Racer 2 Trial Run

[Jackpine]

First time out with the Racer 2

http://www.dankowskidetectors.com/discussions/read.php?2,101950

The small brass next to the nail came in at 11-12 from most angles but with bounces into the iron and occasionally a high hit in the 20's.  Out of the ground it reads 25. Can't say for sure but the expanded non-ferous range probably saved the day on that one.  With the original Racer's 0-40 iron range I might have passed on it if there were more iron sounds coming in.  Monte suggested in a post to lower the iron tone break from 10 down to 8 and seeing this I'm in agreement.

 

Tom

[Steve Herschbach]

Everything comes at a cost. Moving the iron zone from 0 - 40 on the original Racer to 0 - 10 on the Racer 2 actually compresses the results in the exact ferrous/non-ferrous break point area. Getting a fine balance there is a bit trickier now and very small or very thin non-ferrous items may have more possibility of dropping into the ferrous range. The problem ultimately is small ferrous and small non-ferrous overlap, especially in bad ground. So yeah, I have observed this myself and adjusting the tone break down a couple notchs would solve this, though a bit more ferrous will also read good as a result.

The White's range is -95 to 0 ferrous and 0 - 95 non-ferrous so not quite the same but very close. I like the M6 diagram below because White's clearly shows how they visualize that overlap area. it is not a clean break one to the other on any detector, Racer 2 included.

The nice part on the Racer 2 is you can shift that break point to suit the situation.

[Jackpine]

Steve,

Of course you are right that it compresses the range.  Never was good at that sort of thing. lol

Yes and not a problem just lower the disc point.  Same thing we found out with the X-terra, so not something new.

Have made a few changes to the setup.  Lowered the iron vol to 2 and raised the mid tone freq to 55 for a little more intelligibility to my ears.

[tvanwho]

I am confused as to what you guys mean by an iron tone break point?

[Steve Herschbach]

The White's MXT Relic mode makes two tones. Low tone iron, higher tone not iron. Where that tone switches or "breaks" is decided by the disc knob. You decide where the tone "break point" is exactly with the knob. The Racer 2 has a similar capability but in two locations, the iron break point, and the high non-ferrous break point.

Pretend you have a detector that has VDI numbers that go from -10 to +10

-10 -09 -08 -07 -06 -05 -04 -03 -02 -01 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

In theory all negative numbers are ferrous and all positive numbers are non-ferrous. Pretty simple.

A factory preset detector will set the tone to break at zero and all negative numbers give a low tone, and all positive numbers a high tone. If done right this can be pretty effective.

The problem is it does not really work like that, especially in mineralized ground. There is not a sharp divide between ferrous and non-ferrous, but an overlap. In the example above the area from -05 to 00 may be the area where ferrous and non-ferrous overlap.

-10 -09 -08 -07 -06 -05 -04 -03 -02 -01 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

If you have a variable break point, you make a decision. If you set at 00 you eliminate nearly all ferrous targets and so just do not dig any. All items from 00 on down make the low tone and you ignore them. You just dig non-ferrous. The problem there is you miss some non-ferrous items that read ferrous.

-10 -09 -08 -07 -06 -05 -04 -03 -02 -01 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

Or you can set your break point at -05 and so only -06 and lower makes the low tone. You dig a lot more small ferrous trash this way, but you find ferrous items missed by everyone else that did not want to dig as much trash as you are willing to dig.

-10 -09 -08 -07 -06 -05 -04 -03 -02 -01 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

Between those two extremes you can choose just how much trash you want to dig versus how many good items you are willing to risk missing. Here we decide to set the break point at -02

-10 -09 -08 -07 -06 -05 -04 -03 -02 -01 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

[tvanwho]

So, I take it you would air test for nails and such vs the goodies before you go in the field to hunt or during the hunt?

Sounds a bit complicated vs a turn on and go machine. Can you get more gold targets doing this too since shallow BIG gold nuggets tend to sound like ferrous trash? As Digger Bob showed us with his TDI and that 5 pound Butte gold nugget last year..

[Steve Herschbach]

It is not complicated at all Tom - you have a Tesoro Lobo. Put it in disc mode, where do you set the knob to reject ferrous? There is not a magic setting (breakpoint), there is a range and it is just as I have described above. You can reject ALL ferrous and miss some gold. You can dig more ferrous and miss less gold. Where you set it depends on you, your detector, and how well you learn it. Trying small bits of ferrous trash and small bits of aluminum can be very enlightening. The setting will vary by location and amount of trash plus ground mineralization. Most people find a setting that seems to work and use it everywhere all the time. Bad habit to get into but done it myself.

Whenever possible push the setting lower and dig more ferrous. The reward will be more good finds that others miss.

[Steve Herschbach]

Minelab X-Terra 705 Iron Mask:

In Prospecting Mode, the objective is to find targets in mineralised, ‘difficult’ ground where target signals overlap each other. The Discrimination Scale becomes an expanded Ferrous Discrimination Scale (Iron Mask Discrimination Scale). If the Iron Mask setting is adjusted towards 0 most gold nuggets will be accepted, but some ferrous junk may also be accepted. If the Iron Mask setting is adjusted towards 20, more ferrous junk will be rejected but some gold nuggets may also be rejected.

[Steve Herschbach]

The Racer 2 setup is near identical to what Garrett does with the AT Pro and the "Iron Audio" feature, the only difference being the AT Pro ferrous is in the 0-40 range and Racer 2 is 0-10 range. The Racer 2 goes one further and lets you adjust the high tone break point at 60 which is factory preset on the AT Pro.

Here is the Garrett sales pitch:

Iron Audio™

Scattered iron objects in the ground can mask good targets and even create “ghost signals” that appear to be a good target. Garrett’s selectable Iron Audio feature allows the user to hear discriminated iron (normally silenced) in order to know the whole picture and avoid being tricked into digging an undesired target.

Iron Audio also allows the user to adjust the mid-tone’s range to include all targets above the point of discrimination. The user is effectively adjusting the cut-off between Low-tone discriminated trash targets and mid-tone targets. This Garrett feature works in both Standard and Pro Modes on the AT Pro. (See illustration below)

[Jackpine]

With the Racer the thing is it unmasks so well compared to other machines that it is picking up non-ferrous items where the Target ID is dragged way down the scale by the co-located iron.  In my post where the brass shell case read 25 out of the ground but came in just above the preset iron/non-ferrous break point, it brings up the possibility of other desirable targets which may only occasionally bounce into the non-ferrous range.  Hence lowering the iron break point below the factory preset.  Even though the Racer 2 can be set up with various disc options, in reality it's a pure beep-dig detector of great ability.

Tom