New X-Terra 70 user needs suggestions

[Southwind]

I need some suggestions on settings for a particular site. I just got my X-Terra 70 last week and have hunted with it several times. and like it so far. I'm going to give it a shot at an old carnival grounds that is littered with bottle caps. The coins are fairly deep having found them at 6" as the deepest. I know there are some good coins hiding near these bottle caps, and would like to know what you experienced X-Terra hunter would suggest to optimize my X-Terra 70 for these conditions.

Thanks

 

[mitwes56]

you didnt say if you had any other coils but I think the dd with its narrow detection blade would be the best for seperation of trash and coins. I would run sensitivity at half throttle also. No use having alot of extra power bouncing off all the trash and you would still get the 6 inch coins you mentioned. I would go very slow on the sweep to give the coil time to see the good targets in the trash and give you an indication they are there. I use 4 tones myself . If its as trashy as you say I would not use auto track since the ground balance would have a hard time keeping up with all that trash. Set the ground balance on a clean spot around the field somewhere and just leave it at that as you search the area. Do a noise cancel. oh and post your pictures of all your finds . good luck.

 

[Southwind]

It came with 2 coils. The stock coil and a 5x10 DD? here is a pictures but there is nothing on the coil to indicate what model it is. I've been using 99 tones and really like it. I've owned a Explorer SE and Sovereign GT. After checking using the coil ID screen it says dH which I assume is the 5x10 DD 18.75khz

 

[Jackpine Savage]

is do a lot of experimenting with settings to find a combination that reads the caps accurately and allows for good seperation of co-located targets.

The stock coil with sensitivity set at 21 would be a good starting point but, don't be afraid to lower it if neccessary. If you have to go down to the mid teens range because of falsing, switch to Beach GB mode which can help on the iron and also gains back a bit of depth lost with the lower sens setting.

Regarding ground balance, experiment on found targets with different GB techniques. Locking the GB setting the detector gets over a clean spot is not always the best setting when hunting in iron. Depending on ground conditions manually adjusting the GB to the factory preset of 27 can at times give better see-thru performance as well or, you can try it with tracking turned on too.

Tones, you said you like 99 tones, if you can live with that in a high trash area go with it, but don't be afraid to try the different tone options over some found targets.

If this is a spot you are going to hunt often spending some time experimenting will pay off.

Tom

 

[mitwes56]

has a smaller detection blade and will seperate trash better. Go about half sensitivity, around 15. Sweep slow. In your picture you have the 5x10 elliptical mounted already and yes it is 18.75 frequency. Its a excellent coil.

 

[golden dingo]

I just bought a new minelab x-terra here in redding california from howells dive shop along with the dd 18.5 khz coil I took it out looking for gold and the thing went crazy left and right here in this highly mineralized area, it was screaming off all the hotrocks. can anyone tell me how to hunt with this thing. I ground balanced with auto, noise counceld but it was screaming like a banshee. can anyone help me with this problem? mybe lower the sensitivity or change it to coin and relic mode? Or any other suggestions? my gold bug 2 had no problem in the same creek and I found a 17 ounce specimen. please email me at thorgray@live.com for a fast and ready response. thank you