Overwhelmed switching from Ace 250 to Xterra

SGWiley

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Joined
Mar 18, 2012
Messages
71
Location
Northern NJ
I took my Xterra out today for a little while, and quickly felt overwhelmed with all the settings. The tones were unfamiliar, the display with the numeeic value was foreign to me. I felt like I didn't set it up properly.
Gods honest truth, I boxed it back up, and was ready to just stick with the ACE 250 since i knew it better.
Then a little voice inside me said..."you barely gave it a chance. Do more research, look for instructional resources."
So tonight I found an EBook by Randy "Digger" Horton called Understanding Your Xterra. Folks have called it the Xterra bible.
I'm starting to feel better and cant wait to give it another go tomorrow 😊
 
Give it time. When I went to the Etrac from the at pro? Oh golly 2 sets of numbers!

But then this started to happen.
3554e0e83f92ccbf374f0ba28f294400.jpg

No machine I have used sucks deep silver like Minelab out of the ground.

I watched many videos and stuck with it.

I have since long sold my at pro.

Keep at it X Terra is a great machine. One thing too is with most Minelabs (pre-equinox) you need to work the area slower. Slow your speed down to get deep coins.


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Give it time. When I went to the Etrac from the at pro? Oh golly 2 sets of numbers!

But then this started to happen.
3554e0e83f92ccbf374f0ba28f294400.jpg

No machine I have used sucks deep silver like Minelab out of the ground.

I watched many videos and stuck with it.

I have since long sold my at pro.

Keep at it X Terra is a great machine. One thing too is with most Minelabs (pre-equinox) you need to work the area slower. Slow your speed down to get deep coins.


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Thanks for the encouragement! I'm watching videos now and schooling up on this machine.
Can't wait to take it out again!
 
Give it time. The Xterra's are highly underrated.
To learn the tones and how slow you should sweep, run zero Disc, Multi-Tone, and go slow enough to hear each signal individually. It won't take long before your brain ignores the most common iron tones and keys on the ones that you find produce.

Also, remember that the GB scale is opposite of what you're used to. The lower the number the hotter the ground, and the higher the number the milder the conditions.
 
I bought a Deus . Same story! Can't wait till next summer when hopefully I will be past all the uncertainty !
 
I took my Xterra out today for a little while, and quickly felt overwhelmed with all the settings. The tones were unfamiliar, the display with the numeeic value was foreign to me. I felt like I didn't set it up properly.
Gods honest truth, I boxed it back up, and was ready to just stick with the ACE 250 since i knew it better.
Then a little voice inside me said..."you barely gave it a chance. Do more research, look for instructional resources."
So tonight I found an EBook by Randy "Digger" Horton called Understanding Your Xterra. Folks have called it the Xterra bible.
I'm starting to feel better and cant wait to give it another go tomorrow 😊

I have been running the 505 for 2 years now. It's a great machine. I would recommend running it in 4 tone (as 99 tones can be overwhelming), and all metal at first. Dig it all. 3-9 is gonna be foil, 12 is a nickle and sometimes modern soda tabs, 15-18-24 are various pull tabs and can slaw. 27-33 are pennies. 36-39 are dimes and 42-45 are quarters/silver rings. 48 is usually iron nails, etc.

The above is just general guide based in my red clay soil, ymmv. Good luck and don't give up on it,
 
I took my Xterra out today for a little while, and quickly felt overwhelmed with all the settings. The tones were unfamiliar, the display with the numeeic value was foreign to me. I felt like I didn't set it up properly.
Gods honest truth, I boxed it back up, and was ready to just stick with the ACE 250 since i knew it better.
Then a little voice inside me said..."you barely gave it a chance. Do more research, look for instructional resources."
So tonight I found an EBook by Randy "Digger" Horton called Understanding Your Xterra. Folks have called it the Xterra bible.
I'm starting to feel better and cant wait to give it another go tomorrow 😊

It helps if you will get you some coins, junk targets, nails, bottle caps.
And play around with your detector sweeping them.
Then start mixing them up some, adjusting spacing and sweep.
Try to get an idea of what the detecfor is telling you tonally and with numbers.
This is a more controlled setting for you.
I do this with every detector I get.
Before I venture out in the wild.
And even redo above after I have been in the wild detecting.

One hunt- don't ever discount a detector.
Not even 2 hunts.
Leave the ace 250 at home- no crutch that way.
Keep at it, it'll come to you.
 
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Hang in there man, it's a great machine and is a blast to use. And very accurate and deep.
 
I remember that feeling also two years ago going from an f2 to a CTX 3030! All the noise and the numbers! Just started to dig it all and it starts clicking. Now two years later I'm still learning but understand a lot more and look forward to each outing. You will get it.


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Do not even bring the ace with you on a hunt, it is too easy to give up on a new machine out of frustration. Keep at it, I made the same jump years ago from an ace 250 to the x terra 705. Thing drove me NUTS at first. Do yourself a favor and do not run in max amount of tones for awhile, stick with 4 tone otherwise it will sound like a robot from star wars which will make no sense to you.
Swing slow and take your time listening for the higher tones amongst the garbage. The machine will teach YOU how it wants to be swung to be steady and smooth. Nice smooth low swings and the narrow in more and more until you are right over the target, no need to pinpoint after awhile.
Try to put in as much time as you can with it, for me the first few hunts just confused me, but after maybe ten hours I started to get it and after hundreds of hours I continued to be impressed.
 
The Exterra is a great machine, and given some time it will be an outstanding coin finding monster. All detectors take a while to get to know, but this one should not take any time at all. Go get the treasure.;):D
 
Give it time. The Xterra's are highly underrated.
To learn the tones and how slow you should sweep, run zero Disc, Multi-Tone, and go slow enough to hear each signal individually. It won't take long before your brain ignores the most common iron tones and keys on the ones that you find produce.

Also, remember that the GB scale is opposite of what you're used to. The lower the number the hotter the ground, and the higher the number the milder the conditions.[/


Longhair is correct the 705 takes some time to get accustomed to and it can be over whelming I have been using one since 09 or 2010 and it was a vary confusing machine when i first started out with it my wife and I purchased two machines around the same time one was the AT PRO and the other was the 705 the pro was new and the 705 we purchased used from the same dealer the ATP was for my wife and the 705 for myself it took me almost two years to finally get a clear understanding of what the 705 was telling me as I am not a quick study but I stuck with it and once the light bulb turned on as to what the 705 was saying it has been a love affair ever since there was times I wanted to wrap it around a tree LOL but I stuck with it I feel the 705 is still to this day one of the most under rated detectors on the market and the ATP one of the most over rated

one suggestion I have for you if you have not already done it is to go to the minelab site and down load the eBook written by Randy Horton called Understanding Your XTERRA it is full of all kinds of tips and a great tool to use for learning the 705 download it,print it and read it several times and then re read it

The other suggestion I have which was stated in another response to you is to get it off of the 99 tones as they can be quite over whelming to get accustomed to set it to two or four tones and I believe you will find it less confusing.

I hunt almost exclusively in prospecting mode with the GB Tracking activated and that is due to what I detect for in Arizona.

hope this helps
 
You should have the xterra figured out in no time if you regularly use it. I used my xterra70 for 7 or so years and it served me very well. Last year June I got myself a CTX. That one took a long time to learn and getting used to the new tones and buttons. I'm still learning stuff now.
 
Do not even bring the ace with you on a hunt, it is too easy to give up on a new machine out of frustration. Keep at it, I made the same jump years ago from an ace 250 to the x terra 705. Thing drove me NUTS at first. Do yourself a favor and do not run in max amount of tones for awhile, stick with 4 tone otherwise it will sound like a robot from star wars which will make no sense to you.
Swing slow and take your time listening for the higher tones amongst the garbage. The machine will teach YOU how it wants to be swung to be steady and smooth. Nice smooth low swings and the narrow in more and more until you are right over the target, no need to pinpoint after awhile.
Try to put in as much time as you can with it, for me the first few hunts just confused me, but after maybe ten hours I started to get it and after hundreds of hours I continued to be impressed.
I just got a 705 myself and thanks for your suggestions.

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X Terra are excellent machines. I love mine. You have to learn its language. But once you do you will be finding the good stuff in no time.
 
I've got the 705 also, and new to it. It is confusing at times, looks like it's about getting used to the machine. It's not a right out of the box ready to go detector it seems. It has a steep learning curve. Looking forward to making friends with it.

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You can take both you Garrett ace 250 and your Xterra with you on a hunt in a relatively clean area and compare one with the other to give you some reference.

Even though the ace 250 and the xterra are a lot different, they still have some common ground and that knowledge and basic operation principle can be used to clear the confusion.

Adjusting to "new" tones is not near as difficult as you imagine. You will quickly adapt to the tones.
Nickels are a mid tone, then pennies can fall into two tones with zinc a little lower than copper. Pennies are on the lower portion of the high tones. Then dimes come in next a little above the pennies with a mid-high tone. Then quarters come in next a little above the dime with a high tone. Then silver comes in at the upper end of the conductive range with a high-high tone.
With advanced settings, you can alter the coin tones and tone volumes to get either differential tones per coin or group them all into a single tone and volume for simplicity.
Number of tones is a personal choice but there are trade-offs involved. The more tones, the more information one can derive from them. But more time and practice is required to learn the tones. Different number of tones can be utilized to match specific hunting requirements. 2 tone is useful for relic hunting or hunting coins in high trash areas. (other settings must be utilized as well to get the right combination for the desired outcome.) Some beach hunter like 2 tone to separate low conductors from high conductors. The same would apply to relic and coins in certain situations. 3-4 tones can be used to give more info about what is in the ground so one can separate them out and make digging decisions.


Adjusting to the "new" ID is not difficult either. It just takes some testing to get a baseline of numbers to go from. Coins fall into their respective tones based on their conductivity.
As with most detectors, you have the same basic system of tones and ID. You have a discriminate graph that starts with low conductors on one end and progresses toward high conductors on the other end.

Low conductors are usually assigned low tones and the tone progressively get higher as you ascend to the high conductors. The ID is the same. At the low end, the ID starts at a negative number and progresses up into the positive numbers as the conductivity goes up.
 
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