Makro Gold Racer Settings Recommendations

[Rege-PA]

Those of you that use this machine what are your favorite settings? Any advantage of using Disc 2?

I may get to use mine soon and would like any advice to speed up my learning curve.

Any problems at Rye Patch or  Arizona with it?

Info appreciated.

[Steve Herschbach]

I run in all metal, light threshold, gain to the max if the ground allows it. ISAT as low as it can go and retain smooth operation over the ground. The meter will give target id indications.

Ferrous targets tend to lock in hard at 21 or 22 on the numbers. In theory anything under 40 is ferrous, but to be safe I would investigate items as low as 35 or even 30 depending on the situation and amount of trash. More here on ferrous / non-ferrous overlap. However, as I noted most ferrous locks in hard around 21 - 22 leaving no doubt what the target is. In All Metal mode very tiny or very deep targets beyond discrimination range give no target id at all, automatically meaning they need investigation.

Disc 2 is the more powerful of the two disc modes. For areas with too much trash where analyzing each target gets to be too much, I will use one of the disc modes set for two tone ferrous/non-ferrous. You need to lower the tone break into the 30-35 region per the note above. Iron targets just burp away, while non-ferrous targets pop out with a beep. If that gets to be too much noise, increasing the ID Filter to eliminate most ferrous responses completely can make for a quieter experience in really trashy locations. As always, I must include the warning that the more discrimination applied, the more risk of missing a good target. Use no more discrimination than needed to preserve your sanity! Given that most ferrous hits hard in the low twenties, advancing the ID Filter to 25 will get rid of most ferrous, then low tones alert you to the overlap range, high tones bullets, shell casings - maybe even gold!

One last note. Due to an issue called "ferrous wrap" some ferrous targets will "wrap around" into the high end of the disc range. There are few good targets except silver dollars that will read in the 90's and so you will find that most readings in that range are large ferrous targets.

Rye Patch is mild ground, no problem running hot.

 

[Steve Herschbach]

Here is where knowing your detector can have benefits. Again, here is that link on ferrous / non-ferrous overlap and how mineralized ground can pull target id numbers down into the ferrous range.

Another thing most people do not know is many detectors simply cut the low end of the ferrous range off, as it flows seamlessly into ground and hot rock territory. Many coin machines do not let you access this range and the disc controls just bottom out slightly below non-ferrous. The danger here and the reason why many nugget hunters dig every target they encounter is gold can get pulled well down into the ferrous range. It even gets pulled down into the soil and hot rock range, which is why every ground balance scheme created also creates so-called "holes" where certain gold nuggets go undetected. This chart from Makro clearly illustrates this point.

Now, I get the dig everything theory, I really do. I adhere to it as much as possible. The fact however is that it is not practical in some locations, unless you have an eternity of time to devote to digging tens of thousands of ferrous targets. This is where a good discriminating detector can better your odds of finding a nugget in the midst of all the trash.

On the Gold Racer and other machines while in all metal mode you see target id numbers appear on screen. That TID number of 8 is almost surely a hot rock, but Makro hedges their bets in the chart above by also alerting you to the fact that there is a tiny chance there is a gold nugget being masked under that rock. It is really no different than having a nail right over a nugget. Here is another chart that helps illustrate the TID range on the Gold Racer.

When you go to the disc modes you can eliminate signals based on the ID Filter setting. A great feature and the reason why we like disc modes. Now, very low TID numbers are almost always ground readings due to the expanded ground range. Also, since a disc circuit is a filter, some EMI may bleed through at very low disc settings, and so a little filtering can help eliminate that also. For this reason the Gold Racers and other Makro/Nokta detectors come with the ID Filer preset at some level.

The Gold Racer ID Filter is preset at 10 and this is a good and safe setting for normal use. It is well below the 0 setting on some detectors, like many Tesoro ED120 models. The 0-10 range here would be well into negative number territory on White's machines. It is interesting that XP just added a portion of this range back into the Deus (the new negative disc settings) with the V4 update, no doubt to improve it for prospecting purposes.

OK, so why does this matter? Another nice thing about having discrimination on a VLF, especially a hot VLF, is in the ability to deal with hot rocks. Maybe ferrous targets are not the issue, but hot rocks are driving you crazy in all metal mode. An old trick with the Gold Bug 2 if this crops up is just put the machine in iron disc mode, and most hot rocks just magically disappear. You can play the same game with the Gold Racer, but unlike the Gold Bug 2 the iron/ground disc setting is adjustable (the ID Filter). The preset of 10 can be tweaked up or down and what you do is simply set it as low as will work. In rare cases going lower than 10 (especially if relying on tones) might get you a little extra sensitivity and possibly gold. In more severe locations bumping the disc up higher will eliminate some bad hot rocks.

The ID Filter works in conjunction with the iMASK setting, which is similar to the Reactivity setting on a Deus or SAT on gold detectors. If the Gold Racer has a lot of false signals due to highly mineralized soil or hot rocks in the discrimination modes, first re-ground balance. If the false signals continue, lower the sensitivity and check again. In case the false signals still exist, try increasing the ID Filter value keeping in mind that ferrous metals will be eliminated and you may miss signals of smaller nuggets by doing so. Regardless of all these, if the false signals still exist, first change the sensitivity and ID Filter values back to their previous levels. Then, increase the iMASK level until the false signals are eliminated. At the maximum level of iMASK, false signals will disappear or will be minimized. However, in some cases, increasing the iMASK will result in either loss of depth or lack of detection of certain metals. NOTE: iMASK value ranges between 0-6. The factory default is 1. At ''0'', the iMASK feature will be inactive. In low mineral ground setting the iMASK to ''0'' is recommended for extra sensitivity.

A reminder from the post above. Due to an issue called "ferrous wrap" some ferrous targets will "wrap around" into the high end of the disc range. There are few good targets except silver dollars that will read in the 90's and so you will find that most readings in that range are large ferrous targets.

Finally, I will close with this. The Gold Racer is a high frequency, high gain detector. That means in extreme mineralized ground it simply is the wrong tool for the job. Expect to have to run at very low sensitivity levels to compensate and depth will be severely reduced. That is just the way it is, and the only real solution for situations like that is to go to a PI detector. That's what they are made for!