Settings to be or not to be? (LONG)

[Anonymous]

One of my favorite places to hunt is a CW site on private land. There are high power lines that cross one area of the property. About 150 yards from the lines is the location of an old Indian trading post and slave quarters. The property is a working hay farm so the soil is turned and fertilizer applied. According to good management the lad is turned by the owner. Some acres have not been turned in 100 years and other each year or so. This is the situations so I can explain the value and need for understanding different settings.
On days when power is being generated the lines will radiate RF and kill the operation of my Explorer with my normal settings of the Sensitivity set to 28 with audio gain at 10. Noise cancel dose not enable me to hunt within a good 50 yards of any point near the power lines. I can adjust the setting so the sensitivity is about 20 with the Audio Gain at 7 and with Auto-sensitivity on hunt almost right up under the lines. I can use DEEP on and find mini and round balls at a good 7 inches. If I further decrease Audio gain and sensitivity I can hunt pretty much right under the lines.
On wet days the iron around the site of the Indian trading post is extremely conductive so those days are great for relics. I can hunt at IM-16, Audio Gain 10, Semi-auto sensitivity at 10. The best way to hunt when I get tired of all the targets is to turn off Conductive tones OFF and use ferrous tones and turn DEEP OFF. There are within that area about 50 yards the location of slave quarters and a home site that dates to about 1840. I will move to the home site and turn FAST ON because the field has been turned and there is tons of trash, square nails and other typical junk. I then cut the Audio Gain down to about 7 or 8 to keep co-located targets from masking good targets. When I move out into the fields I turn DEEP ON and FAST OFF, keep the sensitivity at 10, IM-16, and have found two rather beaten up large cents that way.
There are some outbuilding foundations about 500 yards from this location and the trash is unbelievable. I then go to Patterns, Digital Screen, and use Iron Mask at about 13, DEEP OFF and FAST ON. I cut the Audio gain back to about 8 and decrease sensitivity to about 25 and the Explorer does great.
There is a park I hunt that has been used since about 1800 and has some of the largest trees I have seen in this area. I hunt slowly around those trees with Audio gain at 10, Sensitivity at 28 in Manual, DEEP ON and FAST ON or OFF depending on the tree and amount of trash. I search very slow and have pulled up some nice Indian heads, and nice standing liberty quarter, and several barber dimes. When you move away from the trees the ground get pretty clean so I switch to IM-16. If you go about a hundred yards the park has been heavily used so there is a lot of trash to the extent that most gave up on this area years ago. I use FAST ON, DEEP OFF as they have cut up aluminum and it simply pecks away at the audio to the point of being more than one can stand. With FAST ON, Audio Gain to about 6 or 7 and Sensitivity to around 16 in Semi-audio you can find a lot of new and old coins. You notice Semi-auto sensitivity on because this area is close to a street where there are power lines and across the street is a CB antenna and the external noise cannot be killed by noise cancel. It takes both noise cancel and Semi-auto to hunt this area.
I will not go into the old fair ground and different conditions that require different settings. When I say I don

 

[Anonymous]

Whether you are taking the "never changes settings" out of context, or you honestly believe I (or others) meant it that way, I'll set the record straight. I use the same settings for basically all of my detecting, but of course if something on the outside such as a power transformer, or radio tower, is causing havoc with my detector, I will do what I have to to get by. Now to fidget and play with the different functions at a specific site is not for me. Why...
I have my detector set and swing it in the manner that finds me the most small targets in iron. Finding buttons is the number one objective and if you're getting most of them there isn't much being missed. I dig all non-ferrous targets!
Keeping the same settings trains your ears much better to the subtle differences in how the signal breaks through the threshold. Last year I got much more in into hunting iron relics. I had not really considered it before because I thought it would be a waste of time. What I didn't realize is that knowing the same settings well, I was able to cherry pick the worthy iron by how much it was overriding my disc. of IM -14. I know what is a small iron target and not worth digging, a med. size one which I may go after, and a large one which is always worth the time to dig when I'm at an early site. Since I have practiced this self taught lesson my iron finds have been great. Everything I just said about iron I believe is the same for non ferrous targets too.

 

[Anonymous]

Called it and probably some misunderstanding that we always use the same settings. Heck the Explorer can change facets very easily whch makes it a unit for various hunting situations and with the ability to save programs just press a button or two and we have a completely different program to adjust to most hunting situations..Successful detectorists do not use the same settings and with an Explorer we can tweak our units with saved programs or just modify our present one with the touch of a button or two.

 

[Anonymous]

You are making my point for me. If the setting you use works for you then why would anyone want to change. My interest is honest in that I have no idea how to hunt the site I mentioned by using the same settings. I think fiddling is exactly what a person that has no idea what the controls do does. I am talking about making adjutments based on knowing what the adjustment accomplishes. If you don't know then indeed you do fiddle with them so I would leave them alone. <span style="background-color:#ffff00;">If you read what I have said over and over it is making informed adjustments.</span> There are no reasons for the Explorer to be a mystery to anyone as it is very easy to learn what the settings will do. Minelab did not put this machine on the market to confuse and confound people. If anyone will take the Users Manual and walk through it they will master the Explorer depending on how much time they spend with the machine and the depth of interest.
If that is not what a person cares to do then the Quattro might be the best way to go. I see people all the time with more technology than they can deal with so only use a limited amount of what is there. That is no business of mine and I have no interest in that.
Again, I have no personal interest where anyone sets any control on the Explorer. If it makes the user happy then great. My assumptions have been that if one only needs to make a very few adjustments then they most likely hunt in the same area or where there are few variables to deal with.
HH, Cody

 

[Anonymous]

<span style="background-color:#ffff00;">You have hit on the design of the Explorer</span>. However, that does not mean one cannot use it like a turn on an go machine and never make any adjustments or very few.
The discussion are not to run down how somehow sets their detector but rather to be able to make informed setting. We end up think if we discuss the adjustments then someone is kicking our dog around. That is just not the case as the idea is to look at what can be done and then we come to the setting we prefer.
If we only use one or two changes in settings then once we say that then there is really nothing to be discussed or added after that. What you do is then show and tell of photos of what we find. I love to see the finds but that is not the primary purpose of a classroom forum for new users. When people that are new users ask about Deep and Fast you own them an explanation more than just set it like I do. I frankly adjust on the fly all the time because I am confident I know what the adjustment do and how the machine responds. I don't have to stop and think about what is going to happen. I know I need to increase or decrease sensitivity a click or two. Any experienced users knows exactly what I am talking about. The detector becomes an extension of ones self and is as natural as the thoughts in our brains. Some adjustment we make and really don't even think about it like we move our hand off of a hot stove.
HH, Cody