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Sens Setting For Deep Coin Squeakers…


Happa54

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Hey everyone…

I’ve been tussling with something the past few days after reading a post regarding sens settings to bring out the deep squeakers (mainly silver and wheats).

I’m not hearing the deep squeakers with my Nox the way I do with my Safari, or my buddies Etrac and Explorer.  I don’t have confidence in the air tests nor freshly buried coins so my test results are inconclusive.

Are you hearing deep squeakers at a lower sens of say, 16 or 18 without losing noticeable depth? I’m running my Nox at 22-23 and I hear mostly loud shallow signals…even the coppers are loud at 5-6”. Would the high sens setting be drowning out the deep coins?  I haven’t dug a deep silver yet with the Nox.

I appreciate your feedback

 

 

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Not an expert but my 2 cents worth...

Sensitivity at 22-23 shouldn't be knocking out those deep coins, it should be enhancing it.  The only proviso to that is if this level of sensitivity is causing EMI troubles OR it is just enhancing all the feedback from trash and the ground to a point where it is just messy to listen to. 

I can only run up to about 20 sensitivity otherwise the mineralisation in my ground takes over.  Often only at 17-18 and still get deep silvers.

Last night I got a Shilling (silver) and a Penny (copper I think) in the same hole on my front nature strip.  The hole ended up being deeper than the pinpointer (Minelab Pro-Find = 9.5 inches).

Park 1, Sens 20, Recov Speed 6, 50 tones, horseshoe button on and off at various times. 

Have only recently switched to 50 tones and think it makes a slight difference in hearing signals that aren't necessarily showing up as VID's.

Hope that helps a little  ?

 

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11 hours ago, Cabin Fever said:

I see a lot of hunters with their coils well off the ground. Every inch above the ground is an inch lost under the ground.

You are so right.  In fact, some might argue that it is even more than that depending on soil conditions.  The air gap really causes a lot of signal loss so you might even be losing MORE than an inch for every inch off the ground. Scuff that coil scuff plate, that is what it is there for.

BTW - agree with Cabin Fever.  The Equinox has minimal modulation with depth.  That means if it can be detected at depth, it will still come in pretty strong, just as aluminum cans sound like a 2-inch quarter.  The only caveat being coins on edge or at the edge of detectability will have unreliable TIDs.  But the tone volume will still be fairly loud even if the tone ID is incorrect or unstable.  The only mode that may give you squeaker audio is gold mode because it is VCO pitch based and has a true threshold that enhances the ability to discern super weak signals if set properly.

 

As far as high sensitivity drowning out signals.  My deepest coin finds have come in the wet sand of the tide line -  several 15+ inch nickels at 25 sense (Beach 1) and the signals were unmistakable normal volume tones, not squeakers.  HTH.

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Thanks for your feedback everyone.

Here are pieces out of a thread from another forum post that made me think about my settings and prompted me to post this.

“I found that there isn't a real need to turn up the sensitivity to a high setting to get good depth. To a large part, the sensitivity just amplifies the audio response. The difference in depth between say 18 and 22 sensitivity settings is not noticeable if you're using good headphones. Also, I prefer using 50 tones so the need for tone breaks etc. on the 800 would be a big waste for me”

“Drop the sense to even 13 to try to proportional audibly get an idea of whats going on down in the dirt and how deep everything is...If I was running full bore sens, I couldnt tell audibly if this is a Q at 3 or a Q at 8...or a Q at 12....sure, the whole raise coil and whatnot dealie, it was a bit frustrating for me..trying to figure out a balanced set up that would allow the Proportional Audio to kick in accurate and still get me the depth and ID masked valuables”

“Yep, you got that right about the proportional audio response being diminished at high sensitivity settings. If a guy is smart, he'd bury a coin at 6 inches deep, set up the detector with the headphones that he's going to use and play around with the sensitivity and volume settings until he gets it all figured out. By raising the search coil over the 6-inch buried target you can figure out what are the best settings for your ears to get the most depth and still have the proportional audio response. I like to hear a whisper on really deep targets”

I hunt in all modes but I tend to stay more in Park 1, 50 tones, 0 IB, NC, GB, 3 recovery, 22-23 sens, 0 disc 80% of the time. 

It's an interesting subject and debateable unless I'm totally reading into this incorrectly. 

 

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Minelab improved the Audio Modulation with the Equinox  firmware update as well as the depth meter. Still not as good as CTX and E-Trac but the Equinox is deeper then both in my soil. There is enough modulation to put a smile on my face when I hit a deep high conductor signal.  

Looking at your settings maybe try dropping your Recovery Speed a notch and try out the new firmware if you haven’t already. The 15” coil improved my deep coin hunting more then I had anticipated it would. I haven’t pulled it off since I got it.

Bryan

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Hi Happa54,

you are still using the Nox 600 right?  For deeper targets the online manual recommends Park 2 or Field 2 since both have their multi-frequencies weighted more toward the higher frequencies. You could also run recovery speed on the 600 at 2 for a little more depth and swing slow.

Maybe this will help,

Jeff

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4 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Hi Happa54,

you are still using the Nox 600 right?  For deeper targets the online manual recommends Park 2 or Field 2 since both have their multi-frequencies weighted more toward the higher frequencies. You could also run recovery speed on the 600 at 2 for a little more depth and swing slow.

Maybe this will help,

Jeff

Jeff,  

I don’t recall nor can I find where the manual recommends Park 2 or Field 2 for “deeper” targets.  It does say the “2” modes are more suited for more difficult “conditions” (e.g., mineralized soils, high EMI, mid conductor and small target sensitivity can be enhanced) which makes sense for the higher frequency weightings of those modes.   But higher frequencies are naturally attenuated more by matter which means that they simply cannot penetrate as deeply as lower frequency signals.  For raw depth, the “1” modes dominate in general, especially for high conductors simply due to physics, though under some specific circumstances (e.g., mineralized soil) the “2” modes can have higher effective depth.  So if the manual says that the “2” modes are more suited for deeper targets, that would leave me scratching my head.  Can you point me to the page in the manual where that is written, thanks.

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Yes, Chase... this is the way I understand it. Park 1 is weighted towards the higher conductors, ie; silver. So, when I am searching for silver among the trash, I use the "1" modes. If my game plan on another hunt are for the relics, then I go into the "2" modes. 

It seems that my settings are closely in line with what most of you are using.  I also updated immediately when it became available, since it was asked. 

It could be that I haven't put my coil over a deep silver yet with the Nox so I started thinking too much after I read the posts that prompted me to start this conversation.  I dug quite a bit of silver last year, but only about 50% of what I dug with my Safari the previous year.

It's been an interesting transition going from FBS to Multil IQ and I guess it's just another learning curve. I'll continue to run my Nox with no changes and just see how it works out in time. 

Thank you for your support everyone. 

 

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Hap,

One other thing I noticed as I was going through your compendium of quotes and advice posted above.  You quoted someone as saying:

“I found that there isn't a real need to turn up the sensitivity to a high setting to get good depth. To a large part, the sensitivity just amplifies the audio response. The difference in depth between say 18 and 22 sensitivity settings is not noticeable if you're using good headphones. Also, I prefer using 50 tones so the need for tone breaks etc. on the 800 would be a big waste for me”

I look at sensitivity a little differently and some testing I ran at the beach last fall following the firmware update kind of opened my eyes regarding sensitivity and depth with Equinox.  More about that below.

The key to Equinox is optimizing the signal-to-noise ratio.  So think of the things that increase or decrease signal (e.g., sensitivity) or that increase or decrease noise (e.g., sensitivity).

The following are truisms, but just like everything in metal detecting, there is always a tradeoff, caveat, or "it depends" YMMV involved.

Lower frequencies penetrate deeper (raw depth) but do not necessarily result in maximum effective depth because that is dependent on soil condition, target conductivity (including corrosion), size, shape, and orientation.  

Higher frequencies excite mid conductors (gold, lead, brass, aluminum, nickel) and resolve smaller targets better than lower frequencies (due to the smaller wavelength of higher frequencies).  This means that with all things being equal (soil condition, EMI, coil size, sensitivity, target size/shape/orientation) a higher frequency can detect a mid-conductive target deeper than a low frequency.  However, the deepest mid-conductor that can be detected by a high frequency is still likely shallower than the deepest high conductive  target of the same shape/size/orientation that can be detected by a low frequency.  In other words if I had two dime sized targets - one consisting of gold and the other consisting of silver.  I can probably detect the gold target deeper at 40 khz than I can at 5 khz.  However, that 40 khz gold target depth will likely be much shallower than the max depth at which I can detect the silver target at 5 khz.

Even though lower frequencies can penetrate deeper overall (more "signal") they are also more susceptible to EMI than higher frequencies (more "noise").

Higher recovery speeds result in greater target separation but may impact depth.  However, there is a limitation on how much depth you can gain by lowering recovery speed, because the resulting slower swing speeds may result in higher ground noise which limits effective depth at low recovery speed.  So a lower recovery speed may increase depth ("signal") but that may be offset by increased ground "noise".

You should run sensitivity only as high as you can to maintain stability to maximize depth.  Just cranking up sensitivity for the sake of maximizing the "signal" in the name of depth only serves to potentially increase the "noise".  Does that mean you should never crank sensitivity?  No.  If you can get away with 22-23 or even 25 sensitivity without increase "noise" and chatter - then by all means use that higher sensitivity, there is typically no downside (unless there is a lot of ferrous trash - more on that below).  Conversely, if you have to lower sensitivity into the teens to get rid of chatter, then do so.  But be advised, the thing I found that was eye opening in my beach tests is that lowering sensitivity even down to 15  REALLY affected depth capability.  I was testing various types of targets buried at around 8 to 10 inches in the sand and I found that many mid-conductive and even some small high conductive targets were on the edge of detectability at that depth even at low frequencies.  Lowering sensitivity to 15 definitely made some 8 to 10 inch targets completely disappear.  I was very surprised that lowering sensitivity from 20 to 15 in dry sand caused a depth loss of 3 to 5 inches or more.  In other words, I respectfully disagree with whoever said above that lowering sensitivity from 22 to 18 has a negligible affect on depth.  You should not hesitate to lower it if you need to get rid of chatter, but don't fool yourself in thinking that there is no noticeable difference in depth.

Finally, one case where it might be useful to lower sensitivity in the absence of EMI/chatter is when you are detecting in highly mineralized and/or thick ferrous trash conditions.  Depending on the target of interest and soil conditions, you should choose your best mode (e.g., a "1" mode for silver or a "2" mode for mid-conductors, or consider just using a "2" mode for all target types in moderate to high mineralization).  Select the appropriate coil or recovery speed based on target density (the smaller coil does not necessary separate better, recovery speed is the main factor in separation, but you will have less targets under the coil with a small coil which makes for better target acquisition).  Finally, consider whether you should lower sensitivity to prevent the mineralization and thick ferrous target density from overloading the coil which may allow some partially masked shallow keepers to emerge from ferrous trash muck.

Use of the pinpoint feature, single frequency, number of tones, and suppressing discrimination (horseshoe button) can also have varying effects on how well you hear the signal from the desirable targets but I reckon to a lesser degree than proper ground balancing, mode selection, sensitivity setting, and recovery speed.

Anyway, every situation is different.  The detectorist who understands the various tradeoffs between sensitivity, frequency, recovery speed, swing speed, discrimination, and even ground balance is the one has a leg up on those who are just guessing about what the settings do and are kind of wandering around in the wilderness, figuratively and literally.

HTH

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