When is high sensitivity a disadvantage??

[Anonymous]

Now that I'm used to hearing a lot of chatter in my ears I'm wondering if, at times, I'm actually losing something when I have the sensitivity cranked to max. I'm still using the stock coil and am running at 32 for the most part. Have any of you found that you're better off running much lower??? I'm referring here to your average park, not extremely trashy situations or areas with interferance. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Tim

 

[Anonymous]

Tim;
Yes I have found it's better to knock down the sensitivity. One day the ground was very wet and my brother-in-law was hitting all the quarters on a site and I was getting none ????
So I backed down to 16 and started hitting the quarters. With the sens too high the quarters were giving a ragged signal like a screw cap so I was ignoring them. If I remember correctly you have not had your Explorer long. It is best to get used to it with a lower sens till you really get a feel for the sound of the good targets then edge it up a little at a time. I've seen several posts that by cutting the sens down there is not that much loss of depth. I'm currently using an X-12 sunray coil with sens at 22 picked up a barber dime at 8" good clean solid signal no iffy about it.
Rick (TN)

 

[Anonymous]

I started playing around with it and getting used to it late last season. If you are in "semi-auto" sensitivity with a high setting, the detector is almost always NOT running at that setting because of several factors it is sensing such as electrical interference and soil conditions. You could be set at "32" in semi-auto (the highest) and actually be only running as low as "8"... It's true! I have a friend's yard that I hunt that on my best days I can't get above "12" in manual sensitvity. If I were running in semi-auto, EVEN with it set at "30" or "32" the BEST I would have gotten would in reality only been about 8 or 10. The Machine is doing exactly what it's supposed to, which is automatically finding the best sesitivity setting for the area as high as possible up to the indicated setting. If you are set at "32"-auto and the best the Explorer can get is ,say, "14", then that's all you're gonna get REGARDLESS of what you have it set at, not to mention that it may be continually changing depending on conditions it senses at any given time. The "14" is a hypothetical number also, in "semi-auto" you don't really know WHAT sensitivity level the Explorer has selected to use at any given time.
I start out with my sensitivty is in 24-manual. After hitting the "noise" button and finding a good channel, I then adjust my sens so that I have a steady tone that just barely begins to break up as I sweep. Also I can tweak it a little higher and sort through the minor chatter....you can still pick out a good reapeatable hit coming through the noise, though it takes a little getting used to. I have found that even though it's an ongoing series of adjustments that I can usually get somewhat better depth.
If I'm in a clean, stable place that gives me a nice steady tone when I have my sensitivity up around 28 or so, then I will switch it to semi set at the highest value that was steady in manual, but I still pop into manual and check it from time to time.
....anyway, that's just how I do the sensitivity thing, but I'm still learning stuff so who knows how I'll be doing it by the middle of summer? I also hope that I accurately described "semi-auto" vs. "manual" sensitivty. If I didn't I won't hold it against one of the more-experienced "Explorer Gods" to set me straight.
HH, SgtSki

 

[Anonymous]

Got my XS in May 2002. Started reading and doing what people did on this forum and yes I was hunting at 30 or 32 semi auto. I thought that I had the noise chatters down as I could pick up clad and surface pennies. I thought I was doing Ok but I was finding no silver or older coins. The chatter was bad and I thought that was normal. I thought well I am not going over anything deep. I did not dig a coin over 3" for about 5.5 months. When I started to get my butt kicked by a Sov, I started to get depressed. He would go over the area I covered and pull wheat

 

[Anonymous]

Yea...I learned long ago that manual was the only way. Being a long time Sov user I'm used to opening the detector up to max. I've been cranking the sens up to 32 with the screen open with the exeption of foil and crowcaps (thanks Jim). From your responses, it does seem that I might be losing something with it cranked up too high. Probably with a little less sensitivity, the falsing and a bit more volume in the ears I might be doing myself a favor. Thanks for your comments....much appreciated.
HH,
Tim

 

[Anonymous]

That high sensitivity in semi auto does more harm than good. I notice this more in trashy areas if you run in high sensitivity in semi auto you may not be able to pick up a coin on top of the ground, but a good threshold. lower it down a bit and run semi auto and and it will get better depth, but even lower it more and go to manual and you will get the depth, but not a stable threshold.
Us around here finds that 20-26 manual does the best for us.
Rick