F350Platinum

Yeah I haven't managed to blow myself up yet! 🤣 There are a lot of people with much greater knowledge and experience than me, but in a short time I've managed to annoy people enough that they tolerate me 🙄 I do get out a lot and have many varied places to hunt. I'll certainly jump in where I can, I do have just about every accessory (sometimes duplicate) for the D2, and I'm an enthusiastic (and broke) user of it. I started with the Equinox 600 a couple years back, but kinda outgrew it. 🙂 I'm retired so I can spend a lot of time fiddling and getting real time experience, some of my permissions are right out my front door.

Now that I got some likes I can reply. 😀 Nice detailed description! 👍 My target retrieval with the D2 is probably a bit more rudimentary, but using the MI-6 is a quite different experience compared to the Carrot. I only recently learned that the MI-6 is a Pulse Induction pinpointer. You can either make it beep as you close in on the target, or have it run in a tone mode, where the pitch gets higher as you close in. That is what I prefer. It locates targets much deeper than the Carrot. If the signal appears to be close to the surface, I'll check with the pinpointer first to see if I can locate it before digging. If not I dig a plug in a park (campground), like you leaving some of the roots attached, and search the hole with the MI-6 I'll chase the signal with the pinpointer and either dig deeper with the shovel (I typically use my Barracuda in parks because it's shorter), or use the composite trowel to dig it out. In the fields I'll just dig a big hole and retrieve the target with the composite trowel. 😀 I try not to use the shovel too much, and even though I have a few steel diggers I usually don't use them. I have used kac's Park probe to get the shallow targets if there is quality grass on the ground. I have also used his Devil's Tongue digger with great success.

There are two base options for audio, Square and PWM of Pulse Wave Modulation. Square tones are more musical, PWM tones are scratchy. Saying you use full tones in Square wave modulation means you are using all 99 tones for targets, kinda like an 88 key piano. 🙂

Welcome back! I'm a Deus 2 user, have both the RC setup with the 13" coil on it, and the WS6 Master rig with a 9" coil. I have the 11" coil too. I joined in December of 2020, have you been gone longer than that?

Interesting, I tried the hip route and they were always beating the crap out of me. 😀 Out of likes but 👍

GB, have you ever considered the Fiskars composite trowel? 🙂 I use it both in sandy loam and beach sand, it's nice and pointy and tough. They're like 5 bucks each on Amazon. It'll even help me dig something with the pointer in loose clay. Saves scratching those silvers!

Well not here, thankfully. 🤣 Mebbe half a handful of bashers, the rest have poignant and well considered remarks 🙄 Patience my friend, the update is coming that will catapult the D2 to other-worldly status 😁

What are the clamps for on all your shovels? I'll bite... 😀

Gotta agree with Badger here, I have an old Ames spade with an oak shaft and crossbar in the "D" handle that I'll take sometimes in the fields. I got all my digging practice in with it originally digging in my yard. 👍 Dedicated metal detecting shovels are expensive.

Quick update, I went back to the first farm a few days ago to look for the farmers' ring, after 5.5 miles of scouting the rest of this 100 acres and searching the spot he told me his ring was, I only got a few coins. Again the best find came from where a road passed through the farm in the late 1800s, many of these roads are gone now. Pretty toasted 1876 IHP. Went back to the house and dug some more wheats from the front yard: Tiny brass plate with "My Diary" stamped on it was the only other really interesting find. 😀 Planning on coming back again to look for that ring, I have to be careful because the spot is planted with winter wheat.

Thanks Strick! I always hit the newspaper icon and scroll through looking for new posts relevant to all my interests, I know some just read individual forums. Coins, relics and jewelry are probably more popular. Actually thought ya might miss it with your new love and all 🤣, but the D2 has been getting bashed some so I thought I'd throw it there. The more I think about it, the shield nickel may be my second, but it was what I call the "thank you for coming" find you get sometimes walking back to your vehicle, in this case about a mile away. The main gates are rarely open here so we have to come in through another permission next to it. I thought we should follow where and old road was, Chase got a Mercury dime on it. Research is starting to make random finds like these more frequent. SLQ's evaded me my first two years, the only one I ever saw was one Chase nailed in tree roots at the steamboat landing (now known as the Poison Ivy Palace) next to my house. Another place to find coins is by searching the "Turn Zone" in fields. Back then turning your animals was a stressful ordeal. It's also where the hunters stand, I've found everything from Spanish silver to King George cents to modern coins there. Hills were stressful too, it pays to hunt both the bottom and top of them.

Yeah, I wouldn't pry stuff with a scoop. Frustrating though it might be, I've moved on if the target was just a coin signal, and came back with a pry bar. To me it's not worth breaking a $350 tool to get a clad coin. 😀 You'll either curl the tip, snap a weld or crush or crack the handle. Seriously, a stainless pry bar would be your friend if you're always in that environment, I would consider one. I wouldn't use a plain steel one unless I was willing to wash it off and oil it immediately after getting back, which I do with my shovels. 🙂 Stainless will rust too, depending on the composition.

Ehhhh, I wouldn't try to move heavy rocks with a beach scoop. 😏 I also don't try to lift sunken pilings or trees. And I definitely wouldn't do it with a $600 Xtreme. 😬 Small gravel and wet sand are heavy enough, if you have those issues maybe a stainless crowbar? 🙂 https://www.steritool.com/stainless-steel-pry-bar.aspx

I've had no problems over the last 2 years with a CooB Shark V10 stainless scoop, and I just bought a carbon fiber shaft from SteveG. Expect to pay upwards of $600 for an Xtreme, if that's too much look at what Serious Detecting offers. I recently bought a titanium scoop from them. Dune. Most of the exotic metal scoops are from overseas countries that are currently having difficulties, but some US dealers have them in stock. In both cases with mine I'm very impressed by the welding, and CooB uses 2mm stainless. Dune uses 2mm titanium. @PI-Man can tell you about the Xtreme titanium scoop. 🙂

Predator Ranger is my favorite, for a longer T handle the Ultra Eagle. https://www.predatortools.com/collections/shovels/products/model-65-ranger The Ranger and Ultra Eagle both have 11" digging blades, longer "reach" into the ground. I also have the Barracuda, with a 9" blade length. The Ultra Eagle is the longest handle shovel they make. I have used them everywhere but the beach, and have never had a complaint about plugs. Always wipe down your shovel with some WD 40 at the end of the day. Many are out of stock, believe me nothing beats a Predator. Call them! They are very nice. Here's mine after 2 years of hunting and digging 2-5 times a week:

Welcome to the forum. 🙂 I dig next to no iron at all in square full tones. I have often dug a good target with co-located iron. I set discrimination at 0 and notch is off. After digging most everything for a while I can say with confidence and from experience that I trust this method. Aluminum also makes a different sound, so I dig less of that as well. Anytime you change settings radically on a detector you should dig everything until you are confident with the result.

Hope this helps, NC. 🙂

Great hunt!👍 A lot of hard work. What are iron core coins?

I would suggest being patient. It takes a long time for spare parts and accessories to come to the market. It would be a bit premature to make waves, you might risk other difficulties. 🙂

The menus aren't all that deep or difficult, understanding some of the settings always takes a while. It's probably a lot easier than some detectors. Interested in this one. I wonder if you can change all 99 tones 😀 I think it also has 20 memory slots. I'm also curious about their MF claim, supposedly it transmits more than 2 frequencies at once.

I'll add one: Deus with 13" coil on SteveG CF shaft 1242g 2.7lb, 43.8 ounces.

Antenna wire arrived, I think it may be for the Deus 1. It's much thinner than the D2 coax, appears to be copper shielded (not that it matters), and is fully half the length. I comes with 3 sticky thingies and 3 spare bands. Here's the D2 spare I have: And here's the side by side. I like the length, but think this is a D1 accessory. Going to try it. 👍

Hey NC, The WSA II headphones have a puck, it's smaller and removable. I have 2 pairs of them, only because I wanted a backup and to pair one each to my 13" rig with SteveG's shaft and the WS6 Master rig. You don't have to do that, the WSA II backphones will pair to both at the same time. I always thought the WS6 backphones were a bit funny looking 😀 one side way bigger than the other. The WSA II doesn't look as bad. 🤣 A trick I have especially in these cold windy months is to wear a beanie cap, it presses the backphones against my ears. Keeps my head warm and reduces wind noise. 👍 It will get really bad in March, may wear over ear then. Sometimes. 😁 Having that situational awareness is essential where I live. I also really like the backphones. 🙂

Another consideration is the Deus 2's markedly superior resistance to EMI. I can use it in any of the areas where EMI is a problem, be it from cell towers or WiFi or other electrical presence. I don't have to go to single frequency much if ever. Rattlehead's Silver Slayer program, for some reason, even allows me to hunt for coins directly under power lines, something I haven't been able to do with the Equinox. The machine goes silent but for the 62 range, and the 87 up range. 🤔 I'm sure other programs of equal value will come up over time, and a firmware update is due for the machine that will probably put it at the top of the list.

I use a set of wireless headphones that accepts the WS6 or the WSA II. They're called "Wirefree", Serious Detecting advertises them on their site. They don't sound all that great but I rarely wear them, like CPT writes, "make good earmuffs". 😀 And, they're about half the cost of the WSA II XL. If I wanted to I could use the screw in headphone adapter and use the same APTX-LL headphones I use with the Equinox. Just plug in the transmitter and go.