Daniel Tn

Still showing as "in stock". I got my order in. We'll see. I bet mine gets canceled 😞.

I will have to give that a shot. That is one setting I have never played with.

Heck, I've had one on the Cabelas "wish list" for weeks. They are supposed to send notification when it's in stock but I've not had the first notice. I'm even one of their Preferred Club Rewards customers lol. I just can't catch a break with it.

I'm jealous. Not a peep from my dealer. I thought I got lucky on Cabelas today because it showed the Add to Cart option but then showed out of stock about the time I went to click it. I hope Y’all have better luck with receiving packages than I have lately. I had two come in damaged this past week and I'm still waiting on a Deus 2 9" coil that was supposed to be delivered Friday the 6th. It has been in limbo in the USPS system and just says "is moving within the system". No updates since Thursday when it says it is later than expected.

I had a few minutes this morning to hunt and decided to hit a well hunted freshwater beach. Somebody local keeps a close eye on it and hunts it clean. I've been there in the past and never even get a signal. Today looked like one of those days until I found several pennies and a dime, and No low conductor signals at all. Then I hit a 90s signal and went for it. To my surprise it wasn't a coin but a silver ring. That tells me somebody played the gold odds on digging all the low to mid conductor signals and left the shallow high conductors, assuming they were clad. Oh well, add another to the pile. Wouldn't have mattered on settings...it was barely under the sand. But I was in Sens FT with Square audio. Reactivity at 2.

I agree wholeheartedly about the D2 menu being clunky (at best). I've hated sub menus on detectors ever since the Whites Spectrum days. I'm not a fan of having to go on mini hunts through sub menus to find stuff. XP gets an A+ for unmasking capability and ergonomics. And an F for menu design and for that stupid antenna.

There's a lot to unpack with the D2. I've had mine for several months and haven't even scratched the surface on settings. I have learned that changing some settings and programs have a dramatic impact on performance; much more than doing so on the Nox machines. You can hunt an area with one program and settings, then swap it to something else, rehunt the same area and start picking out stuff you never heard the first time. It makes it hard for me to settle on what I think is the best settings for getting the most out of a place in one hunt. I am not a fan of the PWM audio either. I always change that to Square tone audio no matter what program (if available). I've never played with Pitch tones....might have to try it. Again...it goes back to how just one setting can change the whole dynamics of this detector. I was NOT a Deus 1 fan. I tried to like it...even bought another one to give it another try. I was really hesitant because of that, to try a D2 but when I watched the videos and heard the audio I thought I'd try it and I've hung onto it ever since. Mine came with the 11 inch coil and I finally broke down and ordered a 9 inch...it was supposed to be here today but didn't come. I was hoping they would have an elliptical one by now.

That's why there is confusion about what to call the horseshoe button. To me, it is more like an Iron Silencer. If it's ON, you don't hear the iron grunts. If it's OFF, you do hear them.

The underwater coil cable attachment is why I never considered the D2 for a beach machine. Most of the time when I hunt beaches, I am in chest deep water. The Nox is more appealing to me for that reason. The curve ball for me was in my other post regarding the lake I went to and all the water was gone. On my 2nd hunt I opted to bring the D2 and was surprised at what I had missed on the initial Nox hunt and has me rethinking my dismissal of the D2 as a beach machine. I may have to run that stupid wire after all.

I would agree, except for at this beach. It's a man made freshwater beach that they import the sand to. You have about 3 to 4 inches of sand. Underneath the sand is a thin layer of mud, not even a half inch deep and then you hit bedrock/shoal. Everything hits the bedrock and stops. Nothing is deep. In fact, the little 10k ring found with the Nox was one of the deepest targets found so I know it was getting down to the stuff. I know when I had a CTX3030, the screen would show you the recommended sensitivity settings and at this beach, the threshold was a continuous null and recommended sensitivity was never above 8...single digit 8. It does have a lot of iron...before it was a lake, it was a timber logging site and camp. I'm thinking that's probably the root of the issue...masking. As noted, once things hit that bedrock, it stops. So you have a whole mixture of stuff sitting at about the same depth....logging chain pieces, spikes, etc. That's exactly why I opted for the 5x10 coil in the first place. I knew nothing was deep and wanted something to hunt in the iron better. BUT...seems like the D2 with 11" coil would have been at the disadvantage for that. That's also why I opted for the program that I used on it...it was based on the Fast program with full tone audio. I'll hit it again hopefully this weekend and bring both machines this time.

I wouldn't think sensitivity would matter much for targets less than 4 inches deep. I recovered most targets by simply swiping the sand with my boot a couple of times. One thing here locally...over driving the sensitivity will drive you crazy with falsing signals. Aka...high beams in heavy fog. There never has been a clear definition of horseshoe on/off. I always have ran the Nox to where I can hear everything, all the iron grunts. Whether that's on or off: I don't know what to call it. When I hunted the beach the other day I couldn't settle on which mode was the best. This beach is relatively small. I just Google Earth measured it and it's approx 85 yards long by 20 yards wide. Fairly easy to cover. I spent 4 hours there with the Nox and about 2 hrs with the D2. I would get a signal on the Nox and cycle through the programs to see if any particular one hit better...then dig to see what it was. I dig everything with positive numbers. I drag my little shovel behind me as I hunt to give me reference lines as to where I've been. Which made the D2 hunt even more puzzling, as everything I found was within my previous drag marks and boot prints. Here's a picture of the D2 finds. Note the bottom row of nickels too. The big ring is just tungsten carbide but is heavy. It was the deepest target. I bit the bullet and ordered a 9 inch coil for the D2. I may go back Saturday with both machines and re-hunt it, and check signals with both machines. Keep in mind too...remember the original post where I said there were already other people hunting the beach when I first got there. Meaning it had already been hunted before I even got to it and there was still that much stuff missed. I had to hurry on my D2 hunt because I knew there were storms due to arrive. As noted...I got drenched.

No rain between Sunday and today...the rain actually hit while I was finishing up my last line today. I had to kick the feet in gear and hoof it the 3/4 mile trip back to the truck and thus got soaked by rain blowing in sideways haha. Nox settings. I played around with those a bit, especially swapping the modes. Iron Bias, I got a little aggressive on and set it to 4 just because this place has deep iron and all the things lost swimming are shallow. Recovery speed was also 4 to 5. When I would hear the chatter from the ground changing, I would do a manual GB. That is one thing I took note of as being unusual...the GB number itself. It was single digits and would vary between 5 and 8. I've not saw GB numbers that low before. On the D2, the GB numbers were in the mid 80s.

Here's the update. I hope Steve doesn't mind this. I went back to this beach/lake today but I brought the Deus 2 with me instead. I just wanted to see if I had left something behind from my Nox hunt. I hunted in Sensitive FT mode and didn't adjust anything other than volume. The wind was blowing 30 mph and was loud. Anyway, I balanced the machine and started right where I had been the other day. Literally my first signal was a ring. I couldn't believe it. Had to be a fluke. Except it wasn't. I have hunted this beach a lot and always have trouble with falsing from the ground and iron in the ground too. The Nox wasn't immune to that as noted, I had to run the sensitivity down quite a bit. All I had to do with the D2 was ground balance it. I've never ran a machine as stable as it was...totally blown away and that first ring wasn't a fluke. Stuff just kept coming up loud and clear. I ended up with 4 ear rings, 2 necklace charms, 2 rings, and I couldn't tell you how many nickels and coins. This was literally the same ground I hunted this weekend. I got caught in a torrential rain storm and got soaked from head to toe. My finds bag is a glob of mud and sand with all the finds in the bottom...I've not sorted everything yet. I think I found my freshwater beach machine....now to try and figure out WHY that much stuff was missed by me. Nothing was deep...the deepest was one of the rings and it was just approx 4 inches. I think the signals just got lost in the ground noise and or masked.

I agree with your points. Especially the EMI part. I wasn't aware that there was supposed to be better EMI resistance from the 800 to the 900. The highest I have been able to set mine was 20. Most of the time I am having to drop to the 16 to 18 range. I love the red light and lighted key pad. Right at dark the other evening, I was working my way to my truck and ended up finding a broken CS frame buckle. I stayed quite a bit after dark trying to locate the rest of it...I didn't, but I did get to use the red light and I found it to be great. You are correct again...relearning ID numbers is throwing me for a loop. I'm still up in the air about whether I like the D2 or 900 better. Right now I am at totally opposite ends with them because the only coil I have for the D2 is the 11" and I have several coils for the 900, with the 5x10 CoilTek being my favorite.

I asked about it on one of the pages I go to for the area and they said it was for repair to the dam and removal of fish species they didn't want in the lake. Side note...the ID on the gold ring was 10. All of the foil on top was single digit IDs mostly 1 to 2 on the ID. I plan on going back with the Deus 2 just to rehunt the same area and see if anything comes up...just for curiosity sake.

I took the 900 to a freshwater beach I enjoy hunting. In 2019 I found 18 rings there. I didn't get to hunt it in 2020 or 2021 but drove up there today to give it a spin. Usually they will let the water down a little bit in the winter. To my surprise, there wasn't any water at all. I'm 40 years old and I can never remember them draining the entire lake. For years now, I have been the only person I know of that has been detecting there. Today as I pulled in, I could see 4 other people already detecting it. I have no idea how long it has been drained but there was evidence of non fresh dig holes so I am guessing it has been down a month or so. By the time I left, there were 6 people swinging metal detectors. For this place I opted for the CoilTek 5x10 coil instead of the stock 11 inch. Had I known the water was drained I would have probably kept the 11 on but I was thinking of getting a coil in tight, to the things the swimmers Usually congregate around. I played with Park 1 and 2 and also Beach mode. I had to drop the sensitivity to 16 to keep it from falsing on the hot dirt. I ended up with 2 rings and the trash things on the plate. One of the rings was a 10k promise ring with a little diamond. I did talk to the other detectorists but they said they hadn't found anything. I have no way of knowing for sure...that's usually what I tell people even if I have a pouch full of goodies. They could have found a dozen rings for all I know. I am happy with mine and glad to get 2023 started with gold.

Ahh so according to that, I was right with my hunch of it being a back and forth of drama. Some love that. I'm not a fan. I'll stick with Minelab.

Wow!! I have to admit, I was glad I didn't have a mouth full of drink when I read "coochie line" haha

7° F here now with a -10°F windchill. The high today was 11°F. And I'm in Tennessee. I love the cold. I got out and detected for about an hour trying out the 5x10 coil on the Nox 900. Grounds not frozen yet but is crunchy.

Yes the ID numbers are going to take some getting used to on the 900. I just put the 5x10 CoilTek on mine and from just playing with it some, it is going to be a semi permanent attachment until I hit beaches or open fields. It didn't take me long to like it.

Speaking for me personally, when I get any new detector, I am digging everything. From great signals to iffy signals and all in between. It's my way of learning it. I will intentionally dig bad signals just to see what they are and if the detector is having a tendency to misID things. Especially on those one way hits that sound great from one angle and disappear from another angle. That may be what the guy in the video is doing. It takes me several times out before I start trusting a machine enough to walk past signals. By doing that, I learned early on with the F75 that passing up any target was a good way to leave good targets in the ground. I learned the only way I could hunt with it and not miss much was in all metal mode and dig every target that didn't give a fast double beep. I personally liked the video. No fluff.

The red lighted screen is VERY nice and pleasing to the eyes IMO. The 800 was too bright especially for hunting the beach at night...light pollution takes away the natural night vision. It has been a while since I've had an 800 in my hands but my memory has me thinking this 900 is a little more chirpy. I've had to dial it down to around 20ish sensitivity with the 11 inch coil and into the teens with the big 15" CoilTek. I do have the CoilTek 5x10 coil coming for it too. I was planning on getting out with it this morning after work and before the Arctic blast hits but I wasn't planning on it to be pouring the rain like it is so that rules that out.

I have never prepaid for a detector. I don't know why anyone would. When I bought my boat, I had to order it and wait MONTHS for it to be built and we are talking something that costs $33,000 before taxes, and I didn't have to put a dime down ahead of time for it. Same with my wife's new vehicle...the dealer didn't have one on the lot but ordered one for us. No deposit necessary. I don't get why some detector dealers will do that. Mine just put people down on a list and will call or text when the units come in for payment.

I wonder if some of it is in part due to the social media drama between the two. Both sides took some shots at one another but IMO, Nokta took that to a whole other level via Facebook live videos and such. I didn't have any skin in that game but it swayed my personal mindset to not buy any more Nokta products. If there are cases of other companies infringing upon that same patent, like the posts above indicate, and Minelab not going after them...makes me think it's something else they didn't like, and are just using any way they can to get back at Nokta.

Wow! I guess the people found it. If I were to snag one early, I'd be tempted to list it now. Strike while the iron is hot. Mine the miners. Haha.