Long time Coinstrike user opinions.

[MichiganJason]

Hello all, I have used a Coinstrike off and on since they came out and I feel I have learned the machine very well. I'll start of by saying it is a deep machine especially on Indian heads and old copper coins. It is also one of the worst machines for rusty iron/bottlecaps. Some people say you can tell the difference between a rusty object and a coin by sweeping from different directions, I find that to be only true occasionally. Sometimes iron will ring up just like coin no matter what, also I've had certain coins bounce around a little bit like it might be a trash item, you just never know. I just go out knowing I might dig some trash but I can pull old coins as well. I love the Coinstrike, it's deep, I personally think with an arm strap that it's the most comfortable detector I've ever used. I can see how people might not like it initially but given time it's a proven performer. I guess what I'm trying to say is if you can handle the occasional rusty item, you will be rewarded. Also, you can get them fairly cheap these days so I would suggest to people just starting out that rather than getting an Ace 250 or F2...you have another option in the Coinstrike which easily performs better than both.

 

[jabbo]

Jason, My No.1 detector is the CoinStrike. I also have the ID Edge and the Tesoro Golden uMax. The Edge is very similar to the C$ in many ways but I always grab the C$. I bought the Edge about 3 years ago and was really impressed with its depth and ease of use. It's an awesome detector. About a year ago I became interested in the C$. Read a lot of posts about it and it seems many hated it and many loved it. Maybe those who hated it never gave it a chance or maybe they had a bad coil. It is no harder to learn than any other detector. A few years ago I had a CZ7aPro. I like the C$ better, it seems to be as deep but I like it better because the meter has 51 numbers, no icons. If I remember correctly the Cz has about 6 icons for all targets. Both the CZ and the C$ give high tones from deep rusty nails and occasionaly I dig rusty bottle caps, but I think many other detectors do the same. The weight is not bad but the 10" coil can start feeling heavy after about 1 hour, I have all 3 coils, I use the 8" coil mostly. The C$ goes deep enough for me, sometimes I am amazed how deep I dig for a small brass rivet or a 22 calibur bullet. I found a number of King George pennies as shallow as 6 and down to 9", I don't want to dig any deeper unless I'm in a corn field with a shovel. Soil here in central Jersey is quite mild and so I can run the C$ nearly maxed out. The C$ manual is very poorly written and I was totally confused in the beginning. But after I learned how the Threshold works then everything fell into place for me and it was a piece of cake. For me it is a great detector, I don't need anything better, it has a salt water mode for the beach and I hear it works really well in highly mineralized soil when the Threshold is reduced. In my neck of the woods it can get those deep old coins just as well as the latest detectors. Jabbo

 

[MichiganJason]

Nice to see someone else who likes the Coinstike jabbo. Once one becomes comfortable with it, it is a great machine. I have noticed that some people say it is a fast sweep machine where as I, especially in trash find if you just slowly wiggle it along you can pick the high tones out. Around here, 8 inches is probably about as deep as you can find coins with any detector. Guys in my club all use V3i's and I've never really heard of them finding anything deeper than about 8 inches, and the Coinstrike can hang with their machines for sure.

 

[jabbo]

I'm a fast sweeper and the C$ likes fast sweeps so it suits me well, I would have no patience with a slow sweep machine. I will try the slow wiggle over a target to see if it changes the signal. Before I got the C$ I dug a 9.5" flat brass button (quarter size) using the Edge with 10" coil. The signal was jumping from minus 36 to plus 32 and so I had to check it out. It was still lodged in the bottom of the hole when I measured it, was in an old park near British encampment site. That was my deepest coin size target, the Edge goes deep too. This summer I did a comparison on a newly buried 8" clad dime in a park. The Edge gave mostly negative numbers plus some positive numbers and the C$ gave mostly positive numbers (as high as 48 ) along with some negative numbers, will have to do a comparison in another location to see what numbers show up on both machines. In corn fields or regular fields I usually use All Metal mode. The C$ and Edge All Metal mode goes a little deeper than Disc mode, but more importantly the detection width is much wider, better for me because I don't overlap sweeps. C$ All Metal mode has a really strange beep, the Edge sounds normal. Sometimes I use the Averaging feature, don't know if it loses depth. If you press the Night Light button and the GB button (or maybe the PP button?) at the same time (with coil on the ground) you will see a hidden ground reading that was used to set up the machine in the factory, I don't know if its helpful to us. Jabbo

 

[MichiganJason]

I am by nature a very fast swinger as well, That's the reason I have never been able to tolerate a detector with a slow recovery speed. I just read a post one time about going real slow with the CS and listening for high chirps amongst trash...doesn't always produce coins but it has worked for me. I didn't know there was a way to check the ground reading, that's awesome. What settings do you find work the best in your area? I've been running mine lately at Iron Disc 90, Thresh -10, Sens 7, Notch-foil. Tracking-off, Averaging-on. I have always had averaging on, not sure if it helps or hurts. Maybe averaging off giving real time id may be better....I might try it.

 

[MarkCZ]

Tracking is best ON for deeper targets. (But it is optional I know) (Shallower targets Off is fine) (and turn it on in the clean spot where you ground balanced)

The thing about averaging is the increased number of sweeps it takes to ID a target so for me I ended up as a rule with it off. (again this is optional)

Here is something I want to do some more testing with and that's those small round rusty items, but bottle caps seems to come as a problem with C$ owners more so than other detectors.

Many of those bottle caps become a problem because they were made of a mixed alloy of different conductivity. What happens is none rusty the different alloy's more act as one with a more constant value. But as the steel/iron begins to rust halo (saturate the soil around the cap) the more constant value is lost and then you start seeing the two main values with the detector hitting one and then changing the sweep angle reading the other value.

Here is what I'm seeing but haven't had the time to prove it.
Many targets will jump around a little more than normal and as they get deeper many will increase that spread. I've dug a few targets that when I sweep one way I got a good high tone and a good coin ID on the meter, but these targets had another treat, at a different sweep angle they had a near matching negative number!.
now the problem with this is I wasn't drawn to look at the meter with the minus number, its an iron number and so its disc out. So, I'm thinking that when with the C$ it might do us good to watch the meter on these targets as we cross sweep targets to see if the targets has a "Near Matching" negative number, if so I'm thinking this will most like be a rusty bottle cap (or other like item).

I've read a lot of post from past C$ owners where they stated the "High Tone ID" but not one of them stated anything about a negative meter response?? (not just a jumpy number)

Now, I know that in my theory this isn't going to be fool proof, but I'm thinking with practice those rusty bottle caps can be weeded out a bit.

Mark

 

[MichiganJason]

The thing with Tracking as far as I understand it, is that in order for the Tracking feature to work properly you have to have your sensitivity turned down and a negative threshold. I'm not sure how that will effect performance. I guess maybe even though the gain is turned down it still might reach deeper targets due to tracking?? I might just have to experiment.

 

[jabbo]

The thing with Tracking as far as I understand it, is that in order for the Tracking feature to work properly you have to have your sensitivity turned down and a negative threshold. I'm not sure how that will effect performance. I guess maybe even though the gain is turned down it still might reach deeper targets due to tracking?? I might just have to experiment.

I think the manual says Tracking is for higher mineralized soil and especially when soil changes rapidly while searching. So a minus 10 (or 15, 20) Threshold helps keep detector stable in bad soil while Tracking is ON. If you can search with 0 Threshold in good soil (my case) then you don't need to use tracking. Thats how I understand it. They say a newly buried coin will not give the correct response when buried deep. Often I drop a copper penny or a clad dime in an 8" hole after I remove some target, then I test my detctor with that 8" coin. Maybe not the best method but easiest way to help me remember deeper signals. I usually run my C$ at Sens 9 and 0 Threshold. Tracking off. Averaging ON but I might try OFF. (Keep Averaging OFF when in trashy places. I avoid trashy places, I like when targets are farther apart). No (or very low) Iron Disc. No Notching. I want to hear everything especially the iron high/low tones. The hidden Soil Analysis scale on the meter is was not put there for our use but only for detector calibration, thats why its not mentioned in the manual. Thats the way I understand it. Jabbo

 

[MarkCZ]

The thing with Tracking as far as I understand it, is that in order for the Tracking feature to work properly you have to have your sensitivity turned down and a negative threshold. I'm not sure how that will effect performance. I guess maybe even though the gain is turned down it still might reach deeper targets due to tracking?? I might just have to experiment.

I know where this idea is coming from and it is in the manual with the "Auto Ground Tracking" but if you notice it also states "Mineralized Soil". (or to say mineralized enough to cause interference or unstable operation)

What is being said there is all about Smooth stable, trouble free operation and to regain more smooth trouble free operation it may be necessary to back off of the Sensitivity and the Threshold settings and to not be afraid of these lower settings because the unit will still perform well.
So, its not saying the tracking doesn't work very well with higher sensitivity and threshold settings, its just referring back to ground interference or really any other interference that can cause unstable operation to go back and reduce the sensitivity and threshold to regain control of the unit.

Here is a copy and paste from the manual about Auto Ground Track.

The TRACK button activates the Fisher Track AFS

 

[MarkCZ]

The thing with Tracking as far as I understand it, is that in order for the Tracking feature to work properly you have to have your sensitivity turned down and a negative threshold. I'm not sure how that will effect performance. I guess maybe even though the gain is turned down it still might reach deeper targets due to tracking?? I might just have to experiment.

I think the manual says Tracking is for higher mineralized soil and especially when soil changes rapidly while searching. So a minus 10 (or 15, 20) Threshold helps keep detector stable in bad soil while Tracking is ON. If you can search with 0 Threshold in good soil (my case) then you don't need to use tracking. Thats how I understand it. They say a newly buried coin will not give the correct response when buried deep. Often I drop a copper penny or a clad dime in an 8" hole after I remove some target, then I test my detctor with that 8" coin. Maybe not the best method but easiest way to help me remember deeper signals. I usually run my C$ at Sens 9 and 0 Threshold. Tracking off. Averaging ON but I might try OFF. (Keep Averaging OFF when in trashy places. I avoid trashy places, I like when targets are farther apart). No (or very low) Iron Disc. No Notching. I want to hear everything especially the iron high/low tones. The hidden Soil Analysis scale on the meter is was not put there for our use but only for detector calibration, thats why its not mentioned in the manual. Thats the way I understand it. Jabbo

Well, that hidden ground balance icon is used on the GoldStrike and that detector has a menu option to "Manual Ground Balance" and that segment of the display is used for a manual ground balancing reading.

Now if you look at the two G$ vs C$ you can tell that everything about the two is made up of a lot of the same components, from layout to controls and even the same display and most of the manual's reading is the same except the Goldstrike is a little more clear in some area's.
They're two noticeable differences when looking at the front panel of the two detectors,
(1) Goldstrike doesn't have the Notch option! but it does have the Ground Balance reference icon.
(2)Coinstrike doesn't have the (or use) the ground balance icon, but it has notches.

They are so close that I've always wondered if under the little decal for the notch labeling that don't line up just right if that lighten bolt isn't on the display under it? maybe its not, maybe its not inline because it had to be off a bit to fully cover the lighten bolt?
See picture below.
Its a picture of a Goldstrike that was on ebay a long time back.
The hidden icon on the C$ is displayed on the G$ at the bottom in between the sensitivity and the volume icon's (three across the bottom instead of only two)

Mark

 

[MichiganJason]

One thing about the CS that I think could be better is an alert to know if you are ground balanced correctly. I don't really know how to determine how mineralized ground is...so I don't know how to adjust for rough ground or when I'm in an area with mild ground. So it always leaves me wondering if I'm getting the most out of my detector. I wish there was a chart available showing the areas of the country with what type of soils they have.

 

[jabbo]

I just read the GoldStrike manual, Manual Ground Balancing. They recommend using the Auto Ground Balance for best accuarcy, as on the C$. On the GoldStrike when the GROUND pie chart is flashing the ground balance can be adjusted up or down using the up/down arrows. Seems to me C$ users can't manually tweak the GB up or down because the GROUND icon is not flashing when we view it. Maybe we can only use the hidden GROUND icon to check soil conditions. The Operaters Manual doesn't give reference numbers for good soil or bad soil. The icon doesn't mean anything unless you know what it's saying. Jabbo

 

[MichiganJason]

I agree, like last night when I was detecting at my spot in the woods that has produced about 20 old coins...I checked the ground reading and it was -44....I don't know what the hell that means..lol. You never find coins deeper than 6-8 inches here...I wonder if a manual ground balance detector is needed for really deep coins. Maybe like a Tesoro Vaquero or something similar....just an idea.

 

[jabbo]

Jason, The Goldstrike manual says Auto ground balance is more accurate than manual Ground balance. C$ Auto Ground balance should give the same accuracy. Seems like the manual GB on the GoldStrike lets you adjust the Auto GB more positive or negative, pressing the up or down arrows while GROUND is flashing on the Goldstrike tweaks the Auto GB.

 

[MarkCZ]

Well I'm pretty certain that the hidden icon on the CS isn't much use seeing how there isn't a menu option to manual ground balance it.
I've not heard anybody say that the CS wasn't a deep searching detector, I can take mine out to my test garden and not ground balance it at all, leave the tracking off, mount the little 5" coil, set the sensitivity to 5 and the threshold to -15 and it will still hit my 8" coin garden. Will it hit a copper penny at a foot, I don't think so.

I thought it a little interesting what the GS manual had to say about the AFS system and hot rocks! read it again, that system is the same system as the Coinstrike, and I believe it runs, sets, and works the same.

Mark