Detectors

My new detector: Whites DFX

In this section I will include stuff about detectors, currently a Whites DFX, but I also include some information about the Whites XLT which served me well for the last few years and some other detectors that I've tried out over the years

So, I've gone back to Whites machines and bought the DFX. Is it any good? Well, so far I've found lots with it but I don't think that I've got the best out of it yet. It is different to the XLT and my old programmes didn't work as well as in the XLT. I've been given a good DFX programme from Mick which probably just gives it the edge over the XLT. The dual frequency settings actually seem to degrade performance so I use it at 15Khz all the time. So now we have an XLT with a higher frequency? If anyone has any tips I'd like to hear them. In the meantime I'm pleased with the machine and I hope to get more out of it with experience.

 

My last detector: Minelab Explorer II

I bought the Explorer II about a year ago and wrote at the time:

I've just bought the Minelab Explorer II as it was reported to be very deep seeking. This is something that I've wanted for a long time for several of my Roman sites which are not ploughed very often. I tried it out yesterday for the first time and it found a bagfull of items on a very dry, normally quiet site. Nothing fantastic (solid silver spoon and couple of crotal bells) but my poor old shovel was kept busy. Compared to the XLT the sounds were VERY strange and I found it a very heavy machine. The balance seems wrong - it is heavier at the coil end so you are constantly having to lift as well as sweep. Apart from this minor niggle it seems a great detector. The real test is to come - will it find the Roman and Celtic??

About 2 weeks later I traded it in and bought the Whites DFX. Why? Well, I certainly found plenty with the Explorer but I didn't like the wide variety of sounds that it produced with every signal - I found the tones very confusing and ended up digging every signal, including iron. With the XLT I had a pretty good idea of the type of target I'd found before digging and I could confidently ignore certain signals knowing them to be iron. I also found the machine unbalanced - much too heavy at the front. I would consider another top end machine from Minelab in the future if they can sort out the balance and make the sounds less confusing.

Earlier detector - Whites XLT:

The XLT was my fourth detector in 6 years. I started with a Whites Classic III which was easy to use but didn't give me enough information about the target (or I wasn't patient enough to learn the subtle differences in sound made by different targets). Either way, I upgraded to an Eagle Spectrum and was instantly hooked. My finds rate increased and I found that the information provided by the detector gave me a fair indication of the target before actually digging it.  I then bought a Laser B3 as a backup machine which I quite liked but then traded both in for a new Spectrum XLT. This is a great detector.

See below for the XLT programmes that I use...  
   
The first programme was provided by Malcolm Jubb when he visited our club (Herts and District Metal Detecting Club) a couple of years ago.  I use this as my general purpose programme as it copes well with most inland sites and is reasonably deep seeking. The settings are shown in the column headed "Malc".
For sites where finds are few and far between and you want the best depth I have recently started using the mixed-mode functionality of the XLT. (See second column for settings). This programme is too noisy for an average field as it responds to everything. However, it utilises the non-motion channel to identify deeper targets than you would normally find. When using this programme it is important to listen carefully for those deep signals. On “busy” sites there will be just too many signals (both ferrous and non-ferrous) producing a lot of noise and there will be a risk of missing good targets. I have a couple of sites which have produced good finds in the past but were clearly not heavily populated over time. Consequently most of the finds are good (i.e. no modern ring pulls, silver paper, cartridges etc) but only a few, deep targets.  These sites are ideal for the XLT programme shown here.  When I first started using mixed-mode I found it very noisy and off-putting. However, I think it’s worth persevering with on good sites. 
The above programmes work fine on the fields that I search. Your fields may be different with more or less mineralisation etc. I tend to push the AC sensitivity as high as I can as this gives greater depth. However, the down side is that the extra sensitivity is at the expense of stability and on some sites the detector becomes unstable at the highest levels. On a couple of sites I can push to AC sensitivity all the way to 80 and also get the preamp gain up to about 6 without losing stability.   
 
 
XLT Programs
   PROG 1 PROG 2
    Malc  Gary 
BASIC ADJUSTMENTS Target Volume 56 56
Audio Threshold 1 1
Tone (Audio Freq) 236 236
Audio Disc ON ON
Silent Search OFF OFF
Mixed Mode OFF ON
A.C. Sensitivity 78 77
D.C. Sensitivity 55 35
Backlight 0 0
Viewing Angle 25 25
PRO OPTIONS      
AUDIO Ratchet Pinpointing OFF ON
S.A.T. Speed 5 7
Tone I.D. OFF OFF
V.C.O ON OFF
Absolute Value OFF OFF
Modulation ON ON
GEB/TRAC Autotrac ON ON
Trac View OFF OFF
Autotrac speed  12 14
Autotrac offset +1 +1
Trac inhibit ON OFF
Coarse G.E.B. AUTO AUTO
Fine G.E.B. AUTO AUTO
DISCRIMINATION Edit - reject -95 to -50 -95 to -45
Edit - accept -49 to +94 -44 to +94
Edit - reject +95 +95
Learn accept/reject OFF OFF
Recovery speed 22 22
Bottlecap reject 1 1
DISPLAY Visual disc ON ON
Icons OFF OFF
V.D.I. Sensitivity 90 85
D.C.Phase OFF OFF
Graph Averaging ON ON
Graph Accumulating ON ON
Fade Rate 7 7
 SIGNAL (TRANSMIT RECEIVE)  Transmit Boost ON ON
Transmit Frequency 4 4
Preamp Gain 3 3