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steveg

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  1. Yep, it's not an "easy" material to work with. Holes can be drilled with a high-quality, sharp bit; for trimming, a wet-tile saw works well. I try to drill as few holes myself as possible, though. Whenever possible, I have my tube suppliers cut the holes, via CNC milling. But, it can certainly be done with a good drill bit, and especially if you have a drill press... Steve
  2. GB_Amateur... Couple things. 1. I believe he uses a dime for the testing, and upon arriving at a hunt site, he would actually run through EACH of the noise-cancel channels, air-test-checking that dime, and seeing which channel would give him the most "depth" (air test), which he then determined was the best channel (at least at that moment, until/unless the EMI source changed). And in checking that dime with each channel, there were sometimes INCHES of difference, and SOMETIMES inches of difference EVEN WITHOUT AUDIBLE EMI (silent EMI). So, in this way, he'd KNOW that he was hunting the noise-cancel channel that best mitigated the EMI present at that time, on that site. And yes, if even the BEST noise-cancel channel offered depth that was too far below what he had previously determined to be "max depth performance" of the unit, he'd switch to another unit if it offered better performance, relative to the existing EMI present. But, recently, I was speaking with him, and asked him if the specific "LONG-PRESS NOISE CANCEL" method that he has described in detail, with the Manticore, REPLACES the need to do the "air-test-check a dime with every noise-cancel channel and see which one offers the best depth at a given location at a given time," and he said YES. This is what the noise cancel on MC was engineered to do. This specific procedure on the Manticore (not just press the button, let go, and let the unit do its quick, one-time, 1/3-of-a-second-per-channel check that occurs if you just press and release the noise cancel button) REPLACES the need to air-test-check every single channel to find the one that gives the best depth (i.e. the one that is affecting the machine's performance the least). I found that very interesting... Steve
  3. Brad -- DUH! Never even thought about the fact that you are in the middle of winter up there in the North! Anyway, love the grip idea! And, thanks for the kind words on the shaft! Much appreciated! Steve
  4. Brad, that is VERY nice! I have had a couple of folks ask me about whether my handle gets "slippery" in the water, and I have always said I don't know -- that I'm not a water hunter, but haven't had complaints. It looks like perhaps you did feel it was a bit slick, in the water, and found an EXCELLENT solution! That was my final assessment, when designing the handles. For us "land hunters," the handle is fine as is. Plus, many of us wear gloves, and so slip is -- I think -- of no issue for a land hunter. BUT -- I figured for water hunters, if some required some assistance, that there are a number of "grip-type" materials out there, wraps and such, that folks would find what works for them. And I have to say that your solution is about as good of one as I could recommend! Outstanding, and I will mention this to any additional customers who may ask. Meanwhile, Dcraun, I probably would have initially tried what you did -- raided my hockey bag! LOL! I've also used "Winn Grips" products on some of my machines -- they sell wraps that fisherman use on their rod handles; I've also used "vet tape" at times, as well. These are all options. But wow, that stuff that Brad is using? NICE solution! Steve
  5. F350 -- LOL! I am really happy to hear that even with the 11x13 attached, that you find the machine to be well balanced when installed on my D2 carbon shaft. I definitely tried to do what I could to make the shaft light and -- as balanced as possible with the D2 attached WITHOUT requiring counterweight. But of course, the counterweight option is there for those who find that they need a bit better balance still... THANKS! 🙂 Steve
  6. Brad -- not so sure, LOL! After all, look how you said basically what I did, and yet with so many fewer words! 😉 Steve
  7. Indeed it does, well said. BUT -- if the performance of the 11x13 over the 11" justifies it (and I am in no way speculating as to whether it does, or not), that extra 100g is nothing that a bit of counterweighting can't offset... Steve
  8. Bill, Just my opinion, but I would NOT put much stock into most reviews of the Manticore that are currently out there, with respect to how it "performs in iron." The reason is, the way the unit behaves in iron can be altered to an enormously immense degree (I hope I stressed that enough) SIMPLY based on your limits settings. That is the entire POINT of the limits settings...to give the user enormous amounts of control over the machine's behavior in and around iron. AND SO, when you couple that with the newness of the machine (thus making pretty much EVERYONE very "green" in terms of their understanding of such a powerful, somewhat complex, and potentially misunderstood aspect of the machine), I will therefore state fairly boldly that almost NO ONE has yet mastered this aspect of the machine. Unmasking is an "expert-level" skill to begin with, and then when you couple that with the fact that you can make many nails report anywhere from "100 percent non-ferrous tone" to "100 percent ferrous tone," and ANYWHERE in between, simply based on how you have your limits set, you can see how this would be arguably the most difficult aspect of the machine to truly master...taking many, many hours of dedicated use of the unit in the iron, before one could offer a somewhat "definitive" statement about the unit's skill in the iron. I am not sure how many Manticore users yet fully understand the 2D screen itself (especially those with no FBS background), LET ALONE the proper (and often site-specific) limits adjustments, to even BEGIN to comment on the machine's skill, or lack thereof, in the iron... Just my two cents... Steve
  9. I think it's smart, CPT, to use the tether no matter what. Given the cost of those remotes, if I were a Deus user, I certainly wouldn't want to chance it! Steve
  10. Holy cow -- what an amazing story, Daniel! That is just incredible!!! And you know what -- the picture with the mountains in the background...what a BEAUTIFUL place! I LOVE the Appalachians! Steve
  11. Oh, one other thing I can say right off... What a TERRIFIC menu system. SUPER easy to learn to navigate...intuitive, nothing "hidden..." Kudos to Minelab on that menu. Steve
  12. GB -- Not sure, on the "correspondence" between values on the MC or new EQX models, with the 600/800. It's a good question... No, I didn't discuss the 2-D screen in that post. You are right. YES, I was focusing on the audio. I think the reason for that is, that in my brain, I see it so clearly that the audio DRIVES a good portion (the "horizontal half") of what you see on the screen, that the screen is somewhat "secondary." So, what I was trying to do, was listen, and A -- see to what degree the audio was "similar" to that of the EQX, and then B -- just try to get a feel for whether what I was seeing on the screen "made sense," in terms of the audio I was hearing. BUT -- two things that are "caveats..." 1. The screen will take longer to learn, I think, than the audio (for those familiar with the Equinox audio). The nuances shown by the screen, the "behaviors" of the "shapes" of the "target trace," will -- I am near certain -- offer us some clues, but it will, I think, take a good bit of time, and an OPEN mind, to make those associations. That is also a part of why I was focusing more on the audio (but still looking at the target trace carefully, on EACH target). 2. I say that the audio "drives" half of what you see on the screen, the "horizontal half" (since the tones are based on the CONDUTIVE part of the target ID, and the conductive value varies "left and right," or "horizontally"). BUT -- there is the VERTICAL aspect of the trace, that is driven by the FERROUS information, that we DON'T EXPLICITLY SEE (since only the CO portion of the VDI displayed). And I DO NOT want to diminish the importance of that "vertical" information, as it's the ONLY way we can see what the machine is telling us, about the ferrous characteristics of the target. So, again, I think that it's not that I was IGNORING the 2D screen; I WASN'T. It's just that I thought the audio would be the more logical thing for me to try to wrap my head around FIRST. So, speaking of the 2D screen, one thing I observed, were alot of targets where I was getting a mix of high tones and ferrous tones. I sort of alluded to this above, and how adjusting your limits, up and down, totally changes the "ratio" of high tones vs. ferrous tones. BUT -- on most of those targets, what I was getting was a blobular target trace, with about half of it above my limits setting, and half of it below (hence the "mixed" tones), BUT at the same time -- with the ENTIRE blob WELL ABOVE the "zero line." And these turned out to be all iron targets. SO -- one thing I am wondering, but need way more time to draw a conclusion, is this... IF I had a nail and coin next to each other...reporting as a similar half high tone and half ferrous tone as I rotate it, WOULD THE HIGH TONE (representing the coin) CENTER ON, OR NEAR, THE ZERO LINE, and be a more "separate" blob from the ferrous blob (instead of one single, large blob that simply was "straddling" my limits setting/line)? I am guessing that the answer will end up being "sometimes," but I need to see, and then dig, some of those "coin/nail" targets, to start to figure this out. The ANSWER however, may have substantial "unmasking" implications. Again though -- these are some of the subtleties that will need to be learned, over longer periods of time, to really try and unlock any potentially useful clues that may emerge from the 2-D screen data. Yes, I really like Dankowski's forum for asking questions; it's great when you can talk with an engineer who was in on the detector's design, and who is willing to "teach." But, there is relatively little talk there about the MC (aside from NASA-Tom, and a few of us), and then relatively few members who frequent both this forum, and NASA-Tom's. SO, I love the discussion that happens here. Yes, I do tend to ask questions over there, think it through, and then "share" the ideas here. I had hoped that perhaps my prior FBS familiarity might speed the learning a bit, for some new MC users, but I certainly wanted to be sure that the 2D screen on FBS and the 2D screen on MC are as similar as I presumed them to be, before being too "definitive" with sharing my thoughts, as I really try hard to never inadvertently say things that are not correct... Steve
  13. FloridaSon, For what it's worth, I was #3 at a relatively small dealer; he has received I think 5 so far...
  14. 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
  15. Exactly where I started out, today, with the audio! And I clicked well with that sound profile... Steve
  16. Well, UPS did not let me down a second time... It here! Steve
  17. longbow -- OOPS -- I posted two minutes after you did, and so didn't see your most recent response, where you said you plan to set it up in 5 tones next time. You might try moving your sound profile to "normal," to get the modulation you are looking for, or even to "rich," if "normal" isn't enough... Steve
  18. Longbow, A couple of things... 1. You said that with the Equinox, on the deep coins "it's easier to tell that it's deep." That is due to the sound profile you chose -- "simple." I might suggest you read up on the different tonal options, as there are a number of them and each one has different "modulation" characteristics, which is explained in detail; pages 40ish to 44ish (if I recall) in the manual. "Simple" is explained in the manual as having VERY LITTLE modulation -- i.e. deep and shallow targets sound similar. So, the issue with this specific point you made, is very likely to be PURELY in the sound profile you chose. "Normal" has more modulation than simple, and then "rich" would have even MORE. 2. You said the wheat you buried was more "bouncy/jumpy" on the Manticore, whereas you feel your Equinox gives you a "smoother high tone" with a "more solid hit." HOWEVER, you also said you run your Equinox in 5 tones, with 18 VDI and above (Indians and higher) giving you the "highest pitch." HOWEVER, you had the Manticore set up in "all tones"...which would entirely explain the bouncier VDIs, and the "less smooth/less solid" tone. It is a bit of comparing apples and oranges, to some degree, going from what you were used to (5 tones) to "all tones" on the Manticore. Running 5 tones, with your "coin bin" set at the highest pitch, certainly would give you a more "smooth high tone" and a more "solid" hit, compared to "all tones." And since a wheat cent that reads low, like an Indian, it would of course not report with a tone that is near as high-pitched as your "highest tone" in your 5th tone bin on the Equinox. So, YES -- I would entirely agree with your conclusion in the last paragraph, that you need to set up the Manticore in 5 tones, to make an accurate comparison between the two (though I do think "all tones" would be a superior way to hunt, in order to glean as much nuance as possible from detected targets). Just some thoughts... Steve
  19. Gary, Underwater noise (in salt water) is not uncommon; others who beach hunt will likely chime in on that. BUT -- out of water, over dry sand, the machine should not be making noise right at the end of each swing, or when you tilt your wrist. RANDOM noise, of course (EMI) would be normal, but not at specific start/stop points in your swing, simply turning your wrist. Makes me wonder if maybe your coil-to-control box attachment is a bit loose. Steve
  20. Huh -- that's awful! And speaking of the "truck tracking app"... My tracking info, as of Saturday morning, was showing "out for delivery," and "delivery expected between 7 PM and 8:30 PM." So, shortly after 7 PM, I logged on to check tracking, to see how close the truck might be. And guess where I found the truck? Sitting, parked, 30 miles away, AT THE UPS DISTRIBUTION FACILITY. And there it sat for the rest of the evening! In other words, my driver -- who had had my package loaded on his truck that morning (hence the "out for delivery" status showing up on my tracking info) had already decided to quit his shift for the day BEFORE the time window that I was given as to when to expect delivery! And he STILL had the nerve to mark the package as "delivery attempted..." SO frustrating! Anyway, I keep telling myself, it's just a toy; it will get here when it gets here. The issue is, it's less about the package, and more the principle. There are few things that bother me more than shoddy/lazy work, and a lack of conscientiousness, along with zero accountability... OK, I'm done. No more complaining, I promise. Definitely a "first world" problem, so time to let it go and move on! Steve
  21. Daniel, Sounds like you know just what I'm talking about. We are not exactly "rural" but several miles outside of town. This is NOT the first time this has happened. SO when the guy never showed, I was disappointed, and a bit upset, but not totally surprised. But, when I saw the updated tracking info that said, "delivery attempted," that really pushed my buttons. I would be much more understanding of "look, it got really late, my shift was supposed to end hours ago, and after a 12-hour shift, I still couldn't get all of my packages delivered," versus "I'll just lie and say I 'tried' to deliver, and cover my rear end by blaming the customer by saying it's their fault -- they were not home...and that way I'll avoid getting in trouble with my boss..." Frustrating... Steve
  22. It is indeed "signature required." If the driver actually shows up, I'll be ready... Steve
  23. LOL -- I understand! Meanwhile, UPS seems to have decided -- despite my package being on the truck and "out for delivery" today -- not to deliver it. Sometimes, it gets late in the day, and our UPS driver just decides they are "done for the day," and today was one of those days. And now tracking shows "delivery attempted" (a complete fabrication), with delivery now re-secheduled for the next business day. So, we'll see if the driver decides to show up on Monday. Steve
  24. Daniel, That's a pretty impressive hunt, given how you described the site and what you'd experienced on the last few trips there... WOW. Steve
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