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se pro?:ausflag:
- Thread starter emubob
- Start date
It is just a matter of preference, some people swear by the smart screen as being the best thing since sliced bread. I have the Explorer II, the SE Pro is just an updated version of it. I personally like the digital screen better. I previously had a DFX for 5 years and it had numbers, so that is what I am used to. I sometimes will switch back and forth between them. You will have to do some experimenting and decide which you like best.
Hey there. IMHO starting out and learning the Smart screen is what I swear by. The numbers confuse the heck out of me and I never go to the numbers screen. I do, however, understand why some would prefer the numbers. You may want to get "The Minelab Explorer & E-Trac Handbook" by Andy Sabisch. Its an incredible resource. Maybe get a smaller coil to start with too. IMHO the SEF 6X8 is a great way to go and I'm sure Kellyco could get it to you. Best of luck to you and happy hunting. Matt
Charles (Upstate NY)
Well-known member
Smart screen is the way to go, why? Because the Explorer is particularly good and sniffing out co-located targets hiding in the shadow of iron and trash. These can be some of the older better finds that have been hiding from detectors for decades. Its also the key to finding the big silver that's still left out there, in hiding. These co-located targets will produce odd-ball numbers and numbers that jump around wildly which are quite difficult to follow. On the smart find screen however its quite easy to see what's going on. You watch for two things, bounce patterns and odd-ball locations. With bounce patterns you will see the cursor bouncing between iron/silver, rusty bottle cap/silver, pull tab/silver as an example. Sometimes all three depending on how trashy the area is. The second are co-located targets that are so close together the Explorer combines the signal as if you melted silver and say a rusty bottle cap together so the cursor will lock on out in no mans land on the screen where no target is supposed to be, that's a key to dig. I once dug a barber half dollar that was dead center laying under a more shallow rusty bottle cap with the cursor locked on the screen half way between where each should be.
Which brings us to expertise level 2, tones. In time it will be less about the screen and more about the tones that get your attention at first and cause you to stop and then investigate further with the screen. The Explorer is more like a musical instrument tone wise. Tones can be so distinct that you can hear the difference between a Mercury silver dime and other types of silver dimes due to the Mercury dimes deep relief strike on the coin. Its hard to describe this distinct tone, silver with whipped cream on top maybe. Co-located targets can sound off like a cord with tones from each type of target mixed together. Gold, silver, IH bronze, nickel, platinum have distinct tones and behaviors as you sweep over them. Smaller silver for example can sound quite fluty. Bigger silver less fluty but LOUD and strong and sweet. I once dug a silver half just because a rusty bottle cap sounded too good. It ID'd on the screen as a textbook rusty bottle cap. It was the tone that got my attention but when I looked down and saw it ID's on the screen square in the rusty bottle cap area I decided to keep walking. Took like 3 steps then thought wait a minute, no bottle cap sounds that good and backed up. I was running zero discrimination at the time so I notched out the bottle caps and BANG it dragged the cursor upwards towards the silver half dollar area. Allowing bottle caps in had allowed the machine to mostly lock onto the bottle cap as far as screen ID but the tones where there.
Expertise level 3 sweeping tactics. As you sweep over a target the width and yes shape of the target which you hear in the tones can tell you a lot of information. With practice you will notice deeper targets sound different, wider than shallow targets. Targets somewhat on edge is another example and they can throw signals off sideways throwing off your pinpointing, pinpoint mode can help avoid gouging the target with your digger though get in the habit of circling a target sweeping it from different directions before you dig which can help. Raise your coil several inches off the ground, a shallow target somewhat on edge can fake out the depth meter, if its really a deep target it will vanish when you raise the coil just 2-3 inches off the ground where the shallow target will still sound off. If you get cussing digging shallow clad dimes this is the ticket. Certainly sweeping can tell you where things are, I typically sweep a coil sized area around the target. This helps me understand what other targets are in the vicinity, this is a great way to avoid iron falsing where you are just hitting the nail with the edge of your coil. Don't be afraid to pick at your target with the nose of your coil. I once got a silver blip...then checked a coil size area around the target, there was a nail at 9, 12, and 3 o-clock, I was thinking okay iron false but the tone was too good. I managed to get just the nose of my coil over the target from 6 o-clock and bang solid silver hit, target was a barber quarter and barber dime in the hole.
Expertise level 4, the dark arts. Things get spooky at this level. I once dug a target because there was no signal at all, no tone, no smartfind screen cursor, and no...and this is important...no threshold tone just stone cold silent null.
Since I was running a wide open screen with no discrimination at all e.g. all metal in theory I should never get a null yet right in front of me was a null. Investigating further out I found a nail at 9 o-clock and a nail at 3 o-clock about 15 inches apart and inbetween these two nails was a null. 
I dug a plug in the center between the nails and good lord 2 silver quarters. Nails can cast an iron shadow out quite some distance lengthwise beyond the nail. In this case there were two nails about 15 inches apart pointing towards each other with the silver in the middle. For some reason this confused the Explorer into a null. Another example of the dark arts is this, for a given rule of thumb there WILL be exceptions. I tend to hunt in all metal for example, untold thousands of targets dug has proved this method to produce the most finds. However the opposite is true, you can absolutely get a hit on a target say with iron or some trash target discriminated out that you cannot get running all metal. When in all metal the explorer will lock solid on the trash or iron and you will get no hint of the good target. When I'm running discrimination I will often switch to all metal when I find a target of interest. 95% of the time the target improves in quality but sometimes the target will up and vanish altogether. For this reason I will sometimes go back over a productive area I hunted in all metal running a discrimination pattern and pick off a few more targets. Finally ground can also be a factor when hunting deep targets. As the target gets deeper and there is much more soil between the coil and the target, depending on the soil, how much rotted away iron and mineralization there is, this can pull a target ID WAY off the mark. I once dug I think a silver half reale, hard to say since it was worn smooth, it ID'd on the screen about 1/4 inch from the left edge of the screen way over in the iron area. I have dug many a deep IH simply because it sounded round, appeared coin size in width as I swept it, but mostly ID towards the middle of the screen and had a lot of iron/soil tones mixed in.
There you have it a Sunday morning brain dump on using the Explorer.
Which brings us to expertise level 2, tones. In time it will be less about the screen and more about the tones that get your attention at first and cause you to stop and then investigate further with the screen. The Explorer is more like a musical instrument tone wise. Tones can be so distinct that you can hear the difference between a Mercury silver dime and other types of silver dimes due to the Mercury dimes deep relief strike on the coin. Its hard to describe this distinct tone, silver with whipped cream on top maybe. Co-located targets can sound off like a cord with tones from each type of target mixed together. Gold, silver, IH bronze, nickel, platinum have distinct tones and behaviors as you sweep over them. Smaller silver for example can sound quite fluty. Bigger silver less fluty but LOUD and strong and sweet. I once dug a silver half just because a rusty bottle cap sounded too good. It ID'd on the screen as a textbook rusty bottle cap. It was the tone that got my attention but when I looked down and saw it ID's on the screen square in the rusty bottle cap area I decided to keep walking. Took like 3 steps then thought wait a minute, no bottle cap sounds that good and backed up. I was running zero discrimination at the time so I notched out the bottle caps and BANG it dragged the cursor upwards towards the silver half dollar area. Allowing bottle caps in had allowed the machine to mostly lock onto the bottle cap as far as screen ID but the tones where there.
Expertise level 3 sweeping tactics. As you sweep over a target the width and yes shape of the target which you hear in the tones can tell you a lot of information. With practice you will notice deeper targets sound different, wider than shallow targets. Targets somewhat on edge is another example and they can throw signals off sideways throwing off your pinpointing, pinpoint mode can help avoid gouging the target with your digger though get in the habit of circling a target sweeping it from different directions before you dig which can help. Raise your coil several inches off the ground, a shallow target somewhat on edge can fake out the depth meter, if its really a deep target it will vanish when you raise the coil just 2-3 inches off the ground where the shallow target will still sound off. If you get cussing digging shallow clad dimes this is the ticket. Certainly sweeping can tell you where things are, I typically sweep a coil sized area around the target. This helps me understand what other targets are in the vicinity, this is a great way to avoid iron falsing where you are just hitting the nail with the edge of your coil. Don't be afraid to pick at your target with the nose of your coil. I once got a silver blip...then checked a coil size area around the target, there was a nail at 9, 12, and 3 o-clock, I was thinking okay iron false but the tone was too good. I managed to get just the nose of my coil over the target from 6 o-clock and bang solid silver hit, target was a barber quarter and barber dime in the hole.
Expertise level 4, the dark arts. Things get spooky at this level. I once dug a target because there was no signal at all, no tone, no smartfind screen cursor, and no...and this is important...no threshold tone just stone cold silent null.
Since I was running a wide open screen with no discrimination at all e.g. all metal in theory I should never get a null yet right in front of me was a null. Investigating further out I found a nail at 9 o-clock and a nail at 3 o-clock about 15 inches apart and inbetween these two nails was a null. I dug a plug in the center between the nails and good lord 2 silver quarters. Nails can cast an iron shadow out quite some distance lengthwise beyond the nail. In this case there were two nails about 15 inches apart pointing towards each other with the silver in the middle. For some reason this confused the Explorer into a null. Another example of the dark arts is this, for a given rule of thumb there WILL be exceptions. I tend to hunt in all metal for example, untold thousands of targets dug has proved this method to produce the most finds. However the opposite is true, you can absolutely get a hit on a target say with iron or some trash target discriminated out that you cannot get running all metal. When in all metal the explorer will lock solid on the trash or iron and you will get no hint of the good target. When I'm running discrimination I will often switch to all metal when I find a target of interest. 95% of the time the target improves in quality but sometimes the target will up and vanish altogether. For this reason I will sometimes go back over a productive area I hunted in all metal running a discrimination pattern and pick off a few more targets. Finally ground can also be a factor when hunting deep targets. As the target gets deeper and there is much more soil between the coil and the target, depending on the soil, how much rotted away iron and mineralization there is, this can pull a target ID WAY off the mark. I once dug I think a silver half reale, hard to say since it was worn smooth, it ID'd on the screen about 1/4 inch from the left edge of the screen way over in the iron area. I have dug many a deep IH simply because it sounded round, appeared coin size in width as I swept it, but mostly ID towards the middle of the screen and had a lot of iron/soil tones mixed in.There you have it a Sunday morning brain dump on using the Explorer.
BigTony
Well-known member
Great post Charles, thanks for posting it.
I recently have been curious about the funny numbers, great sounds and the bouncing.
I have been digging more of those sounds vs numbers and like what has come to light. No brag here just happy.
We have expensive machines and they should be getting us more great finds.
Tony
I recently have been curious about the funny numbers, great sounds and the bouncing.
I have been digging more of those sounds vs numbers and like what has come to light. No brag here just happy.
We have expensive machines and they should be getting us more great finds.
Tony
Charles, that's a great post. I always use the smart screen and I'm getting better with the tones. I've found that the most difficult step is getting the right sensitivity while working in close to iron trash. A small step up or down can change everything. How do you get it just right? Thanks...Syd