taken from http://www.mikesweather.metsite.com/...lid_setup.html

One day I was fumbling around not finding much, the next day I was finding silver and Indian head cents all over the place. This is good news for you because I'm going to give you some tips to help you I had never used a detector before when I purchased my Explorer so I started from ground zero with this gadget. It took me about 2 months to figure it out but it was like flipping on a light switch, over the learning curve; it won't take you more than 1-3 weeks depending on the sites you hunt. There has to be some coins there to find obviously. Note I was able to get a former Whites user up to speed on the Explorer in just a couple of weeks, even at that he was finding silver and wheat’s right off the bat.

My approach is different from the popular view, I will give you a setup which will let the Explorer flex its muscles right from the start. Trust me this approach works, I hunted today for 5 hours and found 10 wheat’s, 12 Indian heads, 2 mercs, and 3 barber dimes (including a nice 1892-o) in a patch that’s been detected already by the other top brand. Using these settings and this approach over the past 2 seasons I have found over 400 silvers, getting close to 400 Indian heads, a pile of silver quarters, about a dozen large cents, 2 barber half’s, a WL half, and gobs of other stuff and jewelry. All from parks that have been hunted hard for many years.

The advice below assumes that there are coins in your area in the 6-10 inch range like there are in my area; this approach is for hunting deep coins and coins on edge.

Ok let’s get to it...first if you want to go deep for the older coins forget the factory settings they won't get the job done. The factory sensitivity setting of 16 is 50% of possible, semi-auto mode can drop it further so you might as well use your old detector as far as depth goes. Plus WAY too much of the screen is blacked out, the deeper the coin, the less accurate the ID on the screen though the tone will be accurate for the most part. Worn silver will not hit in the textbook area of the screen. I found a worn reale that hit way over to the top left in the iron area, I found IH's that hit from upper left to upper right to lower right, again we are talking deep targets. Then you have to understand that a lot of the good coins that are left, especially silver quarters, half’s, and large cents are near other trash items. I have found many silver quarters up near and even under trash, most often a big rusty nail or a rusty crown cap. These trash items will pull the signal off the textbook location on the screen BUT you can still here them (the tone ID is highly accurate) if you have not discriminated that area of the screen out which the factory startup screen does.

Don't worry about programming the detector this thing is easy, once setup I rarely change anything other than bumping the sensitivity a few points up or down usually due to nearby power lines.

Here are my settings, just stay out of my town with them as I have enough competition from Ed the Explorer monster I helped create.

Sensitivity = Manual mode as high as it will go and be reasonable stable, I rarely will hunt at less than 25 and I'll put up with a bit of instability in exchange for the depth a higher Sens gives you. I almost always run 26-28 with the stock coil, 30 if the conditions are very good. I NEVER hunt in semi-auto, that’s a feel good setting. Semi-auto will give you a nice stable machine but it too often over compensates for the condition and you lose a lot of depth. Adjust the Sens manually.

Threshold = personal choice, I like it just barely audible.

Volume = 10 max

Gain = 7, I have found this to be the best all around setting. Deep targets still sound deep (different) from shallow targets yet they are not so faint that you have to strain to hear them. Be on the lookout for those fainter signals that repeat though, I found many a silver dime on edge with this machine and they don't give the more robust signal you get from a coin lying flat. Some guys hunt with the gain at 10, I get too many false signals that high. One quite successful hunter uses 6 but I nearly missed some on edge coins at 7 so 6 aren’t for me. 5 is much too low.

Variability = 10 Max, this gives you the widest variation which I like, like having 100 possible tones verses 80, or 50 at lower settings. You can actually hear the difference between a merc verses a barber/seated dime, even the difference between a worn silver and one in good shape.

Limits = Max which is the recommended Minelab setting. I like the high pitch scream of silver!!!

Sounds = Ferrous, (gasp!) yes this is an excellent advantage the Explorer has over other models. Silver still sounds high but iron sounds low. We have tons of iron around here so this makes it quite easy to hear silver mixed in with the iron. The down side is that rusty bottle caps will sound high like silver but I have some tricks for that below.

Noise = if you have the XS just hit the Noise Cancel button after you startup the machine, if you have the S adjust manually.

Response = Normal, a few have experimented with the other options but most find this to be the best overall. I would not experiment until you have this machine down pat.

Recovery = Fast Off, Deep On, this is very important. This combination gives deep coins a nice wide, robust signal which sticks out like a sore thumb compared with trash signals. But if you turn Fast on it will chop the signal off short and the coins will sound more like the short chopped off trash signals making learning the detector much more difficult. It should only be turned on in heavy trash conditions and my advice is avoid those areas until you are confident with the machine in medium to light trash conditions and you have learned what the coins sound like.

There's a good solid program, again I rarely change anything other than the Sens a few points up/down so this machine once setup is pretty much a turn on and go machine.

Now lets setup the screens, you basically have two machines (screens) which you can switch between quite easily. The Smart find screen and the Iron Mask screen. I recommend that you set up the Smart find screen with Nails and crown caps discriminated out. This will leave 95% of the screen open and yes you will here a lot of trash signals but remember you are listening for that distinctive coin/round target ring and the wide signals. If this is too difficult at first then you might disc out a few more trash objects but nothing like the factory setup.

Next go into the iron mask screen and back off the iron mask to -16, this is wide open allowing in all target signals, there will be no black on the screen i.e. all metal. Now here's the trick, hunt using your smart find screen and when you think you found a good target, switch to your iron mask screen and sweep it again. Notice how much more robust and clear the signal is, notice how you can kind of see (hear) where everything is around your target, there might be a nail to the left or a pull-tab. In your smart find screen the items blacked (discriminated) out cloud the signal, it distorts it and makes it more difficult to pinpoint when iron or trash is nearby. I especially use this trick when I'm working an iffy signal.

Now some tips...

1. Coins and round objects in general give a nice wide, robust signal as you sweep across them, often they sound fluty like several notes playing on a flute as you sweep across. This is very much different from trash items. Trash tends to give you a short, chopped off signal compared to a coin and the tone is generally a flat, mono-tone signal verses the fluty sounds. If you picture sweeping the coin, it may give a signal 6 inches wide across the ground where shallow trash might only be 2-3 inches wide. Once you learn this distinctive characteristic of coins and round objects you can wade right through the worst trash heaps and pick out the coins without much effort. Trash items are like my threshold now, I just mosey along until I hear that rinnnngggg fluty bicycle bell like ring go off, then I dig. Once this clicks you will start hammering coins left and right.

2. Slow down, don't fan the Explorer back and forth like a DFX for example, not too slow mind you, I'd say medium slow. Also slow down your pace, overlap your swings 50% pick at the ground and around trash objects, expect to find some coins and you will. There are many good coins left near and under trash that the older detectors could not lock on, the Explorer will get them but not if you are moving too fast. Every time I get to racing across the park I stop finding coins. I found a barber half directly under a rusty crown cap, I found another barber half right up next to a big chunk of iron, I could only get a signal from one very narrow angle, and if I turned a few degrees either way it vanished. I found a barber quarter, barber dime, and a V nickel in a single plug in a spot that’s been detected 50 times including a couple times by me with the Explorer...only this time I was overlapping my swings and guess what, you could only get a signal with the front 3 inches of the coil, any further forward and it vanished amongst the pile of nails that surrounded it. Turn left or right, it vanished.

3. Starting out you should only dig signals which repeat from two directions, if you get a good signal turn 90 degrees and sweep it again...did it sound low like iron? Did it move from where you thought it was? It’s probably iron. If it repeats good from both directions dig it! But you are probably wondering about those single direction signals I just spoke about, yes sometimes the single direction signals should be dug, my rule is if they hit real good from a single direction, near textbook, I'll dig them but you will dig some iron too as a rusty nail can give a pretty good signal especially this time of year when the ground is so wet. I'd save the single direction signals for later after you have some time on the machine so you don't ware yourself out digging nails at first.

4. Scrub the ground with the coil, the Explorer does not like air spaced between the coil and the ground, you lose depth. This thing goes deep but it likes ground between the coil and the target, air seems to be a problem. I see a lot of guys who are used to other detectors holding the coil off the ground, this is a mistake.

5. Pick a day, as I did one day where you will set a minimum depth and dig every single target of that depth or greater with the exception of rusty iron of course. For my area that was 6 inches or deeper, try this exercise and you will be very surprised at what you dig up and how far off the textbook screen areas a coin can hit. I have dug many a nickel for example that hit mostly bottom right of the screen verses the textbook. If you pick a depth of 6 inches and you are finding too much modern trash go to 8 inches. If older coins are found in the 5 in range in your area pick 5.

6. Lastly beware of the fainter very deep high pitch signals which are often a small rusty nail, stick with the more robust signals for now or if you get a fainter signal know that it will repeat generally from more than one direction and even though its fainter, its generally solid verses iron which always sounds a bit mushy and foggy to me.

I use many coils, the Minelab 8 inch coil rocks around sidewalks where the snowplows have launched trash for years. Nabbed a nice barber half and some barber quarters with it last season.

I hated the stock coil at first, I just could not pinpoint with that thing but later I found it was me not the coil, I just needed to learn how to pinpoint. Now I use the stock coil most of the time, good depth and not to bad in trash if you go slowly.

I also use the WOT which is an awesome coil. It goes deeper than the stock coil yet it’s quite sensitive to small targets, its great on coins on edge and I find most of my very deep relics in the 10-14 inch range with it.

I'm currently building a 6 inch coil and a 22 inch coil as well, stay tuned on those.

Hope this helps.

Charles

Question: Question for yea what is the lowest point on the screen that you have seen the cross hairs and it still be a silver coin? also the same question but how far left have you seen the cross hairs and it still be a silver coin?

Answer: Hey there's some silver!!! Boy there's nothing that compares with finding a silver coin, its addicting. Quick note, mercs often sound lower in pitch than say a barber dime or seated dime, I think its because they have a deep relief die, they are a tad higher and purer than a wheat, but lower than a barber. A barber in good shape, vf say will generally knock your headphones off they sound so strong.

Lowest point on the screen for a silver...I found many silvers that hit about 40% down from the top, not quite half way down and far right. These included a barber dime, several quarters, and one barber half, each were directly under a rusty bottlecap. The Explorer seems to average the objects together, be on the lookout for the target which hits way out in the middle of knowhere where nothing generally ever hits, its probably two targets averaged together. I once found a barber dime and a buffalo nickel stuck together, man that hit like dead center of the screen and sounded kind of odd yet I could hear the nickel and I could hear some silver screaming. Also note that half dimes and 3 cent silvers hit quite low, can be as low as mid screen. Worn silvers hit quite a bit lower than normal, even lower than a wheat or IH, don't get sloppy like me and dig carelessly thinking its another corroded IH only to find out you gouged the crap out of an old worn seated dime. Silver can also hit way left but never all the way top left. The thing about silver and iron mixed is that the cursor will jump back and forth left and right, thats why I say go to iron mask -16 to check those iffy signals.

I'll give you a more advanced tip I would not normally as this is the next zone of this machine. As deep coins approach the limits of detection they sound more and more like iron, many and I mean many coins I dig have lots of iron sound mixed in with the coin sound, telling the difference between a coin and iron when they both sound like iron is a bit of a black art. I have dug coins which gave a good coin signal with my 15 inch coil that sounded exactly like iron to the stock coil. Or did they...rusty nails are distinctive, they do not behave like a coin. When you sweep a coin which is trying to sound like iron from two directions it does not move and you still get that wider robust signal, it just sounds mostly like iron. But when you sweep a rusty nail from two directions it moves, you think its at point A but when swept again at 90 degrees it moves way over to point B i.e. its behaving like iron. I will often dig those 80% iron signals which behave like a coin. Note most often there is no iron in the hole...sound confusing? The reason is there is a point where the detector is passing through so much ground mineralization that iron which is the most common mineral clouds or fogs the coin signal, like trying to peer through a thick iron haze, thats why on some really deep ones they mostly sound like iron.

There are plenty of coins that will only give you a signal from one direction or angle, but a rusty nail will do the same thing, the sound is close but with practice you can tell the difference between a coin half surounded by iron and a rusty nail. Man I dug some nails in the early days though until I learned, thats why its best to stick with the two direction signals for now, the coin sound will become second nature, then you can really go find all the stuff everyone else missed.

Here's another tip...want to find an 1860's fat indian head...I found one tonight, it hit about 1/4 inch from the bottom of the screen, about 1/2 inch from the right side, pull-tab beaver tale zone right...but it sounded like a coin, nice robust signal and the copper in it was screaming, no beaver tale sounds that good, let me repeat that, no beaver tale sounds that good, sometimes the quality of signal says dig. Plus it had the right depth.

Here's another tip, gawwwd my poor brain is packed with too much Explorer stuff, want to find some cool buttons, old toys, and such? Old military buttons tend to hit bottom right corner which stinks because if you notch out those rusty bottle caps you will miss them. Then it strickly a depth game, and somewhat a quality of signal game, no deep bottlecap will sound as good as an old button even though they might hit in the same place on the screen.

Speaking of which, here's how I decide to dig or not dig, above all its the tone/sound of the target, while the screen will average two targets together you can hear each individually generally unless they are actually stuck together. So first tone, if the tone is great generally the screen will back that up. If the tone is iffy I'll go to the screen, if the screen says yeah it could be a coin or something cool and the depth is close to or deeper than my set old coin depth, then I'll take a chance and dig. So I use tone, screen, and depth.

Question: Hey Charles question, I tried your settings and they seem to be good and will run them for about a month or two so I really can tell! But I did as you said as far as the setup! But still dug some bottle caps why? Another question why wouldn't you just set every thing up like you did and just run it in Iron Mask -16 instead of switching back and forth? Looking forward to your comments =)). Your comment saying "they sound fluty like several notes playing on a flute as you sweep across" I think I experienced that today digging 3 wheat’s from this old home site that was kind of trashy, I'm gonna go back with my Sunray X-5 coil to get better separation =). I will have to put a few more hours in and listen for those fluty sounds and really look for them =)) I guess silver has that also right?

Answer: Rusty bottle caps or alum screw caps? As rusty bottle caps rust away the iron leaches out and they move up the screen towards the silver quarter range, I dug some rusty bottle caps where the rim had rusted completely away and they sound close to a silver quarter and hit up near silver quarters from all directions. If you notch them out this will take care of most of them but not all.

The trick with the rusty bottle caps is the shape of the sound; a silver quarter will ring out nice and smooth as you sweep across it, like a dome. The rusty bottle caps while they might have the same pitch tone, the shape of the sound rises very sharply then kind of pops, it’s that popping that gives them away. But if you have one sounding off even though you notched it out and there’s some silver ringing mixed in, dig them, I often find silver hiding underneath. I notch out the rusty bottle caps in certain parks just to keep my sanity as there seems to be one in every two sweeps.

Actually I hunt in iron mask 90% of the time, but that’s generally too intense for someone just starting out.

Hey if you found some fluty wheat’s you are getting it, silver gives the ultimate signal, if you thought those wheat’s sounded good wait till you sweep across a silver coin, silver screams, its the most conductive metal so it gives the purest signal. Wheat’s sometimes screamed like silver from one direction, but sound a pitch lower like wheat from a second direction.

Alum screw caps are a pain, if they are squashed flat and deep, they are difficult to avoid. They do sound a tad lower than silver, but its close enough that if you happen across a deep one you have to dig it. Mostly I can avoid them because they are several inches shallower than old coins in my area.