Tekkna For The Deus 2, First Impression (updated 3)

[F350Platinum]

Recently Gary Blackwell put up two videos informing us about a program someone else introduced to him - "Tekkna".

It has a whizzy name for sure, and some really odd parameters.

Here's the first video:

The idea is that it's supposed to help you find small coins in iron infested areas. Let me first mention that no program or set of parameters for the D2 is "magic", although @Rattlehead's "Silver Slayer" was as close as one could get on V0.71 in my opinion. 🙂 That was for coin shooting.

Today I went back to continue my grid search of the place I was yesterday, but I quickly found out there was really nothing else, I believe it was a spot that was used a few times for a gathering in the early 1800s, there were oyster shells everywhere and occasional big iron hits, I dug a couple of them and they were all kettle fragments.

I then switched to random hunting, located another really trashy spot further away, put the 9" on and tried Tekkna. Purely by coincidence I swung the detector a few times and got an 87 in all the trash, Tekkna really sounds off clear when you have a non-Ferrous target. Between a few odd bits of heavily squelched iron, I dug this:

Yet another Spanish coin, #5 this year. 😎 I believe it to be a Half Reale cob. The reverse is this:

Not much to go by other than the cross size, it would be much larger if it were clipped. Cobs are oddly shaped and cut.

I searched around for two more hours using this program, made a couple of tweaks to it, first iron volume which I reduced to 8, and then Audio Response which I increased to 5. I also lowered Reactivity to 2 rather than 3 and heard a lot more targets, but from then on the only stuff I got was bits of lead. I also put bottle caps at 3 because the first time I used it here I dug a bottle cap. I might change that to 5 if I get another, it really doesn't mess things up, I've found gold in the beach with it at 5.

Here's his second video posted today that gives clear instructions on how to set it up on the WS6:

 

And here, in a nutshell are my notes for setting it up on the RC unit if watching the first video doesn't help:

Tekkna Program

Based on Sensitive Full Tones

Disc 42

95 sensitivity

Frequency Max 40

Iron volume 10

Reactivity 3

Audio Response 4

Frequency offset 10

Bottle Caps 0

Notch off

Silencer 0

My impression of this program is that it is "interesting", it's not for the 13" coil for sure. You're going to be using it in machine gun iron hoping to squeeze one more target out. 😅 You don't need the bigger coils grabbing stuff on edge that might overwhelm the center.

I lowered iron volume because it really hammers you, 8 is rather comfortable. I raised Audio Response because I wanted targets to jump out slightly more, and lowered Reactivity because I felt I wasn't hearing enough.

I don't think the program is really "unmasking" anything, it's just giving you a better chance to find good stuff in the bad stuff. From other tests I've done live in the field I have yet to see any D2 mode "unmask", that seems to be a myth to me.

If you're like Gary (I am) and want to feel like you're hearing everything, albeit a whisper until you catch a diggable target, it works rather well for that. It did find a small desirable coin in a bed of crap. Understand though, my area of the country has a lot of Spanish silver, you're not gonna just go out and have it appear. 🤣

I'm pretty sure the UK is a lot different than my mild soil here in Virginia, but Tekkna might be another tool to add. I did not dig any iron, and had no instance where I might have.

Check it out. I'll be testing it a lot more very soon, and will update this with any other observations I make.

GL, HH 🍀 

[Rattlehead]

I saw that video while browsing YouTube at work the other day and meant to check it out when I got home, but completely forgot about it. Thanks for reminding me and sharing your thoughts. I recently picked up an extra Deus 2 running 2.0, and will definitely load the Tekkna program up and try it out soon.

 

BTW, after setting up 2.0 as close as possible to what I’m used to in .71 (audio filter at zero, no frequency cap, regular square tones, silencer at 1 or 2), it ran very smoothy for me. Much better than the last time I tried 1.0 and 1.1. I think where I went wrong the first couple of times was trying out too many new settings at once. This time I’ll ease into trying the new settings a little at a time.

i still wish v2.0 had the same ID normalization as .71. Not a huge deal, but a little annoying having to get used to new TID readings in different programs.

[F350Platinum]

7 minutes ago, Rattlehead said:

I still wish v2.0 had the same ID normalization as .71. Not a huge deal, but a little annoying having to get used to new TID readings in different programs.

That took a long time for me, but it's so much better now. While I would still say it's not a "turn on and go" machine with the installed programs, once you understand how the settings work it can be a killer.

If you ever get Silver Slayer back to where it was, please post it here. 😀 I can see now where the ID shift caused problems. Or did you already?

[Rattlehead]

10 minutes ago, F350Platinum said:

That took a long time for me, but it's so much better now. While I would still say it's not a "turn on and go" machine with the installed programs, once you understand how the settings work it can be a killer.

If you ever get Silver Slayer back to where it was, please post it here. 😀 I can see now where the ID shift caused problems. Or did you already?

Will do. I briefly tried SS set up over the Fast program in 2.0. It seemed to work ok using fast as the base, but I haven’t really used it much yet. I noticed the nickel range was way different using Deep HC. 54-59 I think it was?  Looking forward to putting more time on 2.0 soon.

[raziel900]

program number 3 with the aggressive silencer (even at 0) is the least suitable to create a base to unmask targets in the middle of the iron, following the logic I would have taken as a basis the program number 2, this is to say that logic is worth nothing in this hobby, things must be tried... And that's what I did in a medieval site full of iron and modern garbage, guys to my amazement I have to say that he unmasked some very small coins in the middle of that hell,I only changed the discrimination to 35 because some small coins sounded at 38-40 and the iron volume to 7....I was amazed and I must say that it works very well and if it works very well in a land with ancient bricks, iron of all sizes and modern garbage I think it will be good everywhere!

 

ps: i'm on 1.1 version

[ColonelDan]

Great report soldier.  👍🏻.   I’ll have to experiment with those settings but I’d like to try them using a modified General program using its conductive soil subtraction capability…just on a lark.

[F350Platinum]

5 hours ago, ColonelDan said:

Great report soldier.  👍🏻.   I’ll have to experiment with those settings but I’d like to try them using a modified General program using its conductive soil subtraction capability…just on a lark.

Good thought, especially this time of year here, and where you are it rains a lot. 👍 Relic is successful as well with conductive subtraction.

Full tones high square will give you an edge with aluminum, at least some. You get a brassy tone that is not clear. Lifting helps there too.

[F350Platinum]

21 hours ago, raziel900 said:

program number 3 with the aggressive silencer (even at 0) is the least suitable to create a base to unmask targets in the middle of the iron, following the logic I would have taken as a basis the program number 2, this is to say that logic is worth nothing in this hobby, things must be tried... And that's what I did in a medieval site full of iron and modern garbage, guys to my amazement I have to say that he unmasked some very small coins in the middle of that hell,I only changed the discrimination to 35 because some small coins sounded at 38-40 and the iron volume to 7....I was amazed and I must say that it works very well and if it works very well in a land with ancient bricks, iron of all sizes and modern garbage I think it will be good everywhere!

 

ps: i'm on 1.1 version

I agree with you that we should try stuff. 🙂 I love to!

I wonder though why you would not choose a program with moisture subtraction like General or Relic, especially General as the Colonel mentioned above, unless your part of the world is very dry. Thinking more about it, I wonder why a Frequency Addition program was chosen at all. 🤔

I also think your definition of "unmasking" differs from mine. To me, I've only seen true unmasking with an older detector on a silver coin with old iron nails placed on top of it. That detector had a mono coil.

The Deus and the Equinox, despite discriminating the nail signal completely, did not detect the coin at all, or only marginally, a faint high tone with a loud iron tone or a complete blank.

I'm thinking you are writing about co-located ferrous and non-ferrous targets, in which case high Reactivity and a small coil will find a target near iron.

I've found many things in the hole with iron in the plug, but it was always the above combination that did that, and I doubt the iron was directly above it. 🙂

V2 is so much more accurate. Gary Blackwell even hints in the video that much more was fixed or changed with that release. 

[Naildiggerpro]

Well I tried Gary’s tekkna program out today , I went to an old cellar hole that I’ve been to a lot with the deus 2 and before that with my old whites dfx with every coil that came with it. I hit it with the silver slayer program and countless other ones also, I’ve found a lot of old coins here but in last year there hasn’t been much. Anyways not to keep rambling but there is about a 10 foot are square in the front of the cellar hole and I go over that every time I’m there and today with the new program it rang out clear as a bell and out popped a 1872ih in near perfect condition , I don’t know how this program did that with the settings that he has but I’m a believer in it now 👍

[F350Platinum]

6 minutes ago, Naildiggerpro said:

Well I tried Gary’s tekkna program out today , I went to an old cellar hole that I’ve been to a lot with the deus 2 and before that with my old whites dfx with every coil that came with it. I hit it with the silver slayer program and countless other ones also, I’ve found a lot of old coins here but in last year there hasn’t been much. Anyways not to keep rambling but there is about a 10 foot are square in the front of the cellar hole and I go over that every time I’m there and today with the new program it rang out clear as a bell and out popped a 1872ih in near perfect condition , I don’t know how this program did that with the settings that he has but I’m a believer in it now 👍

Hey thanks for playing and contributing! Very cool. Maybe it was on edge and the higher reactivity caught it.

Silver Slayer was a great program, are you on V2?