Orx Sifting Through Horrible Soil

[RobNC]

It rained 90% of the day here yesterday and all night. Hard at times. This morning came and the sun was out. Wind blowing and 42 degrees. Annoyed that the rain kept me from detecting yesterday and foaming at the mouth to run a detector over some ground.. I hit a nearby school I've been to a few times this year. Most of the easier finds are gone there and the T2 with small coil went quiet on the last hunt.  Seemed like a good test for the ORX!

So out I went today on a pre-planned short hunt to that school. Immediately upon arrival and turning on the machine I was getting major EMI/RFI at 14.8 khz (My usual search frequency on the 9" HF coil). Tried lowering sensitivity and still the same chatter, Tried changing frequency in the same band (13-15) with no change. Luckily the ORX has more frequencies than that! So I put it in 26.6 and the noise immediately went away. Jacked up the sensitivity to 90 and off we went. The ground was completely saturated with water. The first signal I received ended up being a dime down at 5 inches. The amount of muck and actual water in the hole was terrible. I hunted this chip bark spot a little bit longer and walked away with another dime and 2 pennies. I could hear other things in the ground, but they were coming back as foil or can slaw. Admittedly I've not used the higher frequencies much because in my air tests they are not as hot on silver and light up aluminum pretty bad but today it was either use them or don't hunt that site. Glad I learned a lesson today!

So I moved to another area that is used as playground there (no chip bark just grass and dirt). Immediately the iron grunts and machine gun fire audio began. Through that barrage of active minerals and junk I picked up high tone. Sure enough dug down and found another dime. Continued on and located 4 nickels, 3 quarters, another dime, some corroded pennies and intact copper ones. Tough detecting conditions, but I see the ORX has the right stuff to sift through that mess if my brain and ears can stand it. The more I use the ORX the more it surprises me. It is a very sensitive unit yet can and does reveal masked targets that are worth digging. Do not be afraid to use the ORX in awful conditions. I am nowhere near proficient with it yet but getting better every time I take it out. You really have to slow down on your sweep speed, even at 2.5 reactivity. If you do that, the ORX can sniff out the good between masking garbage and horrible soil. It does take patience and the brain with your ears has to adjust. Once that connection is made though things you missed before can be heard. It's hard explain in words.

Some things I have learned today about the ORX- 1)Do not be afraid to use higher frequencies, and in my case the conditions forced me to use higher. 2) Even at sensitivity lower than 80 the ORX goes plenty deep, especially when there is a lot of moisture in the ground.. 3)I've yet to dig anything with the ORX in the VDI 70-75 range that is worth fooling with. 4) The spots you would think have nothing to give you (because you ran other detectors over it before), those are the ones to hit with the ORX.

The ORX is a good detector to use when the others you use have gotten quieter or silent at places. Take the ORX  and you will find something if there is anything at all left. Really impressed with the abilities it has to find things. It does take time though and I can't express that strongly enough. You must put in the time with it and not get frustrated. The ORX does speak somewhat of a different language but what it can uncover for you makes up for the time investment. A wee bit of work in learning it and deciphering through the sounds of a horrible site but in my case the other detector I have would have been a no-go there today.

Settings today- Disc 6.5 and disc 7.0, 26.6khz, sensitivity 75-90, iron vol on, reactivity 2 and 2.5 (2.5 was most productive at this site). Sweep speed reduced by 50% helped find the goodies between junk.

[Rick N. MI]

Nice review. I'm really liking my Orx too. Can't wait to get  in the water with it in the spring.

[GB_Amateur]

On 11/24/2019 at 6:01 PM, RobNC said:

Wind blowing and 42 degrees.

 

On 11/24/2019 at 6:01 PM, RobNC said:

The ground was completely saturated with water. The first signal I received ended up being a dime down at 5 inches. The amount of muck and actual water in the hole was terrible.

Way to tough it out.  Windy and low 40's F is at or below my threshold.  I bet you didn't have any competition!  Sounds like you've found a detector that you have confidence in.  Hard to beat that.

 

[RobNC]

54 minutes ago, GB_Amateur said:

 

Way to tough it out.  Windy and low 40's F is at or below my threshold.  I bet you didn't have any competition!  Sounds like you've found a detector that you have confidence in.  Hard to beat that.

 

The problem with this time of the year is the wind. I can deal with temps in the low 40's without wind if the sun is out. But when the wind is blowing 5-15 mph or higher, that cuts me out. To make matters worse the sun was not out much the last hunt.

I like the ORX more than I did. It has some tricks up its sleeve.  But it is not perfect. No detector is. With the ORX I would like to see another mechanism to kick in the pinpoint function. It is a concentration breaking time killer. I'm also not pleased with the ID on it all the time. It is ok, and gives you an idea but I've grown accustomed to the Teknetics T2 numbers. It's very difficult to jump from one detector to another when they are so different.  I've used the T2 far more than I have the ORX, and very familiar with the ID on the T2. From the beginning the ORX ID numbers really did not make me happy. That has not changed. Pretty much the rules I follow with it are simple. Do not dig anything from 0-60. 61-63 dig. 67-69 dig. 70's have rarely given me anything but junk, every now and then a chewed up stinking lincoln cent. 80-84 are ok for clad. 85-86 is getting bottlecaps. 88 up to 94 are better things. 95 and up have been a crapshoot for me too.

In other countries the entire spectrum of ID may be more beneficial to dig, but around here so far the things above ring true. My sites are mostly modern sites consisting of school playgrounds, school grounds, and every now and then an older home site. I do not have what is considered "good sites" to hit when compared to what I see some of the people on the forums going to. For me, the thrill is in finding silver coins and items. I'd love some gold and do at times dig iffy signals or zones gold could be in and every time I get poop in return. Not so much confidence in the ORX as simply adapting to what it can and can't do.

The wild fleeting thought has crossed my mind about the Deus and how much better it may be. I've read bundles on it but it also seems to be a detector that requires a lot of time investment and has so many settings that without meaning to you could actually hurt your chances of finding something. Things like the plot screen fascinate me about that unit. I hear people talk about how fast the Teknetics T2 is, but after using it and the ORX must admit it simply does not compare in a really iron littered site. The ORX beats it every time on pure processing speed and power. NOW, if I could just get the ID numbers from the T2 and combine that with the speed and power of the ORX, add in the flexible frequencies like the ORX has, and find a weight somewhere in between them both- that would be about perfect. Until then they both serve a very different purpose for me. The T2 with the small coil is a cherry picker, it is my first unit to hit on chip bark tot lots, small play areas and the such. Have learned the ID's so well on the T2 can usually call it before I dig it. Where it struggles are when the ground is contaminated with iron within the dirt itself, not man-made iron objects. It will cut up so bad in that you can't hunt. The ORX is different and can handle such ground BUT it comes at a price, YOUR EARS and SANITY.  A lot of work to pull things out of such a spot like the one in this post. I've heard this type of behavior before but did not realize T2's weakness in it until last weekend after the ORX at least gave me a chance and did find coins in the exact same spot my T2 simply iron grunted itself and me to death in.

Never thought I would say this, but would like to see how an Equinox 800 would have dealt with that spot of ground. Had an EQ600 and simply did not mesh with it. It was very erratic most of the time in places I've since took the T2 and ORX, and those 2 produced items where the EQ600 did not. With the Equinox what messes with me the most are the tone pitches and the bleepity blop zingy flute music. My brain simply doesn't have enough australian in it evidentally to fully comprehend what it is trying to say. The ID was also a bit weird for my liking. But do not fault anyone that loves them. It works for them and I'm just pissed off it never worked out for me.. and that is brutal honesty.