Watching For The Manticore Boat

[fishersari]

6 hours ago, steveg said:

Well, UPS did not let me down a second time...

It here!

Steve

sniff sniff.. smells like new 😁.. hope u like the full tones + rich + all metal..

[GB_Amateur]

20 hours ago, steveg said:

Well, UPS did not let me down a second time...

It here!

Sounds great, and now we get to read all about your experiences -- almost as good for us!

[FloridaSon]

Dang, all my fav posters are getting Manticored!

Does being #8 at a small dealer help?

[steveg]

17 hours ago, fishersari said:

sniff sniff.. smells like new 😁.. hope u like the full tones + rich + all metal..

Exactly where I started out, today, with the audio!  And I clicked well with that sound profile...

Steve

[steveg]

On 1/17/2023 at 6:33 PM, GB_Amateur said:

Sounds great, and now we get to read all about your experiences -- almost as good for us!

OH MY!  I don't know about all of that; I am pretty sure that I make peoples' eyes bleed, with some of my posts!  🙂

I hunted just a few hours today; I did something different this time, as compared to what I usually do when trying out a new machine.  I didn't test coins before the hunt, didn't run it through the test garden, I just wanted to see how "intelligible" the machine would be, after running the Equinox for five years.  So, I just "dove in," largely blind, to see what would happen.  And my impression after today is that it's a pretty smooth transition, though with that said, there is ALOT of nuance in the audio that needs to be learned.  That "polyphonic" audio...I don't even know how to describe it, but it's very interesting.  

I wasn't able to get over any deep, good targets, which I was hoping to do.  I hunted with my friend who is also a long-time Equinox user, and we compared alot of signals.  But neither of us could get over a deep "coin-like" target.  I dug a couple of moderate-depth older coins (a couple of wheats and a buffalo nickel, and a sales-tax token from about 6" to 7" deep), but couldn't find a real deep one, so that we could compare.  I was hoping to find something that the Manticore could hear, but that the Equinox would struggle with...but I never located one that deep.  We'll try another place the next time, but for now, I'm pleased with the machine.  I need to get over some tough targets, and there just weren't enough here.

A couple of notes are that it does (using noise cancel appropriately) run more stable than the EQX; I was able to run it at 28 sensitivity in a neighborhood park, which surprised me. 

Also, a KEY to this machine, will be understanding how/where to set your ferrous limits.  Since the limits you set are 100% responsible for whether an iron target reports to your ears as ferrous or non-ferrous, your experience will 100% depend upon those limits settings.

For instance, I was using All-Terrain High Conductors.  But, at the start of the hunt I adjusted my upper limits from the factory setting of 8, to 7 (in other words, I moved the upper limit "up," making less of the screen "gray" and more of the screen "open," as compared to the factory setting).  

Before long, I hit a target that was a pretty good mix of high tone, and iron grunt.  Particularly from certain angles, I could coax a pretty good high tone.  So, I called my buddy over with his Equinox, running recovery speed 3 (like I was), and his iron bias set at FE=0 (unless he changed it from what he normally hunts at).  He evaluated the target, and all he was hearing were iron grunts, with an occasional, quick high-tone chirp.  Interesting.  It sounded MUCH worse, on his Equinox.  It turned out to be a rusty screw.  That told me that -- compared to his Equinox, I was running my ferrous limits more "loose" on the Manticore, than what his iron bias setting was on his Equinox.  As a result, I was allowing a clearly iron target to sound somewhat "diggable" i.e. a bit like a coin next to a nail.  I KNEW that if I "tightened up" my upper limits setting, I could have made that target sound more solidly like iron, with less "high tone," i.e. much more similar to what his Equinox reported.

SO, I adjusted my upper limits back to 8 (since, for this first hunt, I wanted to start a bit "simple," and not "wade into the deep end" so to speak, with settings that would be a bit more geared toward a higher-level unmasking strategy). 

SO, a bit later, I hit a target that was a somewhat similar to that previous one I described, but this time with more iron grunts, and less high tones (the high tones were a bit more spotty, and "chirpy").  With this one sounding the way it did, it was a target I would not normally dig, with my Equinox.  It turned out to be another rusty screw.  SO -- with my limits set at 8 this time, this screw read much WORSE than the prior one did -- i.e. much more similar to how that prior one registered on my friend's Equinox.  

The moral of my story is, most of us -- when trying to "unmask" good targets from nearby iron -- have an idea in our heads as to "how much" high tone we want to hear, as we rotate around the target, when trying to decide whether to dig (i.e. I think it may be a coin next to a nail) or not dig (i.e. I think it's just a nail with a bit of "falsing.")  NASA-Tom describes the way he does it, as "sector angles," as he rotates around a target.  The larger of an angle a target will "hold" the high tone for, before transitioning to iron grunts, the more likely the target is to be non-ferrous.  Makes sense, right?  Thinking in terms of slices of pie, the bigger my "high tone" slice of pie, as I rotate around the target, the more likely there is a non-ferrous item co-located with the iron.  But, if it's just a tiny, thin slice of "high tone pie," followed by a HUGE slice of "iron grunts," it's likely just iron that is falsing a bit.  BUT -- here's the important thing to understand with the Manticore.  Each adjustment to your ferrous limits, will CHANGE THE SIZE OF THESE SLICES OF PIE.  In other words, this "characteristic" that we listen for...i.e. how much high tone and how much iron grunting may occur with a given target, so as to make our dig vs. no-dig decision, is TOTALLY DETERMINED by where your ferrous limits are set.  Adjusting limits by just ONE or TWO levels, up or down, TOTALLY CHANGES the way that very same target will sound (i.e. the percentage of high tones vs. iron grunts...the sizes of the "slices of pie").  We can make the VERY SAME TARGET sound like something that absolutely needs to be dug, or does NOT need to be dug...just by how we have our limits set. 

I hope what I said makes sense; it's not TOTALLY different from iron bias, on the Equinox, but with the Manticore, you have even MORE control (i.e. 100% control) over whether a "falsy" nail is mostly iron grunts, or an even mix of iron grunts and high tones, OR -- 100% HIGH TONES.  Because, again...as I mentioned in another post...if you adjust your limits to zero, you can make ANY iron target "sound good" (100% high tones).  I won't repeat the "why" of this, but if anyone is confused, let me know, and I'll try to explain it again.

I hope this makes some sense...

Steve

[steveg]

4 hours ago, FloridaSon said:

Dang, all my fav posters are getting Manticored!

Does being #8 at a small dealer help?

FloridaSon,

For what it's worth, I was #3 at a relatively small dealer; he has received I think 5 so far...

[strick]

Nice first report. That upper limit is easy enough to adjust. I had it to 11 at one spot helped quite a bit still found lots of good targets and stopped the excessive falsing I was getting at that particular spot. Looking forward to more of your insight.

strick

[GB_Amateur]

10 hours ago, steveg said:

I called my buddy over with his Equinox, running recovery speed 3 (like I was),...

This brings up a question that's been bouncing around my head, and I think it applies to to the Eqx 900 as well:  do the numeric settings on the Manticore (or 900) correspond exactly to the same value settings on the Eqx 800?  Recovery speed and senstivity are two obvious ones, and I think many people are assuming the answer is 'yes' in both cases.  At this point (just from reading since I don't have my Manticore yet), I'm not at all sure but am WAGging towards 'no'.

I didn't see a mention of the 2-d screen in your post.  Currently are you simply concentrating on the audio, comparing/contrasting to the Eqx 800 audio?

Thanks for your reporting and ideas.  I know you want many tens of hours on this new detector before drawing any strong conclusions but it's good to see your brain's wheels turning as you proceed in that direction.

I've read the (currently) 15 page thread on the Dankowski forum which you've been a significant participant, asking Tom D. lots of questions while trying to understand its features, in some instances by comparing with the FBS detectors you know.  Your role has flipped here -- you're the Tom D. and I (and others) are the steveg.  😁

 

[phrunt]

I’m confident the higher sensitivity numbers are higher and not just the same on a new scale, EMI handling is much better too, I did some side by sides with my 800 yesterday.  If the small coil is as sensitive as the Nox by using these higher sensitivity settings to make up for its bigger size my Nox is retired.  
 

I had to keep my beach hand scoop well above my control box or it’d pick it up with a 26 ID, felt like I was using a PI.

[UT Dave]

Not watching for the boat anymore!  Mine got here today.  Charging now.  About to pull it off the charger and take a spin around my coin garden before it gets dark and starts snowing again.

Going to take a few days and head south for some ghost towny stuff very soon.  Even that looks to be pretty frozen this coming weekend, so probably next weekend.

- Dave