JCR

Welcome from East Texas.

Welcome to you and your son from East Texas.

Welcome back from East Texas. I really enjoy using my MXT. Very good machine even by today's offerings.

Neat finds.

That is a very nice assortment of finds. Right place, right time and gumption to ask.

That's not a bad hunt at all. Got some nice old there.

A very good review & summary. I will get one at some point in the near future. The Disc capability will be useful. Paired to the Legend would be nice. Thanks

I went back to the same site yesterday afternoon for a few hours. I used the stock 11" DD 28 coil this time and worked around the edges of the busy area I had hunted this past weekend. I made some adjustment to my prior settings that @EL NINO77 suggested to me. Mainly in setting the Versa's Hot Rock adjustment to +1. This noticeable improved deeper target acquisition, audio & TID in this mineralized Maghemite red dirt. I have a test bed on this site, planted in June of this year, so not really even settled in yet. 6" & 8" small coins & 10" 2.5"X3" brass clock frame. All hit fair to good. The 10" clock frame hits hard. This is in Field mode, reaction 3, Masking high enough to mitigate EMI so as to run Sensitivity near max. Both Multi & 10.8 kHz, which is what I hunted in. Ended up digging several iron contaminated targets( fired Round Ball, shotshell head, brass strips) that I am sure I have been over before with other units. Also several composite targets(lead headed nail, small thin tin cap w/iron stud) that should have been found already. Each trip I try to dig some interesting sounding big iron. This time included a iron band for a wooded wagon wheel hub that was 16+" down in the red clay soil. That will work for me. I have not even really hunted with the Dual modes yet.

Pretty sure it is a K. Good detective work & some nice personal finds with some tragic history. That must have been a fairly well to do household. We can really appreciate modern detectors that are better able to weed though the chaos left in the ground after a house burns down. I have one at the front of my place. Tough hunting.

I received my Versa 10/02. Only 12 days shipping from the UK. After a few hours of use in the test garden & on the bench it became very comfortable and surprisingly familiar. The UI is fairly simple & effective, the in ground performance is on par with my other top machines. The headphones are the best I have used. On to the field.... My first hunt with the Versa was on the site I recently dug a nice local token, 2 Eagle buttons and some other nice older small finds. The ground is red maghemite with lots of small & mid size iron. A 2 wire powerline runs right over the area I was searching. I used the smaller DD23(9") coil. I hunted awhile in each of the available modes; Field, Park & Beach. I left Disc at 0 but adjusted around on Reaction, Masking, Tones, Iron Volume and Sensitivity. EMI was somewhat problematic in Multifrequency but raising the Masking setting really helped quiet it down with out seeming to lose inground performance. The EMI Preview Screen is very interesting & useful. I was able to switch to a Single frequency then run almost wide open with lower Masking too. The ground changes a good bit in this site, but keeping the Versa properly Ground Balance was not hard to do. Falseing from the small iron was not a problem. The Versa handles this perhaps better than any of my other detectors. Iron of all sizes was readily identifiable. Big deep iron was easy to tell. It wasn't till after my hunt that I realized that I had not been fooled by a single nail. Co located target performance is very good. Most all of the targets I dug had iron in the hole or very near under the coil. Some were quite small mid conductor non ferrous items like the 7/16" brass washer and 1" long .84 gram Silver watch bezel piece and plated brass zipper pull. The real eyeopener was a big iron signal that had a consistent high tone "false". It turned up as a large iron Tee valve with a 2" iron pipe stud on one end and a brass coupling on the other with a brass valve stem in the center. That is about as collocated as it gets. The other unmasking surprise was a smaller mixed signal that was the small handle artifact. It is an embossed brass covering of a solid iron core, and marked "Eagle Pencil Co. USA P". As best I can research it is the handle of a pencil sharpening knife sold by that firm. It is quite old and probably was included in someone's writing box. The other notable find was the strap end of a brass spur, the second one I have found on this site. The brass frame is from a box camera, also fairly old. A good first hunt with the Versa. My second hunt the next morning was on a different site, close by, where I recently dug the percussion revolver combination tool. It has the same type of soil but the small iron & nails are much denser & in a much more decomposed state. In other words the small iron falsing is constant. Here, I did get fooled some at first by small crating nails & bits trying to dig iffy signals. In the photo are some examples. Beach mode helped a lot with it's Bottle Cap filter but the EMI is terrible here and Multi frequency really limits usable sensitivity. I ended up running in Field at 7.8 kHz for most of the time. I have 2, 6" test coins here. They are very difficult targets for all of my detectors. The Versa did as well as any of my other machines. I am still searching for a way to really open sites like this up. More testing is needed. I did end up with 2 decent finds that I am sure I have been over before multiple times, a .32 cal Rim fire case marked U for Union Metallic Cartridge and a 1945 P war Nickle. Overall I am pleased with the new Versa. It will be a useful addition to the units I already have The Dual Modes and All Metal mode will need to be learned on quieter sites. Rutus is already testing some improvements & additions for the Versa.

Very nice. Life is good.

I'm looking forward to your future videos. What frequency is the new coil?

Great news. Get after it.

I have 2 pair of Killer Bs, Wasp & Hornet. They are excellent. I believe they & the Sun Ray Golds are very similar. They have a stereo/mono mode switch so they are compatible with most all detectors. They have very little Bass tone so work best for me on the Vista X & Tarsacci. The AT Max, MXT, F5 & Anfibio need more Bass, so the lower ohm Garrett MS-2s work best for them. I do not have any Minelab machines. They have a website & you can contact the owner, John Smith for advice. Colonial Metal Detectors also sells them, ask for Richard. Either one can ship Overseas to you.

Everyone of those is special. The memories. the same.

Spectacular. Good chance there is more there to discover. Any idea if the site was a dwelling, Tavern....? I sure would like to see the buckles too.

Welcome from East Texas.

All the above is good advice. Take your time & enjoy the labor of learning. After you get the beer cans out of the way the area will open up a good bit, then you can work the small Al & pull tabs. Try Park mode in 4kHz single frequency. It works well to tone down that kind of trash. I have a site just like that with the 1900s house still standing. The last renters drank a lot of beer on the porch & threw the trash in the yard. I found a Dallas Cowboys 1 ounce Silver round there. You just never know.

I enquired of the UK dealer I purchased from about Software notification. He stated any update would be announced on Social media. Since I am not active on Facebook etc..., I guess I will just have to check the Rutus website periodically. Any news you could relay would be welcome.

Thank you for your support & input. I have only had an hour or so in the test garden so far, mainly learning to navigate the UI and make some very basic adjustments. I am happy to know Rutus is dedicated to ongoing improvements. I want it to be my most capable unit. The only thing I have noticed so far is that when using the SR 1 headphones(very, very nice & comfortable), the detector volume is VERY loud above 10. I don't see how I could ever run at 25+ to take advantage of the Audio Gain feature. An adjustable AG, independent of master volume, (like on the Atrex) would be more useful. Volume adjustment of the SR 1 HPs would be a good feature also.

It has been available for several months now. Check with your dealer.

Welcome from East Texas.

The Versa arrived today before Noon. 12 days from the UK to East Texas seems pretty quick to me. It is all on the charger to start exploring it tonight. I should be able to put some hours on it this weekend.

That's a really nice Trime. Thanks for posting.

It sounds like you have a good site to learn on. The Legend will do well for you with just stock settings to begin with. The 6" LG 15 coil will be a big help. I will suggest working the edges of the busy areas until you gain some confidence. Dig any solid signal that is not obviously large. You can gage this by lifting the coil up & sweep above it. Large items will still respond well past what a coin size object will. The main thing is to have fun while you learn. It won't take too long before it all starts making sense. There will be some good finds there, the best will be within yourself. Keep us posted.