new exterra 50 user here with some ?s

[ffighter71]

i used my new exterra 50 20 or so times last year. i enjoyed it, i think once i get some time to learn more about the machine i will like it better. i went back yesterday and read the last 6 months posts and learned alot, diggers post on x ing with consistency with save me time and grief by digging foil, tabs, and other junk. I kind of got burned out by digging everything and finding mostly junk. i found lots of clad but nothing special. i would like to relic and coin hunt but do not understand, can you do both at one time. i never ground balanced my machine or even touched the sensitivity of it, by reading the past post, im going to try to do this, is it really important. is there any books on metal detecting for beginners that is helpful. hopefully the xing with the consistency of notching and sound will help in only digging wanted targets, seems like i hate to go to parks will all the junk but i know theres got to be good things there, any help will be greatly appreciated. thanks

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

ffighter71
You may want to start by hunting in bark chip play areas and beaches if you live near one, as they are a lot easier to recover your targets from.
Before you do that though; you may want to get some of those pieces of junk that you have already recovered, along with some coins and experiment in your backyard first. Just check the ground where you put your items down, to make sure that nothing is in the ground to interfere with the results. Follow the instructions in your manual to ground balance the detector, then one by one, put down various items and see where they show up on the display. You will notice that junk, by the nature of it's irregular shape, will cause the numbers to bounce around a lot. A good target will either give you a solid single number, or it may bounce between 2 numbers. After that; play around with the pinpoint on both junk and good targets to see how they behave. One other experiment you can do, is to put a couple of different objects together ( both good and bad combinations) and continue to experiment.
Learning to detect, like any new thing can be frustrating at first, but if you take the time to try these sorts of experiments in a controlled environment, they will give you the knowledge and confidence when you're in the field. Be kind to yourself through this process.
Monty had indicated that he was writing a book on using the X-Terra quite a few months back. I don't know if he finished it or lost interest in the project (not a small undertaking). Hopefully he may comment on that.
In the mean time, enjoy the hobby; and welcome to the forum.
Mick Evans.

 

[James/Washington]

I recomend trying to find a nearby metal detecting club and joining. The members have great knowledge that will help you more and quicker than anything else. Also, post on this and other boards for someone to hunt with in your area. There are more detectorist out there than you think. Also ask all your friends and family if they know anyone that metal detects. You will be surprised how many there ore out there. Good luck and keep reading and posting. Remember: practice, practice, practice.

 

[Digger]

My three words of advice would be research, practice and patience. Most folks who get discouraged in this hobby fail to realize that many of the places you are hunting have been hit by dozens (if not hundreds) of other detectorists. You can still find some good stuff there, as you indicated. But your odds will greatly improve if you find those spots that others have failed to find. That takes research. I've posted several articles on this topic within this forum. To become more familiar with your detector, practice. Those of us who have grown to respect the capabilities of the X-Terra line did so simply by using them. The detectors we have didn't come with any tips or trick settings. We took them out in the field and learned from experience. And, many of us have shared those experiences here on the forum. But in addition to these posts, build yourself a coin garden with both good stuff and bad. Plant these targets at various depths and different distances of separation. And, when you work your detector through them, learn everything you can about settings, audio responses and the TID. Document what works best for your hunting style. Most of all, be patient. Those old coins have been laying there for decades. It might take a little while to get them to come out! You will have much more success if you know what you are doing, once you get there. And the only way you can do that is by taking your time and learning your detector.

I am glad to hear that you went back through the posts and found some helpful information. Over the course of the past year, in addition to the posts, I have written a couple lengthy articles on the X-30/X-50 as well as one I just completed on the X-70. Sorry it took so long to get them done. But I found the more I used the X-70, the more I learned about it. (see paragraph one, above) I have submitted them to Minelab, and it is my understanding they will be made available in the near future, on the Minelab website. Not sure of any date. But I expect it shouldn't take nearly as long to post them as it took me to do the research and write them! HH Randy

 

[Digger]

Every target you dig won't turn out to be what you hope it is going to be. This is a picture of the "non-coin" targets I dug while performing my field tests on the X-Terras. Pocket watches, shotgun shell, rifle casings, spoons, knives, tokens, parts of brass lamps, iron rings, lead slugs and even a couple real deep horseshoes. Keep in mind that many of these were dug, even thought the TID indicated it wasn't going to be a coin. While others were dug just because I didn't know what it was going to be. Guess that is part of doing a field test. I have rechecked many of those that fooled me with some other detectors. And, for you skeptics, they tell me to dig it too! All in all, it goes to prove that, regardless of the detector, sometimes you really don't know until you dig it! HH Randy

 

[MikeW]

quite a pile of non coin items.But,ya got to dig the junk to get the goodies)

 

[Digger]

you will see that, although most of these are not coins, there are a few goodies in there. HH Randy

 

[Tinfoil]

n/t

 

[Jackpine Savage]

Do you keep all the junk jewelry you find wading? I have baggies and small boxes of the stuff. There's some still in a box in my trunk from this year now that I think about it. Cheap rings, earrings ect ect. For grins and giggles of these day I'm going to pile it up and take a pic to post on the forums.

Tom

 

[Tinfoil]

Or gold gets dumped. I learned early on to check all those silver rings for diamonds. Got a 1.8KT diamond once in a very pretty ,925 silver setting. I asked my Jewler buddy what was a diamond doing in a silver ring and he said just remember some can't wear Gold not even White Gold. Sold it for $3200 boy that bought a few detectors : :. So I always check everything. Later bud Jerry aka Tinfoil

 

[Jackpine Savage]

to go thru some of mine to double check for silver. thanks for the reminder. It can be hard to tell on some of that older stuff. I will probably pitch a bunch as well.

Tom

 

[OldeTymer]

to throw the stuff away. One particular item I found many years ago was quite interesting.

I was hunting a Frontier Military site I, and a friend, had discovered in the mid 80's. This was after we had hunted this site to death, and had taken many friends to the site as well. We removed somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500+ artifacts from this very small outpost. Anyway, I'm out there one day going over some ground that I, and others, had hunted many times when I found what looked to be a piece of folded Aluminum trash. I stuck it in the trash side of my pouch as I wondered why that was there. This site had been void of any modern trash, and we were the first to put a metal detector on it. We had eyeballed eagle buttons, etc. just lying on the surface when we first found this site. That's how much of a virgin it was.

About 9 months later, I was going through some of my trash as I usually do just to make sure I didn't accidently put something good in the wrong side of the pouch. I usually empty all the trash into the large gallon zip lock bags, and put a card with the date, site etc. in the bag. As I was going through this stuff, I spotted that folded up thin piece of Aluminum and took a closer look. For some reason I decided to unfold it to see what it was as it seemed to be fairly large. It had been folded in half, and folded in half again. As I slowly unfolded it, I realized that it didn't seem to be Aluminum after all.

At first I had no idea what it was. Then, I realized that it was silver, not aluminum. After I unfolded it, it was round with a very small notch at the edge where it was attached, but the attachment was missing. There was another smaller hole in the center and one side was cross-hatched. The other side was very smooth, and shiny and had some very small numbers stamped into it. Then I saw the signature that was scratched into the top half of the shiny side. I realized then that it probably had belonged to one of the soldiers that had been stationed at this lonely outpost so many years ago. The item was an inner pocket watch cover.

I took the name, and my guess as to the unit he was assigned to, and contacted the National Archives in Washington, D.C. A short time later, they informed me they had a match, and the fee involved to get his service records. I found out he was born in New York in 1824. Had been in the Civil War, and re-enlisted after the war. He wound up with the unit that was stationed at this site to fight Indians, and protect the stage line that passed by the little outpost. It was amazing that all of that information was obtained after finding what I thought was just a piece of trash, and has become one of my all-time favorite finds. It just goes to show, you never know what you might put in your trash pouch. Always check before disposing of that pile of "junk".

Thought you might like this story since we're on the subject. It's one I'll never forget, and one of the things that make this such an interesting, and great, hobby.

Good hunting,
OldeTymer