Explorer Info.

This is a reply that a member of another forum sent to me regarding some questions I had on my explorer. He had previously sent me a post on his technique for learning the machine which was amazing...AM, deep on fast off, gain 6 or 7 , ferrous tones, how to optimize the sensitivity etc.

My problem is with the hi tone of iron. This reply addresses this and his ideas are really on the money so I thought I would share them with you...just stay out of my parks! Many people claim to be able to hear the difference between a good silver and a worn one; I think he can. I can't tell the difference from a deep hit to a surface one w/o looking at the depth meter:(

Thanks so much to charlesinny for his input. If I get his permission (if any interest) I will add his original discussion on how to use the explorer to find the goods. I have to agree with him that most of the goods left in parks are near the iron where a.) everyone nulls out or, b.) everyone avoids 'cause they have no patience....

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It is not always a low tone for me, many times it is an attractive hi pitch sound. Then I need to take the time to decide if there is something good next to it. This is a daunting task as times, but, as you say, offers good opportunity as most will pass these up with the Null.

Yes nails in your area with your soil are particular fond of falsing with a high tone. To deal with this you have to do 3 things, first get your coil centered over the nail, many will stop falsing high and go low just by centering the coil over them. Second if the nail is still falsing turn 90 degrees and sweep again, most of the rest will then go low. Third trust what the machine is telling you about nails, if the falsing bounce pattern is classic nail, or one of the first two tips confirm nail, trust this and move on. One other thing, don't try to make a nail sound good, it is entirely possible to start shifting your coil around in an effort to make a nail false high after the machine gives you a low tone and tells you its a nail, you are just getting your coil off center of the nail again. If the machine says nail believe it and move on.

Now that said are there good finds that only give a good tone when swept from a single direction, and give a low tone when swept from 90 degrees? Yes, but here's how to win. When you are sweeping from the good direction the cursor will be where its supposed to be, up in the silver dime area if its a silver dime or in the corner where silver quarters are supposed to be if its a silver quarter, while a rusty nail will be lower half off the right where rusty nails false. Dig the ones that ID coin not nail falsing, thats the trick to picking off targets hiding near iron. Another trick is to dig targets that ID in no mans land middle of the screen. I have dug targets that even ID'd about 1/2 inch to the right of the left edge of the screen BUT never jumped up to the top/left corner. Clearly not a rusty nail, sometimes a button, sometimes a silver so close to or encrusted by a rusty nail the Explorer merges the metals and gives you an odd ID on the screen. I dug a half reale once with this trick. Its rare though, most co-located iron/silver targets will ID top left corner and in the proper silver locations.

I see you are using the digital screen, sadly that will limit your finds and make detecting more difficult. Learning the cursor location and bounce behaviors will save time and result in more finds. I can't imagine trying to detect in a difficult site condition in digital, that would be brutal.

Here's another way to look at iron. I love iron, I'm always happy to find that there are rusty nails in a good location because that means the area has not been picked clean already. I know there will be good targets that have been hiding in the iron waiting for someone with an Explorer and the patience to pick through the iron slowly to find. Rusty nails = opportunity. I was up on the top of Council Crest with Joel one day, that place has been pounded for years even with Explorers but is a rusty nail infested mess right. We both dug a barber quarter of all things that day. Mine was a one way signal, kind of crappy broken silver signal from one direction but ID'd where a silver quarter was supposed to ID. Turn left or right and it instantly gave a low iron tone. In NY I once dug a barber quarter, barber dime, and IH cent in the same hole. I could only get a signal with the front about 4 inches of my coil, if I tried to center over the target or turn any other direction I got a low iron tone but from that one angle it was textbook silver ID. After I dug I checked the surounding area, there was a nail at 9, 12, and 3 oclock. About 30 feet from that spot on another day I was detecting a strip along a sidewalk that Butch had just spent 2 weeks pounding with his DFX. I got another solid one way signal that said big silver, low iron from any other direction, result Barbar half dollar. Butch was nearby detecting and I took this over to him and he was in disbelief. No iron and trash targets are definately my friend. The vast majority of my big silver finds, quarters and halfs were hiding in iron and trash, that's why they were still there after people have been pounding these spots for decades.

[quote=You see I am unable to differentiate a deep signal from a surface signal w/o checking the screen. This is a DISABILITY and slows me down tremendously.[/quote]

This would be highly annoying. My first recommendation would be turn your gain to 7, or even 6, turn FAST OFF and DEEP ON for starters. FAST ON sucks when you are trying to hear the difference between deep and shallow targets. Second tip, raise your coil to check depth. A target that is trully deep will fade fast when you lift your coil just a couple inches off the ground. A more shallow target will still be sounding strong. This is also a good tip for tiny shallow targets that ID as deep on the depth meter but are really shallow. You know they are tiny because they only sound off for about 2 maybe 3 inches of your sweep as you seep across them. Raising the coil confirms they are shallow beause a tiny deep target will vanish almost immediatly if you lift your coil yet a tiny shallow near surface target will still sound strong, this tip lets you avoid wasting time digging them. Keep in mind the Explorer depth meter is calibrated to a cent sized target. Therefore it will ID tiny targets as deep in error, and larger targets like a quarter and especiall a half dollar as more shallow than they really are. Next tip, a true deep cent/dime sized target will seem larger as you sweep across it, maybe 6 inches wide versus a sharp 3 inches wide for a more shallow coin. This is where turning FAST OFF comes into play. With FAST ON the Explorer cuts the signal off short making both deep and shallow coins appear about the same as you sweep across them. The tone will be more watered down the deeper it is, with some lower soil signal mixed in where the more shallow coin will be all coin. As I'm sure you have already discovered surface or near surface coins give a double sometimes tripple beep verses a single beep so those are easy enough to ignore. Digging only deep targets is one strategy to increase your old finds fast, ignoring targets that are say in the 1-5 inch range and only digging targets in the 6+ range but this only works if you properly obtain the true depth. These tips will help you do that.

Hey maybe you can do me a favor, I gave my brother Robert an Explorer when I was out there but he's a noob and doesn't have anyone to hunt with. He lives in Milwaukie and I'm sure would welcome the opportunity to hunt with you and get some pointers. We didn't have much opportunity to hunt when I was out there as I was too busy with work and stuff. I myself only got out once in that whole time I was there. Let me know and I'll connect you guys if you are interested.

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Also, I prefer the digital screen and rarely use smartfind. This way I have a better idea of what I am about to dig.

Depends, if you are hunting shallower targets this makes perfect sense. But my friend if you want to dig deeper targets, in your soil thats 6-9 inch range in more difficult site conditions you are going to need to use the Smartfind screen. I'll tell you a story, when I first got my first Explorer I made a couple lucky shallow finds the first day out then I dug nothing but crap for 6-8 solid weeks. I was detecting sites that I would later dig hundreds and hundreds of old coins from yet in those first 6-8 weeks nada. The issue was that these coins were deep, in that 6-11 inch range. Here's the thing, take a silver dime at 5 inches, it ID's rock solid textbook silver dime. A silver dime at 9 inches...not so much. A half worn silver dime, yep thats off the textbook ID mark also. I have duge silver that ID'd 1/2 inch below an IH. So the deeper the targets get, the more the Explorer merges them with soil and/or iron signal so the ID gets pulled away from the textbook locations.

So continuing with my story finally Guv here gave me a tip, he said just go dig all targets (except nails of course) that are 6 inches or deeper no matter where it ID's on the screen. So I did that one day on a site I had already detected many times and found nothing but clad and....holy cow I dug like 9 deep IH's in the first hour. They did not ID anywhere near where I thought they were going to, nor did they sound anything like the sharp solid coin signal I was listening for. Over the next 2 years I dug several hundred IH's from this site and well over 100 old silver coins, the oldest was an 1830's bust dime. The same was true for all the other sites I had been hunting, there were litteraly hundreds of old coins there.

Using the Smartfind screen allows you to connect all the dots. You sweep a target, hmmm this target is kind of wide as I sweep it, there are some coin tones mixed in with some ground and/or iron tones but its mostly coin tones. Lift my coil yep the signal fades fast. Check my Smartfind screen and bingo this target is bouncing around like deep targets do BUT its bouncing around in the general coin area, maybe within a .5 inch x 1.5 inch area in the general vicinity of the coins, that confirms highly likely coin target and you dig!

Charles

PS: Feel free to post these emails on the forum if you like and think this info might help others.