I bought my T2 early, back in 2006. No SE was offered yet. I have to admit I was slow to catch on to the T2. It was so sensitive and our typical hunting areas are so "target-rich," that I was kinda overwhelmed by all the signals. My wife and I haven't hunted much the past few years, but this year we got busy, hunting several times a week at dozens of spots both new and old. We usually took our older "V2" Time Rangers and I might leave the T2 at home more often than not. This year, I decided to buckle down and take the T2 out on almost every hunt.
What a difference that made! I'm not gonna try to remember or relate any magic settings, as chances are they wouldn't translate from my older non-SE unit and experiences in my iron-rich soil.
Like I do with any detector, I try to run with sensitivity as high as conditions allow and always use minimum discrimination, usually 20 or lower. I like to hunt by tone and check the ID and depth, etc. display when I decide to check something further prior to digging. That way, I hear all signals and make the call myself. Bobbing the coil over suspect iron to actuate the FE bar graph is a good way to help ID the rusty stuff.
What really helped me learn the T2 was running it in all metal and digging basically everything. I still had ID, which was very helpful, but I didn't have to deal with all the varying audio tones and stacatto response while I learned the detector's basic responses to targets, which were often multiple ones beneath the coil.
Once I got onto that, I could then switch over to the disc modes and compare the signals and tones. With the constant repetition of our almost daily hunts, it wasn't long before I finally started to feel comfortable with the T2.
I'm normally a pretty quick study with detectors, but I admit to being a bit humbled, shall we say, with the T2's abilities.
The one trick I discovered that really got me somewhere with the disc mode was narrowing down my swing when checking ID. Normally, I swing the coil so both edges go on past the intended target. I found that's way too wide. Narrow that swing on down to where you're just putting that center rib over the target and I found that ID began to "true up." With a little practice, I was beginning to selectively locate and ID those multiple targets and it all made a lot more sense.
Another interesting thing to try in "barren" ground is to hunt in Pinpoint mode. I hold in the pinpoint trigger while I quickly scan an absurdly wide sweep. I discovered that this will reveal a signal way out beyond the outer coil edges by a weak response that you can sweep towards. I kinda wonder if this is similar to the "boost" mode found in newer machines than mine.
Regardless, when I hit that random patch in the schoolyard, where there seemed to be nothing and my swing arm was getting tired from no breaks to dig something, hunting in pinpoint got me to the next target several feet away in jig time.
I guess what I'm saying is this is a sensitive and responsive detector that you probably won't catch onto right away. At least I sure didn't! The T2 can tell you so much in short order that it's confusing at first. But the signals and info it's imparting are indeed reliable, once you get enough swings under your belt to make the best use of 'em.
-Ed
