Tuning For Conditions?

[Jeff McClendon]

In 50 tones you can’t quiet them down since there are only two tone regions=ferrous/ nonferrous so you would quiet down the entire nonferrous tone region as a result. It is easier to quiet those numbers down in 5 tones since the 4 tone breaks are movable in 5 tones. 
 

Another way to deal with 39 and 40 would be to reject them entirely with the accept/reject button. You could always double check with the horseshoe button engaged

[UT Dave]

Thanks again for the help gentlemen!  I appreciate it.

- Dave

[Chase Goldman]

6 minutes ago, UT Dave said:

Thanks again for the help gentlemen!  I appreciate it.

- Dave

I think folks have given you a lot of good leads to pursue.  People who are successful with the "detector" (as a tool) part of detecting are willing to experiment (as you have) but also recognize the real skill (other than ensuring your coil covers every inch of your site) comes with being able to balance all the performance tradeoffs that any detector presents you with.  If you practically can't or won't dig all targets, then your only option is to balance tradeoffs and "play the odds" which means that sometimes you will lose, but if you are good you might be able to beat the "house" in the long run.  Good luck and happy hunting.

[maxxkatt]

On 11/25/2021 at 1:35 PM, UT Dave said:

I'd like to increase my knowledge and skill in tuning my Nox 800 for specific conditions.

Those of you who tune your machines off the factory defaults, please share what you have!  Not what your settings are, but how you arrive at those settings.

For instance, is there a relationship between different settings, such, that a preferred order of operations is suggested for optimal results?  I noise cancel, then ground grab, then adjust sensitivity.  FE2, Recovery, Threshold, is there a best practice for the order in which they are set?

How do you know when you should increase or decrease FE2 or Recovery?  What factors or indicators go into that decision?

I've arrived at my current default beginning state, by trying to make things first "worse" in my test garden.  By adjusting each setting individually up and down though the full range of adjustment, noting whether signal got better or worse at each step, to get what I considered the best signal on a deep silver coin.  But doing so in a controlled situation with a known target like that is one thing, knowing how to read variable conditions and how to tune accordingly is quite another.

How do you make your tuning decisions in the field?  What are the settings you most frequently find need adjusted to accommodate search conditions?

- Dave

When hunting coins in a real trashy area switch to 4kHz. It totally hides pop tops and pull tabs and keeps them from masking a silver coin and keeps from down averaging the coin value. A guy did a video of that fact and it was hard for me to believe. So I tested it out and he was 100% correct. Then I went to my trashy park and I mean trashy, trashy with pop tops and pull tabs and same great results. Was quite easy to put out coins in areas I would not hunt before with my 800.

 

[maxxkatt]

On 11/25/2021 at 1:35 PM, UT Dave said:

I'd like to increase my knowledge and skill in tuning my Nox 800 for specific conditions.

Those of you who tune your machines off the factory defaults, please share what you have!  Not what your settings are, but how you arrive at those settings.

For instance, is there a relationship between different settings, such, that a preferred order of operations is suggested for optimal results?  I noise cancel, then ground grab, then adjust sensitivity.  FE2, Recovery, Threshold, is there a best practice for the order in which they are set?

How do you know when you should increase or decrease FE2 or Recovery?  What factors or indicators go into that decision?

I've arrived at my current default beginning state, by trying to make things first "worse" in my test garden.  By adjusting each setting individually up and down though the full range of adjustment, noting whether signal got better or worse at each step, to get what I considered the best signal on a deep silver coin.  But doing so in a controlled situation with a known target like that is one thing, knowing how to read variable conditions and how to tune accordingly is quite another.

How do you make your tuning decisions in the field?  What are the settings you most frequently find need adjusted to accommodate search conditions?

- Dave

I will tell you this. The combinatons and permutations are quite gigantic on the 800 resulting from the many ways you can set an 800. Stay as absolute close to standard modes. Why, because the engineers have done an excellent job of setting those defaults. And if you get one or two settings wrong, you in effect detune your 800 and make it much less efficient. I had to learn that lesson the hard, hard way. Wasted a lot of my hunting time with a detuned detector.

 

[GB_Amateur]

2 hours ago, maxxkatt said:

When hunting coins in a real trashy area switch to 4kHz. It totally hides pop tops and pull tabs and keeps them from masking a silver coin and keeps from down averaging the coin value. A guy did a video of that fact and it was hard for me to believe. So I tested it out and he was 100% correct. Then I went to my trashy park and I mean trashy, trashy with pop tops and pull tabs and same great results. Was quite easy to put out coins in areas I would not hunt before with my 800.

What settings are you using?  Search mode, number of tones, recovery speed, notching,...?  I have some picnic areas which are loaded with pulltabs and I'm pretty sure those are hiding some nice old coins.  I want to give your method a try.

Also, if you can post a link to the video you mention (or at least the name of "a guy" to help search), that would be appreciated.

[UT Dave]

15 hours ago, maxxkatt said:

 And if you get one or two settings wrong, you in effect detune your 800 and make it much less efficient. I had to learn that lesson the hard, hard way. Wasted a lot of my hunting time with a detuned detector.

 

What was the tip off that your machine was detuned?  Which settings were off?  How much off did it take, for the machine to be much less efficient?

I'm not sure I'd recognize a detuned machine.

I'm going to make more use of the profile button, for in the field, on the spot A/B testing - changing a single setting at a time.  See what patterns I can discern over time.  Yesterday, in a trashy park, I used it to instantly switch recovery speed between 4 and 6 with all other settings the same.  Noticeably different and I think I do prefer the faster speed in the denser trash.  Find of the day was a small .925 ring in dense trash around a picnic table.  Also pulled a couple of deep wheats.  But no silver coins.

I'll have to remember to hit the frequency button and try the 4hz on spots like that, just to see.  The only times I have ever left multi is to mitigate EMI.

- Dave

[maxxkatt]

The tip off was some day hunting and not finding much. If you really don't understand all of the settings use the standard settings and just noise cancel and ground balance. From the early days of having the 800 I messed with some of the advanced settings and not knowing really what they were all about.

I would put a standard setting that you think is best in your user setting. Then play around. One thing that gets adjusted a lot on the Nox is the sensitivity in an effort to get rid of all the seemingly good good signals from lots of small fragments of metallic trash especially modern metallic fragments. So you drop the sensitivity to quiet the machine and you really lose depth.

mess with the recovery rate and the iron balance and you can also detune the detector if you don't really know how to use those two settings and correctly apply them to your local site.

Big hint. run your threshold and listen to the number of targets under your coil. Out in a field with few targets you can lower your recovery rate and get a little more depth. But the reverse is true, in a trashy park your threshold might be going off like a machine gun. you need to use a high recovery rate and if you do that and drop back the sensitivity to quiet the 800 you then are back down to if you are lucky a 4-5" recovery depth. So you will only conclude there is no deep silver in that park where you are hunting. So you are hunting now with a dectector "tuned" or set up to not be able to find deep silver.

A better alternative for deep coins especially silver is to use a small 6" coil and use the standard park 1 or  2 mode and swing slowly with the most sensitivity you can stand. And hunt in the 4kHz mode. That will eliminate the pull tabs, pop tops and some can slaw. No joke, it really will. Test  it out.

I found out the hard way the most successful Nox hunters are doing:

1) not hunting in modern trashy areas.

or:

2) really know how to set up their Nox or both of these.

The nox is a really hot machine, great for gold hunting in the desert, small ear studs on the beach and volleyball courts, but that fine hot sensitivity to small metallic fragments should be able to be switched off. As far as I know, the only way to switch it off is to really turn down the overall sensitivity and detune hunting in for items where you don't wish to hear all those small pieces of modern trash. That is a feature of multi-frequency, so maybe hunt in 15 or 20 khz so as to disable the "hotness" of the Nox. Probably 4, 10, 15  if you are hunting for silver coins. Just a suggestion. I don't own my 800 any more.

I know this is a bit of rambling, so I hope you could get something out of it that is useful. So your own test on 4khz.

put a silver dime next to a square tab on some clean ground. swing in 4 kHz and then in multi and see how the TID and audio reports on the square tab and the silver dime. In a very trashy modern park, this will eliminate 80% of your problem targets. I saw a member's video on this and could not believe it and tried it and now believe it.

 

 

[maxxkatt]

16 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

What settings are you using?  Search mode, number of tones, recovery speed, notching,...?  I have some picnic areas which are loaded with pulltabs and I'm pretty sure those are hiding some nice old coins.  I want to give your method a try.

Also, if you can post a link to the video you mention (or at least the name of "a guy" to help search), that would be appreciated.

Just use park1 or park2 and switch to 4 kHz. Even if it is noisy use a higher sensitivity than normal, as much as you can stand. Then listen for your coin audio. If you are comfortable using bins and tones, make sure your high tone will be silver coins, which it will be in a park1 or park2 probably so likely no need to adjust bins and tones.

I have done just what I described in a very popular park with tons of modern trash. Turn on your threshold and listen. If it going off like a automatic weapon, that is what I call tons of modern trash. Doing this I started finding coins rather easily. No silver coins, because this park is along the Chattahoochee river and every ten years or so it floods and I rather think the old coins are too deep for most detectors. 

 

[GB_Amateur]

5 minutes ago, maxxkatt said:

Just use park1 or park2 and switch to 4 kHz.

I assume you keep default recovery speeds (5 in park 1 and 6 in park2).  Thanks for the info.  Has your memory given up any more recollection about that video?