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Mo' Power Not Always Mo' Better

Martin_V3i

Elite Member
Joined
Oct 27, 2010
Messages
5,130
Location
North DFW, TX
I took my old Whites V3i outside to lower the sensitivity enough to only see surface coins, to see if that helps on a hunt to find a freshly lost gold ring. First thing I did though was lower sense to just pickup my standard 6 inch buried quarter. I found that I can actually see that 6" quarter, using an SEF 8x6 coin, down to level 2, and it rocked, set at 3. I had the sensitivity as high as possible to stay stable. That had my sensitivity at 15, which is the rail in the V3i. I'd always gotten the advice to run as high as possible while staying stable. All those years with max, stable sens, surely "washed out" lots of good 1-6 inch targets.

I just thought I'd suggest not running as high as possible, in semi trash parks and such. I believe that the majority of missed targets are NOT deep, just masked. Hope this helps. Now I need to test my Minelabs this way.
 
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Yep. I normally run my nox at 21-24. The other day I had a broken high tone so I tried turning the sens down to 19 and it came in as a nice clean tone. I think it was a clad dime at 3 or 4 inches.
 
I'd agree. With high sensitivity comes more trash too. It's a balancing act depending on what you're looking for.
 
I have some mercs buried in my test bed. 6,8 and 10 inches,been there for probably 15 years by now ..I’ve owned a few explorer SE machines and tested them all there. Manual sensativity Upto 22 and I hit them all great. Bump that sensativity up and they’re gone, I believe you can overpower a machine,and I saw that many times in my test bed from different machines.
 
On the Simplex, max sensitivity with the stock coil is not always beneficial and I can go 2-3 notches down and still his my 8-9 inch buried silver dime with ID. The SP24 smaller coil is quieter and more stable than the stock coil and performs best at full sensitivity. It will hit the dime on full but one notch down not so much.
 
I have some mercs buried in my test bed. 6,8 and 10 inches,been there for probably 15 years by now ..I’ve owned a few explorer SE machines and tested them all there. Manual sensativity Upto 22 and I hit them all great. Bump that sensativity up and they’re gone, I believe you can overpower a machine,and I saw that many times in my test bed from different machines.

Can you explain why that's so? I could understand if it would be hard to hear the tones with other random signals. But how does a target disappear simply because you increased the sensitivity?
 
Can you explain why that's so? I could understand if it would be hard to hear the tones with other random signals. But how does a target disappear simply because you increased the sensitivity?

Can't explain it, just happens. I've done that test over and over with the same results with a explorer SE
 
Can you explain why that's so? I could understand if it would be hard to hear the tones with other random signals. But how does a target disappear simply because you increased the sensitivity?

I believe it has to do with this...
Sensitivity on the Explorer does not equate with a stronger transmit signal as is the case with 99% of machines, rather...it increases the number of progressively smaller signals that are allowed through to be processed in the first place. If the ground is mineralized to a decent degree or there are small fine pieces of iron around...or even EMI....the test target gets either disced out if there’s disc applied because it gets “down averaged” or the relatively weak deep Merc may not be big enough to return a sufficient signal through the “noise”. On my Explorer 2 I can get to a manual Sensitivity of 23 before the deeper targets start breaking up in most of my sites, which are places with a lot of bits of iron such as nails and pieces of nails.
I do not see this phenomena in an air test, only when in the ground do I see it. I ALWAYS preach modest sensitivity to all who will listen. Turning up the Sensitivity to bull your way through troubled ground is a fools errand, one I have run many times in my earlier days of detecting.
 
I believe it has to do with this...
Sensitivity on the Explorer does not equate with a stronger transmit signal as is the case with 99% of machines, rather...it increases the number of progressively smaller signals that are allowed through to be processed in the first place. If the ground is mineralized to a decent degree or there are small fine pieces of iron around...or even EMI....the test target gets either disced out if there’s disc applied because it gets “down averaged” or the relatively weak deep Merc may not be big enough to return a sufficient signal through the “noise”. On my Explorer 2 I can get to a manual Sensitivity of 23 before the deeper targets start breaking up in most of my sites, which are places with a lot of bits of iron such as nails and pieces of nails.
I do not see this phenomena in an air test, only when in the ground do I see it. I ALWAYS preach modest sensitivity to all who will listen. Turning up the Sensitivity to bull your way through troubled ground is a fools errand, one I have run many times in my earlier days of detecting.

Oh, I'm with you. I only go as high as I get away with. The moment I sense additional noise or EMI, I tune it down.

Boosting sensitivity to deal with poor ground conditions is always a last resort (and a bad one, in my limited experience).
 
Usually the sensitivity is LOWERED when dealing with tough ground conditions. Increasing it seems to make matters worse in my experience. I always run my sensitivity as high as I can, while keeping my machine stable. Might have to bump it down in trashy sites. I have seen this happen before, but never really put any thought into it. I have many sites that I should absolutely go back to, and bump the sensitivity down, mainly trashy sites. Thanks for bringing this topic up, it will likely find us a few targets we otherwise would miss.
 
A good thread/subject/lesson. The above post above saying the unit will disc out good weak targets when excess trash/minerals in dirt makes sense.
I know when I'm 'teaching' someone new to the hobby I stress not turning the sensitivity up too high. The difference in depth from stable to chatty is minimal.
You can investigate a faint signal but when the gain is too high there are thousands and just as many or more can get missed.
Not only that but for me it makes it an unpleasant time.
 
Usually the sensitivity is LOWERED when dealing with tough ground conditions. Increasing it seems to make matters worse in my experience. I always run my sensitivity as high as I can, while keeping my machine stable. Might have to bump it down in trashy sites. I have seen this happen before, but never really put any thought into it. I have many sites that I should absolutely go back to, and bump the sensitivity down, mainly trashy sites. Thanks for bringing this topic up, it will likely find us a few targets we otherwise would miss.

Yup, it's like how turning on high beams in thick fog just makes it harder to see/drive.
 
One of the guys that I talk with told me to think of my detector like a radio. If you turn up the sensitivity on a radio too far it will let non-useful noise through with the good signals and make the good signals less intelligible. That helped me.
 
I believe it has to do with this...
Sensitivity on the Explorer does not equate with a stronger transmit signal as is the case with 99% of machines, rather...it increases the number of progressively smaller signals that are allowed through to be processed in the first place. If the ground is mineralized to a decent degree or there are small fine pieces of iron around...or even EMI....the test target gets either disced out if there’s disc applied because it gets “down averaged” or the relatively weak deep Merc may not be big enough to return a sufficient signal through the “noise”. On my Explorer 2 I can get to a manual Sensitivity of 23 before the deeper targets start breaking up in most of my sites, which are places with a lot of bits of iron such as nails and pieces of nails.
I do not see this phenomena in an air test, only when in the ground do I see it. I ALWAYS preach modest sensitivity to all who will listen. Turning up the Sensitivity to bull your way through troubled ground is a fools errand, one I have run many times in my earlier days of detecting.


I guess i'm a bull but a fool i'm not Let's take sensitivity it's just another form of disc the less you use the less targets are heard which targets are the first to go well the deeper and weaker targets .
I run the 6 inch head for good reason to much thrash for a larger coil when you adjust sensitivity and adjust to high your #s and ids go all over the place what happened (YOUR PROCESSOR CAN"T KEEP UP) The 6 inch coil rarely has this problem i can run at full boar 95 percent of the time and the detector is stable
switch to stock coil same place sensitivity has to be backed down to 21 to 23 so what did you just do you got rid of all those weaker signals the deeper ones you want to hear .

That stock coil is seeing 3 to 4 more targets than the 6 and 3 to 4 times more dirt how in the h$$$ are you going to find anything in a thrash place not only that but you have to reduce sensitivity there by loosing those deeper whispers.

Well you say a big coil well go deeper than a small coil true but it's geared for larger targets not small returns as the 6 .
Then again you can dig a 22 short casing at 6 inches deep with a big coil but ad a little thrash and it's gone same as a dime.

I have tested and tested targets using less sensitivity what i found is yes if you lower sensitivity some targets well sound better but i would still have dug them using max sensitivity the target id #s well jump a little and will not be as stable but if you know your machine you know what to dig and what to not .
Then again if i use this setting for sensitivity lower i would be missing all the deeper weaker returns .
Then again it's very rare where i hunt that i'm overdriving the 6 the 11 where i hunt i can overdrive it everywhere which means the processor just can't keep up and sensitivity has to be reduced . When i say processor it is processing emi dirt and the targets in the ground .

Some say the 6 just can't go deep well you just haven't used it enough here a example of a thrash infested place big coil 10 targets under coil 6 inch coil 3 targets under coil my ground goes though freeze thaw cycle every year all it takes is one of the targets to change position and the 6 well light up the target that was masked not so with the 11 inch coil you still have the 10 other targets under the coil.
As i said before a bull yes a fool no. sube
 
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