have had to do with iron-see-through task, necessarily, but an issue of depth. But .... just sayin' And yes: it would be interesting to try the test over such a flag, with his next size up coil.

I have a 6" LF coil on the way to me, in a couple of days, as a loaner from a friend in another part of the state. Will report back the results on those tests as they develope.

 

[Cal_Cobra]

I suspect the ONE target that I didn't hear, the GIANT lead musket ball, was simply a matter of it being pitch black dark outside.

The Racer isn't lacking in depth and the 5"x4.5" OOR coil does exctremely well in heavy iron, SO my suggestion is to pick a site that we can hunt during the DAY TIME so we can see what the hell we're doing

 

[Crash67]

Doing a test in pitch black conditions and having to "Bail" sounds like an interesting story

 

[Nuke em]

I think if you are to do a fair test then the coils have to be the same size .
Isn't the Racer and others of that type just Teknetic's machines in a different box ? that's what I have heard. Teknetic's are good machines so the Macro would follow that.

 

[foreign object]

Now let the Racer do the finding and see if the 505 and 705 can detect the same target.

Good info thanks.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Now that you mention it, do you recall the air-depth-test we did before we started hunting ? That showed me, that despite it being a *slightly* smaller coil, that it had every bit the same depth (or more?) as our x-terra 705 coils. Hence I agree with you on the depth handicap, that that's not the explanation.

So that only leaves 2 options: a) That the 705 heard something the racer couldn't, or b) that you didn't have your coil over the top of it.

Re.: option (b): Do you recall if ....... upon not hearing it at where you thought I'd pointed to, that ... . woudn't you/didn't you also scooch up and back, left and right, trying around the spot as well ? But sure: even with that, it's still possible that you just didn't hit it 'just right'.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

As of that night's tests: Anything the racer could flag, the x-terras could equally get. However, we only had time for 3 or 4 flagged targets each. The fact of needing to cross-check each others signals, was occupying a lot of time. So in an hour, perhaps only 10 targets got cross-compared between the 3. Hence more study is needed.

Yes: that will be interesting if there eventually becomes a clear-cut case of the racer either showing the x-terra a signal that the x-terra can't hear. Or vice-versa.

But I can almost see the hand-writing on the walls if that were ever to happen: Someone reading such results will merely say one of the following:

1) The user didn't have his control options set correctly

2) The coil sizes didn't match up exactly the same

3) The user needs more experience, and this has no reflection on the machine.

4) Durned it, it was too dark, so I probably didn't wave over the right spot.

etc... etc....

 

[7centsworth]

Doing a test in pitch black conditions and having to "Bail" sounds like an interesting story[/quote) That is exactly what I was thinking.

 

[runamuck]

Thanks for posting, very interesting!