new on quattro

[budsmith]

I have a quattro of a friends who is having trouble using it..He wants to sell it to me for 500.00....I have read the book and toyed with it sme but i am having trouble reading the coil...In the book it says the signal is only detected on the hot strip of the coil, but I seem to get reading from the outside an on in...Is the right??, Also on air test everythin seems to be right on according to the book, but when I put the coins on the floor I get irregular readings and sometime nothing..
Looking for insight

 

[Wirechief]

Hi Bud, very nice to meet you and that is a pretty good deal on the Quattro. Do you have a wood or concrete floor Bud? If concrete you are getting a possible response from rebar or pipes maybe. A wood floor will have nails like mine and so I can't put anything on my floor to test.
The coil is called a doubleD and the main field of detection is down the middle from toe to heel. But you will be able to detect targets around the edges too but you have to be very near the edges. Also the recovery speed of the threshold tone is fairly slow and so your sweep speed is slower than most detectors. But it is a great detector and just takes a little patience to learn to operate it.
This is a great place to get advice on the Quattro. So happy hunting and I hope you become a Quattro owner.

John Tomlinson,CET

 

[budsmith]

John, thanks for replying, I am in the middle of trying to check the quattro out...It also has the x1 probe installed on it, and it seems to work fine...I have two other detectors, a bounty hunter Sharpshooter 11, and an older Technitics Mark1 that still works...They both are the concentric coils and I have little trouble using them..Hoping to find that the quattro will be more efficient, but so far pretty complicated and some what heavy....I may have more questions later..

 

[Wirechief]

Mighty fine Bud and I will be happy to try and help you. There are many others that can add to what I tell you also. But don't give up on it because it can go pretty deep. God Bless and happy hunting Bud!

John Tomlinson,CET

 

[gold-digger]

Hey Bud, I felt the same way when I got mine. Its taken some time to get use to it, but I enjoy every momoent of it. Its really paid off on the finds. Yes, it can be a bit heavy and somedays pin pointing can be a hassle. For me it really depends where I'm hunting (sand vs. soil).

If you do pick it up, the more you use it, the better you'll become.

Todays Finds

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

Hi Bud,

Unless "the floor" is in an adobe hut, forget it. Don't even bother to turn the Quattro on in the house AT ALL. It's just way too sensitive for that. There are too many electromagnetic sources, too many wires, nails, rebar, etc. You need to go outside and find some clean ground for testing, otherwise you won't get accurate and predictable results.

For on-the-ground testing you should also put it in Auto sensitivity, since depth is not an issue. The machine will be much more stable that way. For real-world hunting, I see Auto as almost useless unless you are after playground clad or are hunting a real trashy site. I feel that you lose too much depth. In very clean ground, the woods, plowed farm fields, etc. you will get your best results at about 17 or 18. If you need to bring it down the make it stable then you can still get great depth at around 15 and that may be where you want to hunt with it for a while until you get the hang of it. Some folks run it lower than that and still get VERY good depth, even at 10 or 12. Minelab machines can RARELY be run at full throttle but Minelab provides it for some of the freaks of nature (myself included) that like to run their machines wide open sometimes. But your hunt experience will be a lot less pleasant and too much sensitivity will lose you depth because it can make the machine so sensitive that the surface stuff and mineralization in the ground can overwhelm it.

Final note. Many folks like to run the Minelabs in All Metal so that it's easier to maintain a smooth threshold. If you're in ground that has a lot of iron in it you may be getting too much nulling out (going silent) when it goes over discriminated out stuff. You don't need to dig it all, just sometimes helps to be able to hear it all. I would recommend going to All Metal and sens at about 15 for a while. And before you do any hunting, lay out a bunch of different coins, rings, and some trash items on a blanket (outside), spread them out a little bit, and with the Quattro in Auto and All Metal, practice swinging over them, pinpointing them, and getting an idea for the tones and numbers and how it sounds. This will drastically shorten the learning curve and is the first thing I thing everybody should do with ANY new machine. And yet, so few do. And then the want to sell a perfectly good machine. For a VERY good price, as in this case. Especially with that probe. Great deal. Good luck.

 

[beachguy777]

Mike, I know you must think I'm the "leader of your fan club", and I am, but I wouldn't be if I didn't believe that your the "real deal", and truly an expert metal detectorist. Thank you again for responding to these posts, even though I know you've sold your Quatro, and use the Explorer SE, I know you are a former Quatro owner and in my eyes a true expert. Ok,.... now that I've said all that, I think I just maybe saw the light on what you've been saying on this sens thing. Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but the reason the depth can suffer at such a high sensitivity (manual settihng) is it's just too sporatic, noisy, mineralization infested, etc. to allow you to reach some significant depth because such a high setting could keep you from hearing the responses in really crummy ground. Hope I'm right on that, but it sure makes sense to me. IN other words, if we're getting tons of spurious noises, how the heck do we know if it's the target or some false reading from "tough ground problems". In my opinion, your an "extreme" treasure hunter and a very successful one at that, so I can see where you'd push the sens setting as far as you can depending on the ground. What you said about the targets on the blanket thing, couldn't be more important, in my opinion, and that's great advice to anyone, let alone a new detectorist. I need to go back and do that myself, even though I've been hunting for years. It makes "too much sense" in my opinion, for just the reasons you said about listining to the tones, depth, numeric readings, etc. I wanted to throw my own two cents in to budsmith, to try and encourgae him to "stick with the Quatro", and in my opinion, again, especially at that price with the probe included. Boy, what a deal!!! I hope he reads this post, but I may send him one too, just to encourage him. Thanks again Mike, for jumping back to the Quatro froum and encouraging people. Marc Trainor. P.S. You sure encouraged me more than once when I was pretty down about this "find a gold ring at the beach thing", and I truly want to thank you for that.

 

[budsmith]

John and all, thanks for responding, I have been playing with the machine now for a couple days, having read the Mastering the Quattro book several times....I have been taking notes from all you and i appreciate your replys...I think I am starting to understand the working components more and I think one of my major problems was trying to work it to fast like I do on the concentric coils..I have not got out in the yard yet..I have atest garden that was put in about a year ago with quarters, dimes, nickels, pennys, bullets,and foil and tabs, from 3 inches down to 12 inchs..When this rain in Misouri lets up, I will give it a go....I will let you know...Budsmith

 

[beachguy777]

Dear budsmith, I hope you've read all the responses to your Quatro question. I too, am convinced that the Quatro is truly a great machine, because I own one and will attest that you really do need to spend enough time with it to "sort out" all the sounds, and stuff in order to try and understand "what it's trying to tell you". I know it can be frustrating, but, I sweare it's worth it. Just stay with it and it will start to make sense. it's a very sensitive machine that goes "really" deep and with the notchible discrimination, you can hardly go wrong. Like Mike says in his post, listen to the tones, read the numeric readings, work with the sensitivity settings, and realizie that the "hot strip" on the coil is primarily top to bottom, a strip down the center of the coil. You need to get Andy Sabisches book: Mastering the Quatro. It's the difinitive book, (much more informative than the instruction manual) on the Quatro. The instruction manual is right on, it just doesn't go into depth as much as Andy's book, especially in reference to "cross saving of audio". That is very important, and you can get it all from the book. Good luck, and I would say you're getting a really good deal for $500. especially if it has a probe included. Let us know what comes out of this, I'd be curious, and best wishes, Marc Trainor.

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

Marc, I'm glad to help. I got plenty myself from these forums when I was starting out and if I see a post where I know something that can help I try to do what I can. I still have a couple of friends that have Quattro's...in particular, I work with a fellow that I sold mine to so I try to keep up on it. To me, once I've used a detector and gotten many hours of hunt time and great finds with it, I may get rid of it but I will always still be a "Sovereign hunter" or a "Quattro hunter"...you don't forget 'em once you've loved 'em. At least not the ones that loved you back! I could pick those machines up again, turn 'em on, and make 'em sing again any time. Come to think of it, women are like that too!

 

[JHM]

If the object is real close, sometimes it will give a signal on the outside ring. If you raise the coil it will only read in the center. After you use it some this won't be a problem.

 

[beachguy777]

That's a great attitude Mike. I agree with you 100%. Like the man says: If it ain't broke you don't have to fix it. You can sell it, but if it's still a good unit, you could always go back to it and still have some good success. Hey, I don't blame you for moving up to the Explorer. I would too, if I could afford it, but I think I'd always talk good about the Quatro, because I think it's a great detector, too, and so is the soverign, from what I've heard. To me it's like going from a Honda Accord up to an Acura. They're both great cars, but it's all in what you want as far as extras. As far as the women thing goes, whewwww!,,,,I think I'd rather keep my Quatro, keep the dog, and find someone that can put up with both of them. Wish me luck Mike! I'll need it.

 

[beachguy777]

Right on there Budsmith! Sounds like your absolutely on the right track, and I think you'll see the benefits of the Quatro, and hopefully be happy with it. I envy you because I don't have anywhere at the moment to build a test garden. I need to get "creative", and maybe build one out in the woods somewhere where people might not see me and dig up the "stuff".. I figure if there's a will, There's a Way. Take care, and let us know how it's going with all this. I think it interests all of us, because, after all, we all have the same or similar detectors. Marc.

 

[Wirechief]

You bet Marc your right and we are all in this together no matter what machine we have. Take care and God Bless.

John Tomlinson,CET

 

[beachguy777]

Thanks for the encouragement, Wirechief! I love this forum, because I really feel like we're all pulling together on this thing, and there's a tremendous amount of camaraderie here. We don't always get that in our "day to day" world, so it's really nice to have it here. Great to have your input. Marc.:|

 

[budsmith]

well I cant seem to get this cross saving right in my head, could one of you pros help me understand it and why I need to use it>>>This a great forum and I read all of your post and have learned a lot and just waiting for the sun to shine and the warmer days to get into my test garden.....Bud

 

[Wirechief]

You bet Marc and we are all in this together. So happy hunting to ya Marc.

John Tomlinson,CET