The “magic pattern” might be effective with the eTrac/CTX but not with the Explorers. Here’s why….and I’ll post it on the open forum here so I don’t have to type it twice.
Its well known that the Explorer SE Pro was the last incarnation of FBS to use a processing scheme which did NOT “normalize” the “12 line”. Meaning….most of the targets you run across will read on or close to FE 12. The Explorers do not have this artificial normalization…the FE reading when working in mineralized dirt, iron polluted ground or even when the target gets deep in fairly decent soil can get very high. It is VERY common to see a reading of 18-24/28 on a deep dime, ESPECIALLY if there are a decent number of rotting nails around, or even in mineralized ground. The result of running a very closed up pattern such as the one in question here is that the machine will simply blank on the target since something like 18+FE would be out of range. Depending on the orientation and proximity of a nail, it’s possible there will be a slight chirp, but finding such a target in the wild would be a tough go. Even though I sometimes use a tight pattern, when there are nails and pollution the Explorers simply won’t respond because the FE reading is allowed to wander so much. With the Explorers, the FE number can tell you quite a bit.…it’s saying, “I think the target has THIS amount of ferrous content”. The same can be had with the CTX and eTrac as long as you run them in the High Trash setting.
What people are seeing by running an extremely tight pattern is a result of more coins, because it is way less confusion to deal with, whereas the audio becomes overwhelming to listen to and decipher with a more open screen. Don’t let this lull you into thinking that you’re getting ALL of the coins. And with the Explorers, I have learned the hard way, running such a pattern would be detrimental for where I hunt and for how deep the coins can get.
Let me conclude by saying that this pattern has been around a fair amount of time, its a well known “cherry picking” pattern made popular by Bill S. There are a thousand different variations of it, but just be aware that IF you’re using ANY of the Explorers or you are in the High Trash setting on the eTrac or CTX…the pattern must be more open when working around tiny/small iron or in mineralized ground.