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Xt70 prospecting questions. "Prospecting for idiots" :surrender:

K

khouse

Active member
I have an XT70 and 6 inch DD coil coming and after watching the videos and reading I don't fully understand the iron mask setting. The vid says to leave it at setting 5. But in what condition would this setting be changed? How would you even know when to change the setting? What does it really do? Tell me how switching from prospecting to disc mode can help finding nuggets? I don't fully understand how the prospecting mode can help in bottle cap rejection. I have been detecting for years and this will be the first time I had a detector with prospecting mode. On my other detectors I just searched in true all metal with a threshold hum. So if you can explain it in terms I can understand then I'll be a happy hunter! Thanks!
 
Iron mask is nothing more than a feature that attempts to ID iron from Gold nuggets. Basically it is a form of discrimination that gives audible clues to the targets nature whether ferrous or non-ferrous. Because of the fact that small gold nuggets may read in the low iron range too much iron mask will elimininate them, that is why the Video says not to go above 5. In areas with a lot of iron some choose to raise the iron mask to help ID more of the iron and accept the risk of losing the smaller gold. The other scenerio is in areas where larger gold nuggets are the desired target and where there is lots of man made iron. That is when using the regular disc mode can be of benefit. if you want to read more about this go to Steve's AKmining site and check out the Ganes and Moore Creek links.

Tom
 
I use my X-Terra 70 as one of my primary gold hunting detectors. Where I hunt most of the nuggets are on the small side (less than a gram). To be sure that I do not miss these tiny nuggets in the 2 and 3 grain size I reduce my Iron mask to 2. I know some have even set it as low a 1 but I have found 2 to be about right for the size nuggets or large flakes that I come across. As Tom said where you set it depends on the size of the gold nuggets or flakes that you expect to find in the particular area you are hunting.

Here is a picture of some of the small nuggets that I have found. The biggest one is slightly over a gram in weight.

God Bless and HH,

Smitty II
 
Smitty: I like gold no matter what size. From 1 gram up to 33 oz. (I did find a 33 oz'er one time) It's always nice to see pics of gold. In the winter where we have several feet of snow over the gold fields and no chance to see gold for at least 4 months. I always hunt in the prospect mode and iron mask at 1.
 
Interesting post as I have the MXT. I have not used the prospecting mode
but wonder how the X-70 contrasts with the MXT in prospecting mode.
Can anyone give me a review on tis question?

Regards
Robert R:detecting:
 
Robert: I owned a MXT and got a Minelab X-70 to replace it. The MXT was to heavy for a 10 hr day, The X-70 is like swinging a feather. The MXT would give false ID's on iron targets where the X-70 is about 97% accurate in IDing targets. Both machines were run in the prospect mode. I was at Ganes cr. Alaska last year where 90% of the people were running MXTs with a large 12" coil and I had my X-70 with a 10 1/2" DD coil. I could get a good ID on deep targets where the MXTs could not most of the time. One guy had a target that was deep and he was not sure of the ID as to dig or not dig and the ground was hard as concrete. He had me ID it and I told him that if he did not want it then I would dig it. It ID ed a 20 on the TID scale in coin mode. It turned out to be a 4 oz nugget at 18" deep. I found gold with the MXT but I wonder how much gold that I walked over and did not dig because of the wrong ID on deep targets. I have found deep old coins with my X-70 in places that I have hunted many times with the MXT and my Tesoro Tejon.
 
Thank you for this explanation. The prospecting mode is becoming more clear to me after reading all of these comments.
 
I guess if I had experience with the 70 out prospecting I could know some of these answers? But I'm due to get mine today in the mail. So here's another question or two. It seems to me the prospecting mode is able to pick up tiny gold. So by switching to coin mode and receiving any kind of beep is indicating a larger nugget? In coin mode if you get an iron signal do you dig that also? What if you switch to coin mode and don't hear a signal? Do you dig it still thinking it's tiny gold? I'm just trying to see the reasons behind switching to coin or all metal disc mode to check a target that gave a signal in the prospecting mode? Why don't you just dig all signals in prospecting mode? Thanks.
 
lessthanzero I changed into my Minlelab underwear when I wrote that. :biggrin:

Tom
 
Khouse,

If you are looking for tiny gold flakes or nuggets less than a gram you want to stay in the Prospecting mode and dig all targets that sound repeatable whether strong or weak. In the Prospecting mode you will not have any target ID to help you decide whether to dig or not. For the tiny gold nuggets you should use the 5x10 DD High frequency coil or the smaller 6" DD High Frequency foil.

If you are in a gold field where there is the strong possibility of nuggets larger than 1 gram (Alaska) or you just don't want to deal with the tiny stuff, you can use the Coin and Jewelry Mode, Pattern 1, and adjust the discrimination down one segment (your manual will tell you how to do this). This will allow you to hear small nuggets just under a gram. You will also pick up some small iron targets. You know have the target ID working for you in identifying targets and making decisions on whether to did or not. For these larger nuggets I would use either the 5x10 DD High Frequency coil or the 10.5" DD High Frequency coil.

God Bless and HH,

Smitty II
 
I re read the manual and everything is much clearer now. Here was my problem. 1.I wasn't looking at the prospecting mode as an entirely different animal. You have to think of it as a completely different detector that is a gold machine only. Forget coin and jewelry.
2. Relating to #1 - I was confused as to why in prospecting mode all 4 ferrous notches were notched out. To me why not just run in coin mode and notch out ferrous. Well I didn't think that could be right. 3. I see in the manual that in prospecting mode you have iron mask notches. But there is 20 adjustable notches! The manual says that in prospecting mode the ferrous range is expanded from 4 to 20 notches - like fine tuning. I get it now! It all makes sense to me and I'm very excited that I have such a nice machine in my hands. Can I learn any more - you bet! Keep the info coming!!!!!
 
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