New to THing &MXT- Please help...

[Anonymous]

Hi,
I recently purchased a new MXT and went out for the first time this weekend to the beach. Granted, I've never done this before but I had some real trouble with the machine. I was hoping that someone could help out with a few questions.
1) Is my machine unusual/faulty? I'm doing air tests with a quarter and it sounds at about 8-10 inches but will not give a reading. At 6-7 inches it will identify it as a quarter. Is this unusual? I was hoping that the vdi & readout would be more accurate. <FONT COLOR="#ff0000">(stock coil, c&j mode, default settings)</FONT>
Smaller items (pennies, dimes, read only at lower air depths).
2) At the beach, anything deeper than 3-4 inches would mostly give a readout as junk. When I would dig, I'd often get junk but at least 50-60% of the time I'd find 1c, 5c, 10c etc. Is there anyway to improve the IDing?
I'm beginning to believe that I might have overspent on this machine. If I have to dig everything anyway, what is value of machines that have advanced ID meters?
3) I had problems with the machine sounding when I changed elevations quickly. Is there a way to ground this out? For example, on the beach, if I were to lower the level of my sweep from 3in to 1/2inch quickly (steped in a hole, etc) the maches would make a sound. Grounding did not seem to work for me (double pumping). Again, I'm new so I might be doing this wrong.
I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions. Sorry for the long post. I'm new and trying to learn this machine but finding it difficult.
Erik
PS. (to give everyone a laugh)-- I started the day by trying to test the machine and burried a 25c in about 8 in. of sand. I could hear it (but barely) and practiced pinpointing. Long story short, it took me about 10min. to find and dig the thing up. That discouraged me off the bat. If I couldn't find something I place and knew was there, I could tell it was going to be a long day!!

 

[Anonymous]

Viking:
I have had my mxt for nearly a year, so I am not an expert but I hope this can help.
On air testing try putting the ground on lock. And most of all (I just learned this last week) you have to hold the coin flat to the coil, not slightly askew.
I asked the same question as you at first. Why have an id meter? The meter is generally accurate once you get a good repeatable signal which is a good un-broken beep with a vdi that does not jump up and down. It takes some practice to do but once you understand what the machine is telling you you will be able to avoid digging those types of signals.
You did not mention if you had the ground switch on salt, if not that is where you want it to be when on a beach. Also if 3" is your sweeping height, try lowering your coil. I try to sweep with the coil just brushing the sand or grass, depending where I am. Also I have learned it is not wise to crank up the gain. I do not know if you did but doing so will make the mxt a little noisy and eratic if the ground conditions are not correct for allowing you to do so.
Like you I also thought I had over spent at first, but by coming on here and asking questions it did not take long until I started to understand more . There are some very knowledgable folks on here that will allways help out, so feel free to ask away. It was just 2 weeks ago that I presumed my machine was broken. It was making a weird noise and running horrible where I was hunting. So I asked questions, got great answers from Monte and was able to figure out my problem. Turns out I was hunting a new place that had railroad tracks some 20 yards away, electric rail road tracks, elctric interference raises havoc,found that out. lol
Went to a new location last week found a 18k saphire ring which was appraised at $400 , so believe me when I say come on here and ask away.
Most of all don't get frustrated, it is all a learning process. I would not trade this mxt for anything out there now that I am begining to really understand it, and all the frustration I had in the beginning was well worth it.
Hope I helped some. Happy Hunting

 

[Anonymous]

HI,
Thanks for the reply. I guess I'm just going to have to play with this more and get used to it. I was wondering at first if I had a bad coil and I'm still not sure. More than likely, it's just me.
My sweep distance is generally right on top of the sand. I did notice however that if I bounced it from time to time, that it would go off. I was not able to ever get out any of that sound. Also if I brushed up against any small sand, it would sound. Is this normal?
Thanks

 

[Anonymous]

Viking777, when detecting on the beach, use salt setting, it also helps alot to use a double-D coil,
I use the whites 4x6 shooter and the new 14"excelerator coil, the ID numbers will be off,,,
dig every thing that beeps, broker on not, If you get around wet sand it gets worse but on a beach the digging is easy and well worth the time.
With the 4x6 shooter I can crank the gain to plus-2 with no problem...

 

[Anonymous]

Viking,
Your experiencing normal activity from the MXT at the beach. Try your gain on 9, relic mode, disc on 2 , threshold just barely hummimng. Pin point toggle in the center. Now when you turn the thing on don't pump the coil, from about waist high slowly lower it to the ground and use a slow sweep speed, If it gets chatty again raise the coil and slowly lower it again.switch between ground and salt mode, sometimes this can help. The ID will be off, set up with these settings dig everything that has a high tone or even a mixed high low tone. Listen for those low but repeatable beeps that may not ID at all, quite often they are deep coins.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi,
Thanks for the responses so far. These have been really helpful. I'm anxious to get out and try some more.
One more question, for now: What are the tones, (I call them 'nul' tones, but I don't know the correct term), that are actually a lack of tone. For example, I hear the normal buzz and as I pass over a spot, there is a click and a brief silence. It is repeatable with each sweep.
Unfortunately, I never dug any of those tones. At the time I was thinking that it was junk that was being discriminated out. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?
Again, thanks for the comments.
Erik

 

[Anonymous]

Viking,
When you hear a quiet patch in the hum, then its just your detector discriminating out some metal that is below your disc setting - look at the display if you want to see what it is - it will still show the item, the pops and cracks are normal - the item is either large or quite near to the boundary between accept/reject. Thats why its good th be able to hear the hum - you can tell if there is a lot of stuff under your coil that you are rejecting. remember if there are good items amongst all this junk you probably wont hear them.. sometimes its better to just move to a "cleaner" site..
good luck - th MXT is one of the best detectors around, and takes some time to learn. I havent even got out of c/j hunting mode yet!
John

 

[Anonymous]

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