I am a Vietnam Vet and I have a friend of mine who also is a Vietnam Vet, that bought a minelab. he does not know how to use it and I am looking for a start up video to send him. He was suppose to go with another man but he got sick and left my friend holding the bag. I am a Whites guy and own a DFX and a XLT. I am in the dark when it comes to a Minelab. I want to take him out and get him interested in the hobby. He wants to sell the machine already and I want to help the guy. So all help is appreciated. Just the basics till he gets hooked. You can email me at inmybunker@gmail.com Please put in the subject Minelab so I know its one of you guys, Thanks ahead of time....Pete
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Mine lab Explorer SE
- Thread starter bad boy
- Start date
Old Pirate
New member
Pete,
The Minelab can be perplexing if you let it but if your friend has a moment to look here at various posts and study the instruction book carefully, then he may get the idea of how it works. Many of us SE owners had a lot of questions when we first took it out to detect, but, knowing what the machine tells you and digging the target are the two best learning experiences we encountered I'm sure. At first it was frustrating, but with time, and continual use, not only does it get easy, it gets PHENOMENAL! I looked around the net for any kind of instructional video and after weeks of intense searching came up with squat. I think the best answer is to get a copy of Andy Sabischs' book on the Explorer and Etrac series of Minelab machines and learn the book. I found it very helpful and it made my transition from a 100 digit VID two tone machine to a 936 pixel, Fe-Co digital screen much more understandable and relative to my searching methods. Ask your friend not to quit. There are programs within the machine which can make the learning curve very easy and give him an opportunity to move higher into the options of the machine. I'm sure Mike O will tune in on this and help you and your friend get to better know a very special detector!
Ed
The Minelab can be perplexing if you let it but if your friend has a moment to look here at various posts and study the instruction book carefully, then he may get the idea of how it works. Many of us SE owners had a lot of questions when we first took it out to detect, but, knowing what the machine tells you and digging the target are the two best learning experiences we encountered I'm sure. At first it was frustrating, but with time, and continual use, not only does it get easy, it gets PHENOMENAL! I looked around the net for any kind of instructional video and after weeks of intense searching came up with squat. I think the best answer is to get a copy of Andy Sabischs' book on the Explorer and Etrac series of Minelab machines and learn the book. I found it very helpful and it made my transition from a 100 digit VID two tone machine to a 936 pixel, Fe-Co digital screen much more understandable and relative to my searching methods. Ask your friend not to quit. There are programs within the machine which can make the learning curve very easy and give him an opportunity to move higher into the options of the machine. I'm sure Mike O will tune in on this and help you and your friend get to better know a very special detector!
Ed
Yes, although its sad your friend didn't get to hunt with the person planned it is by no means a reason to throw in the towel.
I would recommend he get on here and do some reading personally. This place is a treasure trove of knowledge on the Explorer
Elton's advice is sound on not trying to learn to much at once and starting off slow.
I also agree with Ed's advice on picking up some good manuals.
The one thing that will benefit him most is just hunting and learning what his machine is telling him.
Just remind him every one of us was once in his shoes. The guys that took the time to learn their machines are the one that always find the better items Imho.
If he is seriously wanting to learn to detect he picked the right machine. Now its up to him to learn what its telling him.
Where is your friend located?
I would recommend he get on here and do some reading personally. This place is a treasure trove of knowledge on the Explorer
Elton's advice is sound on not trying to learn to much at once and starting off slow.
I also agree with Ed's advice on picking up some good manuals.
The one thing that will benefit him most is just hunting and learning what his machine is telling him.
Just remind him every one of us was once in his shoes. The guys that took the time to learn their machines are the one that always find the better items Imho.
If he is seriously wanting to learn to detect he picked the right machine. Now its up to him to learn what its telling him.
Where is your friend located?
dewcon4414
Well-known member
Utube Utube Utube..... you can find about anything you want there instructional. Factory settings is the best advice with maybe a little increase in sensitivity. This is a fairly simple machine once you read the manual. I went from the DFX to the SE and found the transition pretty easy. But its not a machine without a learning curve. You have to use it..... read the manual..... use it and read the manual. Pretty soon it clicks. Its one of the BEST machines every produced for silver. But if your friend has no patiences he wont ever get the best out of a this top notch machine. It has the ability to be a grab and go machine on factory setting..... but a huge percentage of how good a machine is lies with the user. Its a lot like the reading the book DIGGING DEEPER WITH THE DFX.......you know how informative it was, but you had to keep going back re-reading it. If he decides to sell it...... i think you would find it worth every penny buying it.
Dew
Dew
We are both Located in North East Pa. and go to the Wilkes-Barre Va. I am going to meet him for our next group secession, I am going to ask him to bring his machine with him and maybe we can find out how to operate it. he said he tried a few times but could not get it. I just want to be able to turn the machine on and find a preset program for him. Are all the sounds like mixed Mode on the Whites machine. I don't like all those different pitches and for a beginner it could get very hard for him to get the hang. Could it be set up like a preset of a Whites machine?? Thats all I am familiar with. He has hearing aids, so problems with his ears. I myself do not like all the different pitch sounds and hunt without them and a lower threshold. I hope to read up a little about the machine so I can help him out, Thanks for the advice, I will be looking for a book for beginners, one that has meaning to a beginner
Someone mentioned You Tube. I went there but it just shows guys hunting and not explaining how to get out the first time with the machine. This is what I am looking for. Once he finds a coin or two he can start reading about what the machine can do. He just needs how to turn on and go, ground balance etc. Is there a way to stop that machine from making all the different pitch sounds. I am sure there is, I know its no XLT or DFX, but would make it easier on me also to get him running. I did read they stopped making The Explorer in 2006?? is that correct?? from what I got he bought this machine just a year or two ago and paid well over a grand. I don't know what he got with the package, but I will be in touch with you guys soon
Please tell your friend not to give up! I am also new to the SE. I have had it over a year but don't have much time on it due to health issues. I have the Andy S.book and learned a lot from it. The settings I use are Bryce Browns. The exception is to those are that I run in manual sensitivity instead of semi-auto. I do not have much for coins as I only hunt for an hour or so at a time. No silver yet but I am getting clad coins that are 6-7 inches deep out of hunted areas. I think that if there is silver down there I will hit it! It is only a matter of time! Also there is an Explorer class room forum on this site that may have some info that will help you. Good luck to you and your friend. There are some top notch hunters here and share good advice!
Old Pirate
New member
Elton said:
Elton,
I completely forgot about factory reset. That's a good idea!
Ed
Old Pirate
New member
Sun Ray discontinued the X1 I guess because the Explorer is not being manufactured by Minelab at this time. You can still occasionally get the probe used for an Exporer if you keep looking. I had thought of getting one myself but I really didn't want the extra weight as I swing sometimes for 8 hours with breaks in between.
Ed
Ed
Charles (Upstate NY)
Well-known member
If you have not already done so get rid of that horrid SE coil and get an SE Pro coil.
Charles (Upstate NY)
Well-known member
Some tips I wrote up a few years ago...they are dated to the Explorer XS era but many are still valid.
Recommended Settings
Important - The Explorer has a number of settings however once setup the machine is nearly turn on and go most days. That said it's important not to get in a rut using a single setup for all site conditions. I tweak my standard setup to my advantage as the site conditions change. What works well for me on one side of a park may not work well on the other side, and neither may work well hunting an iron infested cellar hole in the woods or the beach. The Explorer has many good features, use them.
Sensitivity = Manual mode as high as it will go and be reasonable stable, I rarely will hunt at less than 25 and I'll put up with a bit of instability in exchange for the depth a higher Sens gives you. I almost always run 26-28 with the stock coil, 30 if the conditions are very good. I NEVER hunt in semi-auto because the machine has a bad habit of overcompensating for soil mineralization or nearby interference and lowering the sensitivity too far. You can often run the sens quite a few points hotter and still have very stable operation in manual mode. If you're in a super heavy iron condition and the ground is sopping wet, and its one big iron signal, wait for the ground to dry out. Note: This does not apply to beach hunting.
Threshold = personal choice, I like it just barely audible.
Volume = 10 max
Gain = 7. I have found this to be the best all around setting in my area. Deep targets still sound deep (different) from shallow targets yet they are not so faint that you have to strain to hear them. Be on the lookout for those fainter signals that repeat though, I found many a silver dime on edge with this machine and they don't give the more robust signal you get from a coin lying flat. Some guys hunt with the gain at 10, I get too many false signals that high. Often I can't even run the gain at 8 and 10 also does one other thing, it makes it difficult to tell the target depth by tone since all signals are amped up to the same volume level. One quite successful hunter uses a gain of 6 but I nearly missed some on edge coins at 7. The factory setting of 5 is too low.
Beach Tip: The Explorer is a bit hot for wet sand salt water beach hunting and can false on bits of seaweed. Its also sensitive to keeping the coil flat (versus tipping slightly at the end of your sweeps). If you find that its falsing to the point of being annoying try backing off the gain to 5-6 first instead of lowering the sensitivity. These false signals will not go away but they will become very faint to the point that you can just ignore them mentally. A real target will sound MUCH louder and depth really is not an issue in beach sand. I was hunting a beach with a friend, he had his sens turned down to 18 to deal with this, I instead lowered my gain. I got a solid hit on a deep nickel (could have been a gold ring) that didn't make a peep on his machine.
Variability = 10 Max, this gives you the widest variation which I like, like having 100 possible tones verses 80, or 50 at lower settings. You can actually hear the difference between a mercury dime verses a barber/seated dime with practice, even the difference between a worn silver and one in good shape.
Limits = Max which is the recommended Minelab setting. I like the high pitch scream of silver!!!
Sounds = Ferrous. Silver still sounds high but iron sounds low. We have tons of iron around here so this makes it quite easy to hear silver mixed in with the iron. The down side is that rusty bottle caps will sound high like silver in pitch but they tend to pop at the end which gives them away. If there is ample amounts of rusty nails and iron in your area conductive tones will either drive you nuts in all metal or you will be forced to discriminate out iron and discrimination can be a depth killer on the Explorer depending on your site conditions.
Noise = if you have the XS just hit the Noise Cancel button after you startup the machine, if you have the S adjust manually for most stable operation.
Response = Normal, a few have experimented with the other options but most find this to be the best overall. I would not experiment until you have this machine down pat. Note some successful beach hunters like setting 2 for small gold.
Recovery = Fast Off, Deep On, this is very important. This combination gives deep coins a nice wide, robust signal which sticks out like a sore thumb compared with trash signals. But if you turn Fast on it will chop the signal off short and the coins will sound more like the short chopped off trash signals making learning the detector much more difficult. In my opinion it should only be turned on in heavy trash conditions and my advice is avoid those areas until you are confident with the machine in medium to light trash conditions and you have learned what the coins sound like. Don't ignore this feature, it can be useful.
Discrimination - I run all sorts of discrimination patterns, IM -16, -12, -8, Smart Find wide open except for rusty bottle caps rejected, Smart Find with the entire bottom 1/3 of the screen rejected, etc. Now 85% of the time I'm in IM -16 (all metal) or the equivalent with rusty crowncaps rejected but the point is don't get stuck in a rut hunting all site conditions in IM -16. And if I only have 90 minutes to hunt I may reject the most common trash targets and try to cover some more ground in the limited amount of time available. Sometimes I use a custom gold coin pattern that has little gold coin (and nickel) windows open in another otherwise rejected bottom 1/3 of the screen. To you IM -16 die hards, have a little fun with the machine once in a while
Getting Started Advanced
First I don't agree with this idea that new users need to start off running factory presets. Why run the machine at half power? Look at my finds, guess how many were found in the first two months I ran factory presets? Zero! It wasn't until I set the machine up to flex its muscles that I really started learning it and making good finds.
As a new Explorer user avoiding rusty nails that give a false high tone will be one of your your biggest challenges. Second will be not centering the coil over the target (pinpointing) which is the source of many false signals and other headaches. Lets talk about dealing with these two issues and a few others.
If you have not already please switch to ferrous tones. With ferrous tones iron now sounds low and silver high. With conductive tones (the default) both iron and silver sound high. Conductive tones will make it quite difficult if not impossible to hunt in and around the rusty nails and guess where most of the old coins are hiding these days? In the iron. Rusty nails can still false with a high tone but ferrous tones eliminates 90% of the problem.
Pinpointing
A rusty nail can give off a high tone if you don't have the coil centered over the nail e.g. you are catching the nail with just the front of your coil or an outer edge at the end of your sweep. This is quite common, because you only swept over part of the nail the Explorer has a habit of giving you that false high tone. A nail can also cast a signal out several inches along its length beyond the end of the nail. This is evidenced by how many times we find the rusty nail in the side of our hole pointing towards the center where we thought the target was. Had we centered the coil directly over the nail most times it would have given us a low iron tone, therefore a very important tip is to work on your pinpointing. Making sure you have the coil centered over the target will eliminate vast amounts of frustration.
A near surface clad coin or trash item can also be picked up several inches in front of your coil or off to the side. Its common for new users to think they have the coil over a deep target when in fact the target is shallow and several inches off to one side e.g. pinpointing issue. So when you find ANY target of interest it is wise to sweep a coil size area around where you think the target is to determine if there are any other targets nearby that may be influencing the target ID and/or pulling the pinpointing off center of your target of interest. Don't be afraid to raise your coil several inches off the ground for shallow targets.
A quick note on the depth meter. A shallow clad coin off the front of our coil will read more like 6 inches deep on the depth meter. You dig thinking deep old coin only to find a shallow clad coin off to the side of the hole or worse, you have to dig a second plug. The depth meter is only accurate when the coil is centered over the target. The more you are off center the deeper the target will read. So use the depth meter while you are pinpointing, it will read most shallow when you are centered over the target.
A rusty nail can be influenced by a nearby surface clad coin or trash target to the point that the nail will get pulled over to the coin side of the screen, that's a gotcha to look out for. Knowing there is a nearby clad or trash target should throw up the caution flags. Try sneaking up on the nail with the front of your coil avoiding the nearby clad or trash item as best you can. Does it sound low? Its probably a nail being pulled over to the coin area. Keep in mind that the reverse is also true, if you are hearing coin and find a nearby rusty nail or more often a trash target, try sneaking up on the coin target. If it sounds like a coin dig the trash target out of the way and recheck. I have found MANY an old coins hiding in the shadow of nearby rusty nails and shallow trash targets. This is one of the things the Explorer does better than other detectors, locking onto good targets near trash or iron.
Once you find a target of interest the BEST method of checking the area around the target and pinpointing will be to switch to iron mask mode set at -16 (all metal). The SE is different than the XS and II models, just adjust for all metal e.g. no discrimination. Nulls are sticky (especially rusty nail nulls) like a rubber band and for new users this can make pinpointing a real challenge. In iron mask -16 the nulls vanish and you get the best possible signal the machine has to offer. Try pinpointing with your discrimination pattern, if it seems difficult switch to iron mask -16 and see the difference.
With difficult to pinpoint targets it is sometimes its easier to find out where a target isn't than where it is. Imagine a 12 inch diameter circle around where you think the target is. Sneak up on this spot with the front of your coil nibbling off just a bite. Now circle the target and continue to nibble off bites from around the outer parameter. You should be able to whittle the target location down to at least a 6 inch circle. You Explorer SE owners are probably wondering what all the pinpointing fuss is about, that's because pinpointing on the SE was greatly improved. The Explorer XS and II models can be more challenging.
These days I don't even think about pinpointing, its just second nature and I'm rarely off target so you won't have to go to these extremes indefinitely but even today there are times when these techniques come in handy with especially difficult to pinpoint targets. Why spend time and effort to find a 1775 flowing hair silver coin only to carve it up with your digger?
Rusty Nails
You would think people had nothing better to do over the last 250 years than to fling rusty nails around by the handfuls. Well they are out there and out number good targets by a large margin so lets deal with them. Rusty nails typically give a high false tone when swept from one direction, and a low iron tone when you turn 90 degrees and sweep the target again. Therein lies the trick to avoiding most rusty nails as a new user. For now you should only dig two way signals i.e. if you sweep a target and get a high tone, turn 90 degrees and sweep the target again, if you now get a low iron tone you are most likely over a rusty nail that was falsing high from the first sweep direction. Also, often the nail will appear to change locations on you when swept from 90 degrees, you thought it was at point A on the ground but when you turn 90 degrees and sweep again it moves on you. That's a big tip-off that you are over a rusty nail as they cast signals out sideways along their length, coins don't do that with the exception of coins on extreme edge.
Rusty nails falsing also have a unique bounce pattern on the target ID screen. The cursor bounces from the top left corner of the screen to the far right edge, with the cursor half off the right edge of the screen, about 1/4 inch down from the top. Coins don't do that. The closest coin to this area is the Indian head and the silver half dollar. Indians are at the same height but rarely get over on the right edge with the cursor half off the screen like nails do falsing. Half dollars hit right in the same spot with the cursor half off the right edge, and sometimes a little higher than a nail falsing but half dollars are so big you won't see them jumping to the top left corner of the screen like nails do. They typically stay right there on the right edge.
So stick with two way repeatable signals for now. Watch the bounce pattern typical of a rusty nail. Later once your ears are better trained to know what a coin sounds like then you can start digging the one way iffy coin signals. Coins and iron falsing both give off a high tone. As a new user it will be difficult for you to tell the difference. You need to concentrate on training your ears to listen for the unique shape and behavior of how coins sound and the quickest way to do that is to dig mostly coins. There will come a day when you go Ah-Ha now I get what a coin sounds like versus a nail falsing. Typically about 3 weeks if you hunt with an experienced Explorer user who can mark both some iron falsing and coin signals for you to listen to.
Lastly you may encounter a rusty nail that is bent into an L shape, they are difficult to avoid even for experienced users. They behave like a nail but with high tones from two directions they fall into the iffy signal category that you got to dig, some coins can sound just as awful, even worse so its not unusual for me to dig a bent nail now and then.
Target ID
I recommend using the Smartfind screen versus the digital screen for target ID. The reason is that deeper coins can and do jump all over the screen and so in digital mode the numbers jump around. The Explorer is highly accurate, but only to a given depth. Then things start getting fuzzy. As a coin gets deeper first the target ID gets unstable and the cursor jumps around the screen and you start to hear some iron tones mixed in with the coin tones. Deeper still and the cursor can get pulled way over to the left side of the screen where the iron is located. This is due to ground mineralization, moisture content, nearby rusty nails, etc. The Smartfind screen is simpler, if the target cursor is jumping around on you but landing in the coin areas with regularity, and you hear some coin tones then you dig. There are also distinct bounce patterns for both rusty nails and coins. I covered the rusty nail bounce pattern above, here are a couple of coin bounce patterns.
Nickels (and most all coins, dark arts tip here) tend to ID quite accurately on the conductivity axis (up/down), its the ferrous axis (left and right) where they tend to bounce the most. Sweep the coil over a nickel, note where it ID's on the screen. This height is where you will find the cursor for most nickels yet it can bounce left and right from about mid screen all the way to the right edge of the screen. Sample an Indian head cent, again note the height on the screen then allow for it to bounce left and right at this height. Silver are just as stable, bouncing left and right but not up and down much. Wheat pennies on the other hand can bounce both left and right and up and down. I have seen them as high as a silver dime with half the cursor off the top edge of the screen, and with a screaming tone ID. Turn 90 degrees and they will often ID lower where they belong, the tone drops down also. Ugly green corroded slugs of what once was a wheat cent can ID lower still on the screen, below Indian cents. But for all the coins bouncing around I have NEVER dug a coin that bounced into the very top/left corner of the screen where most nails bounce. Keep that in mind if you find yourself digging too many rusty nails that false high
Swing Speed
You will hear a lot of experienced Explorer users saying, "slow down" but what does this mean really? The Explorer is a motion detector e.g. the coil has to be in motion to detect a target. The faster you swing the deeper the machine goes, toss some test coins on the ground and test the depth you get swinging very slow versus very fast and somewhere in-between and you will see what I mean.
When people say slow down they are talking about forward motion of your feet not swing speed. I recommend that you swing at a brisk pace but walk very slow. Pick in and around trash and rusty nails, investigate with your coil, expect to find something hiding in the shadow of a trash target or rusty nail and you probably will. It's not about covering 100 yards as fast as you can. I have spent 2 hours covering an area about the size of 3 parking spots and recovered half a dozen old coins in a spot that I and others had zoomed over too quickly several times in the past.
There are times when you do want to slow your swing down, get ready here comes a black arts Explorer tip. After 40 years of people detecting a lot of the easy targets are now gone. These days I find most of my old coins hiding in the shadow of a nearby trash target or rusty nail. They are often quite close together. If I swing too fast the Explorer hits the trash target and misses the deeper older coin.
Therefore I swing at a moderate pace, fast enough to get good depth but not so fast that I will miss those co-located targets. Again toss some test coins on the ground and test this. At my swing speed I'll hear just enough of a coin signal to say wait a minute, what was that. Then I'll sweep my coil over the trash target pretty slow then continue over the maybe coin signal and see if I hear two distinct targets. If I think I do I will dig the trash target out of the way. I probably have a 70% success rate with this. Sometimes you have to sneak up on the coin with the front of your coil from a particular angle. Bottom line if you hear coin tones, get the trash target out of the way and check that area!
Sensitivity
This has been debated for years by some of the best. There are basically two camps, camp A says always run sensitivity in manual mode adjusted as high as possible yet still yielding a reasonably stable threshold. Camp B says always run sensitivity in semi-auto mode 32 and let the machine adjust it automatically for ground conditions. Both camps are correct at times as this is a very site condition dependent issue. In some soils semi-auto works just fine but in other soils semi-auto overcompensates reducing sensitivity too far and therefore depth, far below what is possible by adjusting sensitivity in manual mode.
I like adjusting my sensitivity manually, that way I know what I'm getting. Also in the soils I typically detect semi-auto does absolutely over compensate and I lose depth, I have confirmed this in field test so its a no brainer for me.
Let me bust a common myth why I'm at it. Reducing sensitivity does not reduce the transmit signal strength. The Explorer transmits at 100% power no matter what settings you change on your machine. All reducing sensitivity does is filter out target signals of a given strength or less. In some site conditions it makes more sense to reduce your gain before reducing sensitivity. Gain is simply an amplifier and you cannot amplify a signal that has already been filtered out by a lower sensitivity setting.
In sopping wet soil conditions where there are ample rusty nails around reducing sensitivity can eliminate some of that iron ground signal. Turning Deep off can also help in heavily mineralized soil, that is per Minelab
Discrimination Techniques
You have heard me say that I hunt in all metal almost all of the time and while that is true I see no reason to ignore the perfectly good discrimination features the Explorer has to offer in the right situations. Sometimes I just want to have a relaxing hunt without listening to all that trash target beeping. Or I only have a short amount of time to hunt and just want to cherry pick some coins from a new spot. Or maybe there are 1001 rusty bottle caps and I just desire some peace and quiet. Whatever the reason I do use discrimination from time to time.
What I never do is discriminate out iron. Why? Because rusty nails are notorious for casting a signal out over the top of nearby good targets. Worse a null from a rusty nail is sticky, the Explorer doesn't like to let go of a rusty nail null and so by not discriminating out the iron I am able to get up close to those nails and pick off coins hiding nearby.
At times I will back out (discriminate) the entire bottom 40% of my screen thereby eliminating 90% of the trash targets. This makes for quite a relaxing hunt at sites where there is a ton of trash.
Most of the time the trash item I will disc out are rusty bottle caps, here's why. The Explorer has a habit of locking onto a rusty bottle cap if they are not discriminated out. I once got a decent silver quarter signal when I had rusty bottle caps discriminated out but the cursor was quite a ways down the screen towards the rusty bottle cap zone. Since extremely rusted bottle caps can ID there I switched to all metal, sure enough the Explorer locked right onto that bottle cap and the cursor was now down well into the bottle cap zone. I started to walk away but...yep purity of metal tone got me thinking, that sounded too good. I went back, turned my disc back on and sure enough I was getting that silver hit again. I dug, yep there's the bottle cap alright and about 3 inches deeper was a silver quarter! Had I been running all metal I would have never dug that signal. This can be true with iron and other trash targets though you have to play the odds.
8 times out of 10 all metal will result in more coins found but I wanted to point out that there are always exceptions to the rule. In some cases discriminating out a trash target can result in locking onto a good coin that the Explorer would otherwise ignore in all metal mode, having locked onto the nearby trash target so solidly. Nothing it seems is 100% so keep that in mind when reading any tips I post.
Charles (Upstate NY)
Iffy Signals
This is an advanced black arts of the Explorer discussion. New users may wish to spent some time learning the machine before venturing into the iffy signal realm.
You may have heard Explorer users talk about iffy signals. Well let me tell you, you would be shocked to know how pitifully bad a deep coin can sound. These iffy signals are not common but can be some of the best older coins you may dig. Lets see, among the most iffy signals I have dug are two barber half dollars, half a dozen large cents, silver dimes, half dimes, two centers, probably 100 plus Indian cents and gobs of corroded wheat cents.
Here's the deal, in your average mineralized soil (not the mineral free variety) the deeper the coin, the more like iron it sounds, and the more often the cursor will locate over on the left side of the screen in the iron zone. What gives these targets away is just a bit of that coin/round target tones mixed in with the low iron tones. See the tone ID tips page. This can be 50/50 iron to coin tones up to 90/10 iron to coin tones depending on just how deep the coin is and/or if there are nearby rusty nails.
These iffy signals are often one way signals e.g. they sound iffy when swept from the good direction and give nothing but low iron tones from other directions. That said they never ID in the extreme top left corner of the screen where rusty nails do, they are always just a little right and/or lower than that location.
I once found a barber quarter, a barber dime, and a mercury dime in the same hole. Now you would think that would give off a screaming silver signal and it did, but only with the front 3 inches of my coil. Any further forward and it was solid iron tones. Turn left or right, again solid iron tones. But from that one direction with just the front of my coil there was little doubt I was hearing coin so I dug. What I found after was a rusty nail at 9 o'clock, 12 o'clock, and 3 o'clock. I just got lucky and hit that target just right with the front of my coil.
I once found a barber half dollar directly underneath a rusty bottle cap and I mean dead center one on top of another. While this dragged the target ID cursor down into the bottle cap zone the purity of metal coming from that barber half was so good that I said wait a minute, no bottle cap sounds that good. Dug a plug, there was the bottle cap, went in with the X1 probe and whammo screaming silver signal.
I once dug a barber dime stuck to a V nickel, that ID's out in no mans land on the screen and gave a really odd tone. Something I had never heard before and so there is an Explorer darks arts tip here, if the target ID's where no trash or coin should ID, dig it.
This is why in another tips page I mention investigating in and around the trash targets, sweep briskly but walk slowly. Some of these iffy targets will have mostly low iron tones but the shape of the target as you sweep it and the fact that the target does not move location wise when swept from different angles is a tip off that its probably a coin, or a button, or something cool other than a rusty nail.
So if it sounds "round" (see the tone ID tips) shape wise, maybe has a bit of coin like fluty notes, take a shot and dig you might find something good!
Recommended Settings
Important - The Explorer has a number of settings however once setup the machine is nearly turn on and go most days. That said it's important not to get in a rut using a single setup for all site conditions. I tweak my standard setup to my advantage as the site conditions change. What works well for me on one side of a park may not work well on the other side, and neither may work well hunting an iron infested cellar hole in the woods or the beach. The Explorer has many good features, use them.
Sensitivity = Manual mode as high as it will go and be reasonable stable, I rarely will hunt at less than 25 and I'll put up with a bit of instability in exchange for the depth a higher Sens gives you. I almost always run 26-28 with the stock coil, 30 if the conditions are very good. I NEVER hunt in semi-auto because the machine has a bad habit of overcompensating for soil mineralization or nearby interference and lowering the sensitivity too far. You can often run the sens quite a few points hotter and still have very stable operation in manual mode. If you're in a super heavy iron condition and the ground is sopping wet, and its one big iron signal, wait for the ground to dry out. Note: This does not apply to beach hunting.
Threshold = personal choice, I like it just barely audible.
Volume = 10 max
Gain = 7. I have found this to be the best all around setting in my area. Deep targets still sound deep (different) from shallow targets yet they are not so faint that you have to strain to hear them. Be on the lookout for those fainter signals that repeat though, I found many a silver dime on edge with this machine and they don't give the more robust signal you get from a coin lying flat. Some guys hunt with the gain at 10, I get too many false signals that high. Often I can't even run the gain at 8 and 10 also does one other thing, it makes it difficult to tell the target depth by tone since all signals are amped up to the same volume level. One quite successful hunter uses a gain of 6 but I nearly missed some on edge coins at 7. The factory setting of 5 is too low.
Beach Tip: The Explorer is a bit hot for wet sand salt water beach hunting and can false on bits of seaweed. Its also sensitive to keeping the coil flat (versus tipping slightly at the end of your sweeps). If you find that its falsing to the point of being annoying try backing off the gain to 5-6 first instead of lowering the sensitivity. These false signals will not go away but they will become very faint to the point that you can just ignore them mentally. A real target will sound MUCH louder and depth really is not an issue in beach sand. I was hunting a beach with a friend, he had his sens turned down to 18 to deal with this, I instead lowered my gain. I got a solid hit on a deep nickel (could have been a gold ring) that didn't make a peep on his machine.
Variability = 10 Max, this gives you the widest variation which I like, like having 100 possible tones verses 80, or 50 at lower settings. You can actually hear the difference between a mercury dime verses a barber/seated dime with practice, even the difference between a worn silver and one in good shape.
Limits = Max which is the recommended Minelab setting. I like the high pitch scream of silver!!!
Sounds = Ferrous. Silver still sounds high but iron sounds low. We have tons of iron around here so this makes it quite easy to hear silver mixed in with the iron. The down side is that rusty bottle caps will sound high like silver in pitch but they tend to pop at the end which gives them away. If there is ample amounts of rusty nails and iron in your area conductive tones will either drive you nuts in all metal or you will be forced to discriminate out iron and discrimination can be a depth killer on the Explorer depending on your site conditions.
Noise = if you have the XS just hit the Noise Cancel button after you startup the machine, if you have the S adjust manually for most stable operation.
Response = Normal, a few have experimented with the other options but most find this to be the best overall. I would not experiment until you have this machine down pat. Note some successful beach hunters like setting 2 for small gold.
Recovery = Fast Off, Deep On, this is very important. This combination gives deep coins a nice wide, robust signal which sticks out like a sore thumb compared with trash signals. But if you turn Fast on it will chop the signal off short and the coins will sound more like the short chopped off trash signals making learning the detector much more difficult. In my opinion it should only be turned on in heavy trash conditions and my advice is avoid those areas until you are confident with the machine in medium to light trash conditions and you have learned what the coins sound like. Don't ignore this feature, it can be useful.
Discrimination - I run all sorts of discrimination patterns, IM -16, -12, -8, Smart Find wide open except for rusty bottle caps rejected, Smart Find with the entire bottom 1/3 of the screen rejected, etc. Now 85% of the time I'm in IM -16 (all metal) or the equivalent with rusty crowncaps rejected but the point is don't get stuck in a rut hunting all site conditions in IM -16. And if I only have 90 minutes to hunt I may reject the most common trash targets and try to cover some more ground in the limited amount of time available. Sometimes I use a custom gold coin pattern that has little gold coin (and nickel) windows open in another otherwise rejected bottom 1/3 of the screen. To you IM -16 die hards, have a little fun with the machine once in a while
Getting Started Advanced
First I don't agree with this idea that new users need to start off running factory presets. Why run the machine at half power? Look at my finds, guess how many were found in the first two months I ran factory presets? Zero! It wasn't until I set the machine up to flex its muscles that I really started learning it and making good finds.
As a new Explorer user avoiding rusty nails that give a false high tone will be one of your your biggest challenges. Second will be not centering the coil over the target (pinpointing) which is the source of many false signals and other headaches. Lets talk about dealing with these two issues and a few others.
If you have not already please switch to ferrous tones. With ferrous tones iron now sounds low and silver high. With conductive tones (the default) both iron and silver sound high. Conductive tones will make it quite difficult if not impossible to hunt in and around the rusty nails and guess where most of the old coins are hiding these days? In the iron. Rusty nails can still false with a high tone but ferrous tones eliminates 90% of the problem.
Pinpointing
A rusty nail can give off a high tone if you don't have the coil centered over the nail e.g. you are catching the nail with just the front of your coil or an outer edge at the end of your sweep. This is quite common, because you only swept over part of the nail the Explorer has a habit of giving you that false high tone. A nail can also cast a signal out several inches along its length beyond the end of the nail. This is evidenced by how many times we find the rusty nail in the side of our hole pointing towards the center where we thought the target was. Had we centered the coil directly over the nail most times it would have given us a low iron tone, therefore a very important tip is to work on your pinpointing. Making sure you have the coil centered over the target will eliminate vast amounts of frustration.
A near surface clad coin or trash item can also be picked up several inches in front of your coil or off to the side. Its common for new users to think they have the coil over a deep target when in fact the target is shallow and several inches off to one side e.g. pinpointing issue. So when you find ANY target of interest it is wise to sweep a coil size area around where you think the target is to determine if there are any other targets nearby that may be influencing the target ID and/or pulling the pinpointing off center of your target of interest. Don't be afraid to raise your coil several inches off the ground for shallow targets.
A quick note on the depth meter. A shallow clad coin off the front of our coil will read more like 6 inches deep on the depth meter. You dig thinking deep old coin only to find a shallow clad coin off to the side of the hole or worse, you have to dig a second plug. The depth meter is only accurate when the coil is centered over the target. The more you are off center the deeper the target will read. So use the depth meter while you are pinpointing, it will read most shallow when you are centered over the target.
A rusty nail can be influenced by a nearby surface clad coin or trash target to the point that the nail will get pulled over to the coin side of the screen, that's a gotcha to look out for. Knowing there is a nearby clad or trash target should throw up the caution flags. Try sneaking up on the nail with the front of your coil avoiding the nearby clad or trash item as best you can. Does it sound low? Its probably a nail being pulled over to the coin area. Keep in mind that the reverse is also true, if you are hearing coin and find a nearby rusty nail or more often a trash target, try sneaking up on the coin target. If it sounds like a coin dig the trash target out of the way and recheck. I have found MANY an old coins hiding in the shadow of nearby rusty nails and shallow trash targets. This is one of the things the Explorer does better than other detectors, locking onto good targets near trash or iron.
Once you find a target of interest the BEST method of checking the area around the target and pinpointing will be to switch to iron mask mode set at -16 (all metal). The SE is different than the XS and II models, just adjust for all metal e.g. no discrimination. Nulls are sticky (especially rusty nail nulls) like a rubber band and for new users this can make pinpointing a real challenge. In iron mask -16 the nulls vanish and you get the best possible signal the machine has to offer. Try pinpointing with your discrimination pattern, if it seems difficult switch to iron mask -16 and see the difference.
With difficult to pinpoint targets it is sometimes its easier to find out where a target isn't than where it is. Imagine a 12 inch diameter circle around where you think the target is. Sneak up on this spot with the front of your coil nibbling off just a bite. Now circle the target and continue to nibble off bites from around the outer parameter. You should be able to whittle the target location down to at least a 6 inch circle. You Explorer SE owners are probably wondering what all the pinpointing fuss is about, that's because pinpointing on the SE was greatly improved. The Explorer XS and II models can be more challenging.
These days I don't even think about pinpointing, its just second nature and I'm rarely off target so you won't have to go to these extremes indefinitely but even today there are times when these techniques come in handy with especially difficult to pinpoint targets. Why spend time and effort to find a 1775 flowing hair silver coin only to carve it up with your digger?
Rusty Nails
You would think people had nothing better to do over the last 250 years than to fling rusty nails around by the handfuls. Well they are out there and out number good targets by a large margin so lets deal with them. Rusty nails typically give a high false tone when swept from one direction, and a low iron tone when you turn 90 degrees and sweep the target again. Therein lies the trick to avoiding most rusty nails as a new user. For now you should only dig two way signals i.e. if you sweep a target and get a high tone, turn 90 degrees and sweep the target again, if you now get a low iron tone you are most likely over a rusty nail that was falsing high from the first sweep direction. Also, often the nail will appear to change locations on you when swept from 90 degrees, you thought it was at point A on the ground but when you turn 90 degrees and sweep again it moves on you. That's a big tip-off that you are over a rusty nail as they cast signals out sideways along their length, coins don't do that with the exception of coins on extreme edge.
Rusty nails falsing also have a unique bounce pattern on the target ID screen. The cursor bounces from the top left corner of the screen to the far right edge, with the cursor half off the right edge of the screen, about 1/4 inch down from the top. Coins don't do that. The closest coin to this area is the Indian head and the silver half dollar. Indians are at the same height but rarely get over on the right edge with the cursor half off the screen like nails do falsing. Half dollars hit right in the same spot with the cursor half off the right edge, and sometimes a little higher than a nail falsing but half dollars are so big you won't see them jumping to the top left corner of the screen like nails do. They typically stay right there on the right edge.
So stick with two way repeatable signals for now. Watch the bounce pattern typical of a rusty nail. Later once your ears are better trained to know what a coin sounds like then you can start digging the one way iffy coin signals. Coins and iron falsing both give off a high tone. As a new user it will be difficult for you to tell the difference. You need to concentrate on training your ears to listen for the unique shape and behavior of how coins sound and the quickest way to do that is to dig mostly coins. There will come a day when you go Ah-Ha now I get what a coin sounds like versus a nail falsing. Typically about 3 weeks if you hunt with an experienced Explorer user who can mark both some iron falsing and coin signals for you to listen to.
Lastly you may encounter a rusty nail that is bent into an L shape, they are difficult to avoid even for experienced users. They behave like a nail but with high tones from two directions they fall into the iffy signal category that you got to dig, some coins can sound just as awful, even worse so its not unusual for me to dig a bent nail now and then.
Target ID
I recommend using the Smartfind screen versus the digital screen for target ID. The reason is that deeper coins can and do jump all over the screen and so in digital mode the numbers jump around. The Explorer is highly accurate, but only to a given depth. Then things start getting fuzzy. As a coin gets deeper first the target ID gets unstable and the cursor jumps around the screen and you start to hear some iron tones mixed in with the coin tones. Deeper still and the cursor can get pulled way over to the left side of the screen where the iron is located. This is due to ground mineralization, moisture content, nearby rusty nails, etc. The Smartfind screen is simpler, if the target cursor is jumping around on you but landing in the coin areas with regularity, and you hear some coin tones then you dig. There are also distinct bounce patterns for both rusty nails and coins. I covered the rusty nail bounce pattern above, here are a couple of coin bounce patterns.
Nickels (and most all coins, dark arts tip here) tend to ID quite accurately on the conductivity axis (up/down), its the ferrous axis (left and right) where they tend to bounce the most. Sweep the coil over a nickel, note where it ID's on the screen. This height is where you will find the cursor for most nickels yet it can bounce left and right from about mid screen all the way to the right edge of the screen. Sample an Indian head cent, again note the height on the screen then allow for it to bounce left and right at this height. Silver are just as stable, bouncing left and right but not up and down much. Wheat pennies on the other hand can bounce both left and right and up and down. I have seen them as high as a silver dime with half the cursor off the top edge of the screen, and with a screaming tone ID. Turn 90 degrees and they will often ID lower where they belong, the tone drops down also. Ugly green corroded slugs of what once was a wheat cent can ID lower still on the screen, below Indian cents. But for all the coins bouncing around I have NEVER dug a coin that bounced into the very top/left corner of the screen where most nails bounce. Keep that in mind if you find yourself digging too many rusty nails that false high
Swing Speed
You will hear a lot of experienced Explorer users saying, "slow down" but what does this mean really? The Explorer is a motion detector e.g. the coil has to be in motion to detect a target. The faster you swing the deeper the machine goes, toss some test coins on the ground and test the depth you get swinging very slow versus very fast and somewhere in-between and you will see what I mean.
When people say slow down they are talking about forward motion of your feet not swing speed. I recommend that you swing at a brisk pace but walk very slow. Pick in and around trash and rusty nails, investigate with your coil, expect to find something hiding in the shadow of a trash target or rusty nail and you probably will. It's not about covering 100 yards as fast as you can. I have spent 2 hours covering an area about the size of 3 parking spots and recovered half a dozen old coins in a spot that I and others had zoomed over too quickly several times in the past.
There are times when you do want to slow your swing down, get ready here comes a black arts Explorer tip. After 40 years of people detecting a lot of the easy targets are now gone. These days I find most of my old coins hiding in the shadow of a nearby trash target or rusty nail. They are often quite close together. If I swing too fast the Explorer hits the trash target and misses the deeper older coin.
Therefore I swing at a moderate pace, fast enough to get good depth but not so fast that I will miss those co-located targets. Again toss some test coins on the ground and test this. At my swing speed I'll hear just enough of a coin signal to say wait a minute, what was that. Then I'll sweep my coil over the trash target pretty slow then continue over the maybe coin signal and see if I hear two distinct targets. If I think I do I will dig the trash target out of the way. I probably have a 70% success rate with this. Sometimes you have to sneak up on the coin with the front of your coil from a particular angle. Bottom line if you hear coin tones, get the trash target out of the way and check that area!
Sensitivity
This has been debated for years by some of the best. There are basically two camps, camp A says always run sensitivity in manual mode adjusted as high as possible yet still yielding a reasonably stable threshold. Camp B says always run sensitivity in semi-auto mode 32 and let the machine adjust it automatically for ground conditions. Both camps are correct at times as this is a very site condition dependent issue. In some soils semi-auto works just fine but in other soils semi-auto overcompensates reducing sensitivity too far and therefore depth, far below what is possible by adjusting sensitivity in manual mode.
I like adjusting my sensitivity manually, that way I know what I'm getting. Also in the soils I typically detect semi-auto does absolutely over compensate and I lose depth, I have confirmed this in field test so its a no brainer for me.
Let me bust a common myth why I'm at it. Reducing sensitivity does not reduce the transmit signal strength. The Explorer transmits at 100% power no matter what settings you change on your machine. All reducing sensitivity does is filter out target signals of a given strength or less. In some site conditions it makes more sense to reduce your gain before reducing sensitivity. Gain is simply an amplifier and you cannot amplify a signal that has already been filtered out by a lower sensitivity setting.
In sopping wet soil conditions where there are ample rusty nails around reducing sensitivity can eliminate some of that iron ground signal. Turning Deep off can also help in heavily mineralized soil, that is per Minelab
Discrimination Techniques
You have heard me say that I hunt in all metal almost all of the time and while that is true I see no reason to ignore the perfectly good discrimination features the Explorer has to offer in the right situations. Sometimes I just want to have a relaxing hunt without listening to all that trash target beeping. Or I only have a short amount of time to hunt and just want to cherry pick some coins from a new spot. Or maybe there are 1001 rusty bottle caps and I just desire some peace and quiet. Whatever the reason I do use discrimination from time to time.
What I never do is discriminate out iron. Why? Because rusty nails are notorious for casting a signal out over the top of nearby good targets. Worse a null from a rusty nail is sticky, the Explorer doesn't like to let go of a rusty nail null and so by not discriminating out the iron I am able to get up close to those nails and pick off coins hiding nearby.
At times I will back out (discriminate) the entire bottom 40% of my screen thereby eliminating 90% of the trash targets. This makes for quite a relaxing hunt at sites where there is a ton of trash.
Most of the time the trash item I will disc out are rusty bottle caps, here's why. The Explorer has a habit of locking onto a rusty bottle cap if they are not discriminated out. I once got a decent silver quarter signal when I had rusty bottle caps discriminated out but the cursor was quite a ways down the screen towards the rusty bottle cap zone. Since extremely rusted bottle caps can ID there I switched to all metal, sure enough the Explorer locked right onto that bottle cap and the cursor was now down well into the bottle cap zone. I started to walk away but...yep purity of metal tone got me thinking, that sounded too good. I went back, turned my disc back on and sure enough I was getting that silver hit again. I dug, yep there's the bottle cap alright and about 3 inches deeper was a silver quarter! Had I been running all metal I would have never dug that signal. This can be true with iron and other trash targets though you have to play the odds.
8 times out of 10 all metal will result in more coins found but I wanted to point out that there are always exceptions to the rule. In some cases discriminating out a trash target can result in locking onto a good coin that the Explorer would otherwise ignore in all metal mode, having locked onto the nearby trash target so solidly. Nothing it seems is 100% so keep that in mind when reading any tips I post.
Charles (Upstate NY)
Iffy Signals
This is an advanced black arts of the Explorer discussion. New users may wish to spent some time learning the machine before venturing into the iffy signal realm.
You may have heard Explorer users talk about iffy signals. Well let me tell you, you would be shocked to know how pitifully bad a deep coin can sound. These iffy signals are not common but can be some of the best older coins you may dig. Lets see, among the most iffy signals I have dug are two barber half dollars, half a dozen large cents, silver dimes, half dimes, two centers, probably 100 plus Indian cents and gobs of corroded wheat cents.
Here's the deal, in your average mineralized soil (not the mineral free variety) the deeper the coin, the more like iron it sounds, and the more often the cursor will locate over on the left side of the screen in the iron zone. What gives these targets away is just a bit of that coin/round target tones mixed in with the low iron tones. See the tone ID tips page. This can be 50/50 iron to coin tones up to 90/10 iron to coin tones depending on just how deep the coin is and/or if there are nearby rusty nails.
These iffy signals are often one way signals e.g. they sound iffy when swept from the good direction and give nothing but low iron tones from other directions. That said they never ID in the extreme top left corner of the screen where rusty nails do, they are always just a little right and/or lower than that location.
I once found a barber quarter, a barber dime, and a mercury dime in the same hole. Now you would think that would give off a screaming silver signal and it did, but only with the front 3 inches of my coil. Any further forward and it was solid iron tones. Turn left or right, again solid iron tones. But from that one direction with just the front of my coil there was little doubt I was hearing coin so I dug. What I found after was a rusty nail at 9 o'clock, 12 o'clock, and 3 o'clock. I just got lucky and hit that target just right with the front of my coil.
I once found a barber half dollar directly underneath a rusty bottle cap and I mean dead center one on top of another. While this dragged the target ID cursor down into the bottle cap zone the purity of metal coming from that barber half was so good that I said wait a minute, no bottle cap sounds that good. Dug a plug, there was the bottle cap, went in with the X1 probe and whammo screaming silver signal.
I once dug a barber dime stuck to a V nickel, that ID's out in no mans land on the screen and gave a really odd tone. Something I had never heard before and so there is an Explorer darks arts tip here, if the target ID's where no trash or coin should ID, dig it.
This is why in another tips page I mention investigating in and around the trash targets, sweep briskly but walk slowly. Some of these iffy targets will have mostly low iron tones but the shape of the target as you sweep it and the fact that the target does not move location wise when swept from different angles is a tip off that its probably a coin, or a button, or something cool other than a rusty nail.
So if it sounds "round" (see the tone ID tips) shape wise, maybe has a bit of coin like fluty notes, take a shot and dig you might find something good!
Chris(SoCenWI)
Well-known member
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