F350Platinum

Thanks Lodge, Glad to do it. 🙂 Detecting is my life now, and I'm grateful to my wife who supports and encourages it, particularly when I'm beach hunting 🤣 I remember the old days in CT when the snow hung around until April 😬 I'm glad I moved here. Snow never lasts more than a week. We are protected by the Blue Ridge mountains that also funnel warm air this way. 🥳 All that and two salt rivers. I photographed the Pistareen at Domino's while waiting for pizza to celebrate my find. I hope I'll get around to it someday, I'm sharpening my writing chops here. 😅 I should probably just retrieve and compile all my posts for the last 6 years 🤔 🍀

Thanks Lokator, I always invite comments and even criticism. 🙂 I have been detecting for 6 years now, and get out often. All my posts are on this site from the day I joined the Forum in 2020. My posts are mostly about finds. To address your first question, I have previously mentioned issues with the pinpointer on V3 and V4, I get a very loud noise on disconnect, and yes, there are times when the machine takes a long time to reset after turning the pinpointer off, but not like yesterday. It was really bad, the worst I have ever experienced. I have 2 RC units, one is still on V2, and the other has been upgraded twice now. I also have 2 MI-6 pinpointers. I clean and charge my gear as soon as I return. This did not happen on V2 or was rare. For sure the D2 has always been a bit temperamental, much like a Ferrari. 😅 I don't air test, don't have a test garden like most, I simply (and sometimes too simply) report what happens in the field. Omissions are my fault. 🤔 The place I was hunting is about 20 miles away from my home field, and has very similar spots, ranging from the 1600s to today. The first hunt in this post was in front of my house in a spot where an 1800s farmhouse stood that is now gone. I was only out for a short time (2 hours) and was glad to see that I didn't have too many false readings on iron, but there is far less iron there than the place I went the second time. Much of this iron is old and forged, which makes it more difficult for the detector to properly identify. I have come across this sort of problem with any detector I use, some are better than others, and audio helps after trial and error. I had become very good at it with V2 Yes, I was using my old relic program, as with the difference between V1 and V2 (I have had the Deus for almost 5 years now), I had to change settings to accommodate the new version(s). I agree that there will be future tests and changes necessary. 👍 It is quite possible that I just had a bad day, at least a bad morning. I made up for that later with another detector at yet another spot. 😉 I wish I did use the Deus 2 there, but after all the problems in the morning I didn't risk it. My settings are mostly as follows using P9 as a base: Disc IAR 5 - I've been using this since V1 with no problem, no change with V4, it really makes iron sound as iron, and does not affect non ferrous objects. Notch 00-00, again a great trick that blanks out most really big chunks, and stops some of the high tones or drives them so high that it is obvious Sensitivity 98 now, I could never do that before 👍 always kept it at about 90 Frequency max 24kHz or 40kHz depending on whether I want to find smaller objects or coins on edge. Iron Volume 6 Reactivity 1-3 depending upon trash Audio response 7 - I don't see a reason for turning it down because if it's good I'm going to dig it anyway, I'm going to dig until I get it. Audio Filter 5 🤷‍♂️ just default I think High Square Audio, I really like the "brassy" tone I get with most aluminum No tracking ground balance, I check it often, and do noise cancel often too. I've found places where there is hidden EMI that causes me to lose targets. With all the incredible finds I've made with V2, I really don't understand why the whole paradigm needs to change, other than perhaps because of a vocal minority. The subject of this post was clear, "Does V4 work with older programs?" I would say that after 6 hours out with it the upgrade does not. 🤔 As always I look forward to your contributions, if you test for XP, even better. 👍 You are a valuable asset. I'm not going to give up on V4. 🙂 I did give up on V3 😅

Thank you JCR, I'm really developing a mental picture of what was going on at that farm, and I'm very grateful to have had the introduction made by another landowner. This gentleman owns a large section in the area, and has given us permission to search it all, even going as far as to spare us a long walk from the other gentleman's property that we call the Death March. It's about a mile. Thanks to the records of this prominent early family I have read much about them. None of the surviving relatives live in the area, or at least none that I could find. 🤷‍♂️ They are not the most prominent settlers of this region but are among the first. I wish I could post the history here but that would draw unwelcome attention. 😅 It's a shame that what I have in my head can't really be passed on but to a select few. 🍀

Thanks RVP. 🙂 3 more days of cold, then bam, 12 days of 70s. Might mean I'll have to cut grass... 😬 Then we will get an ice/snow storm in April 😵 it's happened. I'm no stranger to the 10 pound boots man, all it takes is a melted frost. Not fun. I think the worm will turn for you soon! 🍀 Lots of birds out there this morning, but it also means not much time left to relic hunt 🥲 Bob Seger 🤘👍

Thanks, stupot. You and @Rivers rat are my two "favourite" UK detectorists. I consider it an "honour" to get comments from ya. 😅 Seriously. 🏆 Hell, someone in the USA has to give y'all some competition... 🤣 I haven't found an older coin than 1607 but I also haven't found any Spanish Wreck treasure... Yet. 😎 I plan to write a small treatise on why I think someone who already has the Deus 2 should also purchase a Manticore. I have found a literally unfair amount of great stuff with both of them, but currently I fear the story ends at the D2 with V2 at present. 🤔 The ring sadly lost its "hair stone", the practice of setting aside money in a will for mourning rings remained in the US until about the late 1800s to early 1900s as I recall. I looked for it. Here is an AI take on it: "In summary, the primary era of mourning rings as a common practice in the USA effectively ended in the early 20th century (around or shortly after 1900–1910s), with no strict cutoff but a clear decline from Victorian peaks. Modern equivalents exist today (e.g., ash-infused or memorial jewelry), but they differ from the historical mourning ring custom." I've been called a 'Spanish Silver magnet' before, but we all know that's impossible... 🤣 🍀

Thanks Colonel, I'm pretty sad that XP has attached so many things to this great detector. 🥲 It's as I have illustrated before, like a full box that something gets pushed out when you add another item, or the Swiss Army knife with too many blades: My career after the Army involved technology and programming, so I know what you are saying. 🫡 XP should come out with a new "mission focused" detector at this point, you know we will all buy it... 😏 But I fear they are painting themselves into a corner.😬 🍀

Today was another great day of 2026, despite all the storms and ice that forced me South for a long time. 😵 It was great fun but expensive 💸 I invited Chase down to hunt with me not only to test the Deus 2 with V4, but I also put the Manticore in the truck as a backup and am glad I did. 🤔 First off I'm not going to say the Manticore is a better detector than the Deus 2, but it does have its strong suit. I highly recommend that if you are really serious about Relic and Beach hunting, you consider owning both. That is, of course, if Minelab doesn't replace it soon. 😏 The Deus 2, albeit getting too complicated, is a fantastic detector. I think the end justifies the means. After having an incredibly frustrating morning at another permission with the Deus 2 and V4, I decided to go to a great permission that always seems to give up the goods. Chase was running late so he met me there. I used the Manticore, I wanted to focus on low conductors which is the Mcore's forte. Nothing like a warm day in February, the sky was clear and it hit the lower 60s. I love bean fields, it was a great relief to hit one after my morning at another corn field, but I forgot my new stubble plate. 🙄 The ground is perfectly saturated, and digging was easy. It didn't matter, the recent ice and snow had flattened out the bean stalks so it wasn't much of a problem to keep the coil low without the plate. I ran into the landowner, I'm going to give him the ~300 year old literally priceless gold ring I found here. I explained that it was from one of the first families to settle this area who came up from Jamestown, about the 3d generation of the family. There are so many implicatons, issues, and deep responsibility behind such a great find, I feel it is better to turn items like this over to the landowner: A 22kt gold mourning ring with the names of both parents on it, they passed life a month apart in the early 1700s. It has been on my mind to pass it on to the landowner since I found it. He was thrilled. I've had it for a while. Some of the implications of finding such a relic are first and foremost the stir that will be caused finding such a thing, the amount of detectorists that would show up uninvited to search for more, and the possibility of great archaeological interest which could or will cause difficulty with making money on crops. 🙄 I have decided I will let him choose what to do, and will provide him with any history I've found on this which is to say the least extensive. I almost know for certain which family member lost it. If I found it casually at a public beach, I wouldn't think twice 🏴‍☠️ 🤣 Moving on. Here's today's trash, a mix from both permissions. The large iron hook thing and the alien probe part (shiny metal piece) are the only undesirable objects that came from this field. I always dig lead and Buck, and you'll see why in a bit. Got lots of it. The ring above came from this practice. It is a discipline I force upon myself. Got lots of cool buckle bits and buttons, one really old lead button, and a small ring that held something in place. It has a nick on either side. I don't see threads so I don't know what it could have been used for 🤷‍♂️ Next up is an ancient knob with a great early twist, a piece from a ring or broach, and an extremely small ball button with a shank. Usually I put silver as my last item, but today was unique. I probably got karma from my offer of the ring, so as we were leaving I dug this, I photographed it while waiting for pizza in a Domino's 🤣 A cut Pistareen. I'm going with a 1717 2 Real: The best find to me was this: A heavily gold plated small button that may be a Tudor Rose. It was a solid 20, found in machine gun iron with recovery speed at 6 on the Manticore. Many of the buck balls above were a 20 as well. 🥳 The Pistareen was a 50, in the same conditions. After an exhausting morning my decision to switch paid off. 🍀

I don't know whether it was just a bad day or what, but I took the V4 D2 to a permission and was extremely disappointed. 🥲 Beautiful day, low wind and warm. This place has given me some really great finds, Spanish silver, old 1600s coins, and lots of buttons and buckles. It has different areas from different time periods. I was there for 4 hours, had lots of problems, and moved on to another site and used another detector for another 4 hours to clear my head. 🤪 First off was the iron falsing. 🫤 Almost all the iron in the photo which is a mix of both hunts came from this site. I expected the lead and bullets but not the washer, and all the nails. The largest piece was found elsewhere, I dug it simply because it sounded strange. I only found 2 relics, the curved snap ring above and this: The back plate of some sort of fancy combination locking device. A long time ago I found another piece of this. The worst part was the constant disconnects caused by my pinpointer. There appears to be a bug, at least with my gear, that even resulted in my coil going dead for about 5-10 minutes. I almost gave up then. 😵 Whenever I shut the pinpointer off the coil would disconnect and take a while to come back, and one time it came back showing that the battery was depleted. I restarted, re-paired, nothing. 😬 I shut the machine off and walked back to my truck to leave, I was going to meet @Chase Goldman at another spot, but before I got to the truck I tried it again and it worked for about another hour. I gave it my best shot. Finding not much at a place that I've done so well was not pleasant, and the issues just did me in. 🫤 When I got to the other location about the first thing Chase said was "I see what you're saying", I believe it was about the iron. He said he will try to replicate the disconnect error. At this point I cannot recommend V4 at all, I maintain my gear rather well and have never had this much trouble in the field. Hopefully it will improve. 🍀

Thanks Colonel, 🫡 Others have mentioned the V4 upgrade "seems" to have returned the V2 capabilities for the FMF coils anyway. 🤔 The real acid test comes today, I'm going to force myself to use it all day at a permission that has produced finds to a more spectacular degree than my "front yard" field. It will be very interesting. It's a shame that Relic does not have all of the capability of other programs, but nonetheless the new attributes will help. 🤞 I may update this post with my findings or create a new one.

That's where I get "nailed" in the summer, usually my scoop carry hand. 🙄 Yeah but drink a bottle of some hydration drink on the way, I'll take magnesium and potassium sometimes before I do a marathon hunt. Sorry Doc... 😬 Hope you're ok with this discussion.

Thanks Deathray. I use about an ounce or two of Bragg Cider Vinegar in about 4+ ounces of water, it stops them in seconds, but that day it did nothing. 😵 Only time ever it didn't work. I did one 12-12 roof in my life, and never did it again 😏

I sure wanted to find out, so I got outside today to the same field I've been hunting with the new V4 programs. Today I had the 9" FMF again, and switched on my old relic program to see how it would do. For a few minutes I compared it to the newer programs, Forager and Lokator's. It didn't take long for me to realize the old trusty relic program hit targets much harder, so I did the rest of the hunt with it. Relic is essentially a "two tone" program, either the target is good or undesirable. However, it also can, using High Square audio and some other settings, identify aluminum to a degree. Lifting the coil helps as well. I typically run Audio response at 7 only rarely lowering it in high EMI. Yes, it does remove target depth perception, but who cares? 🤷‍♂️ If it's good I'm gonna dig it anyway. 😏 I also set Notch to 00-00, that helps a lot with iron. This will blank it and cancel most high tones. Disc IAR at 5. Never found it to give a false reading on anything that wasn't iron, and I always dig something to prove it. I was pleasantly surprised to have the Deus run really quiet, there isn't a lot of EMI in my area except the underground power lines around my house. This is an improvement over V2, a very welcome one. I switched between 40 and 24kHz max to see if there was any falsing, and it didn't seem to make much of a difference. I've pretty much wiped this area clean with my detectors, but I did manage a couple of finds today as well as the usual stuff: Buck balls, lead, a rivet, and a copper nail. One piece of iron fooled me but it was very deep and only a whisper. One piece of aluminum as well. This is much like using this program under V2. 😎 Finds weren't too impressive, a clad dime and a very small silver object that could be a piece of coin: I am not able to break it and am impressed by its size and depth, it was a strong 62 and took a while to find. So far so good, I'm going to give it a proper field test tomorrow in another permission. Hopefully I'll have much more to write that is good about it. I'm also excited about possibly combining other program settings with it to take advantage of V4's capability. While I don't recommend this for anyone that doesn't have a second RC yet, we will see. 🤔 🍀

Looking forward to it, Doc. 👍 Got a little story for ya, I was in Myrtle Beach last summer detecting, it was a hot day. Thought I had enough hydration on me, but found out the hard way that I didn't. About a half hour after I got back to the campground, I started getting muscle cramps, so I drank another couple bottles of hydration and some water and vinegar, but the cramps kept getting worse. Ended up calling the rescue squad to take me to the hospital, good thing I did because they got me to drink more and and it got even worse. I cannot describe the excruciating pain. 😵 They got me in the hospital, shot me up with some sort of muscle relaxer, and then started the IVs. A few hours later I was fine, just a little shaky, and they put me in a cab and sent me back to the campground. Let's say that opened my eyes a bit, so now when it's hot I drink a lot of fluids before I go out, even when it isn't all that hot. 🤔 I've done much better since, but I take a swig of vinegar in water when I get back anyway. Did that in Florida for almost 3 weeks and never had a cramp, just had to make sure there was someplace to hit the bathroom 😅 luckily most Florida public beaches have them. My only concern is the sterility of a rig like that over time. 🤔 My idea is to use a light backpack vest that would normally hold a hydration bladder, and put as much water or hydrating drinks in it as possible. I know runners use these rigs and I think so does the military, but the long term is what concerns me. 🍀

https://www.detectorprospector.com/topic/25409-find-more-stuff-pt2-caltopo/#comment-268013 I posted these a couple years ago, I think it covers the apps I mentioned and more. Really like Avenza too. 👍 🍀

I use ONX Hunt for tracking (when I have a mind to), and Caltopo for its strength with Lidar and layers. I'm hoping this app is a lil more accurate with locations, will test it out in my front yard, there was an old house in the field many years ago. 🙂

Thanks, Blackflag. Any tool we can use to accurately discover historical areas is well worth it, and this one is a great example because it's free 🥳 Hope it lasts! 😅

Excellent strategy and finds, Ghound. 🏆 Even got a lucky horseshoe. It seems as your finds are telling a story of some sort. 🤔

Most Outer Banks beaches have a 2' dig limit but the beachgoers don't seem to care about it, until the patrol finally comes by. It's not that big a deal for me. 🤔

Thanks! In retrospect I feel kinda guilty that we bugged out of two really nasty storms, but Nature got the best of us yet again this past weekend, yet another really brutal nor'easter. 🙄 We were on the outmost fringe of its fury, luckily. There are reports of 36" of snow in places far north of us, where I used to live a long time ago. Seemed easier to live with in those days. 🤔 I'm fortunate to have moved here to Virginia, here are some pics: Took this of the field I hunt out front during the storm. The morning after out back, we only got about 4": And the end of the day yesterday, one day later: Snow doesn't last long here. 🥳 Luckily we didn't lose power this time and nothing was damaged. I'll be in the fields this weekend, no doubt! 🙂 However, we have had power outages that last more than a week here in the past, and folks tell me the time we were in Florida was miserable, the ice hung on, winds were high, and it was extremely cold. 🥶 We dodged that bullet anyway. I talk to the people I hunt with via text a lot, as I mentioned last year it's like having a detecting club in my pocket. We trade thoughts about gear, hunting strategy, and programming, among other stuff. I think my skills have improved rapidly because of this. Many on this forum who I have not met in person also help, you included. I'm grateful for all of ya. 🍀

Nice find DC! That buckle is really outstanding as well. 🏆 Always great to find Spanish silver, even parts. And a Barber too! Life is good. 🍀 Here we go again though, they're taking 4-6" here. 😵 It should be gone by Thursday, and maybe I can get back to the fields.

I would love to get one of those myself. 👍 Not available for USA. 🫤

Agreed, Skull. About all it is good for is a sardonic laugh. 👍😅

Have you paired the MI-6 with the Deus 2? 🤔 If you have but have not set sensitivity to 50 in the pinpointer menu (appears when it is on) you are missing out, but if you just want an iron discrimination pinpointer the quest or the Nokta are fine. 👍 I use the Garrett with my Manticore, when the MI-6 is not paired it isn't as loud.

I'm not sure if the Dankowski ferrous line of "4 down from the top" and no disc is missing anything, I found this ring (14k white gold) that was a 10: And that's a "10" in my book 😏

We can turn Disc IAR up to 5 here without missing any non ferrous. It's been good to me for a long time, I've returned to many of the places I hunted and found nothing with other detectors. 🤷‍♂️