New To Forum Just Got A Bounty Hunter Landstar

[treasurehunterfromWA]

Hello,
My name is Phillip I just recently purchased a Bounty Hunter Landstar and would like some advice to get started with it.

 

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[A2coins]

Set up a coin garden bury some coins ect learn the tones dig everything also to help learn targets do research on where to go. Get a coin book. Have fun

 

[A2coins]

Welcome from Mi. Tommy

 

[nomad 11]

turn it on and start swingin. yep that from the only zombie here ?

 

[digger27]

I am assuming you are not just new to this detector but also brand new to the hobby so...





The first thing you should do is read the manual, watch the videos and get familiar with all the features and study this picture at the bottom of where different metals come in on the spectrum.
This is off an older Whites unit so just ignore the numbers but definitively learn where different metals and targets usually come in.

Starting out you need to understand not all sites are the same out there, some places have good dirt and some have not so great dirt, some areas have higher EMI, electro magnet interference, some don't and it is important that you start out with a stable machine...especially as a newbie.
All the sounds you hear can be way to similar and confusing to many that start out in this hobby since they never had experience with a tool like this before so an unstable machine will make it that much harder to understand for those with little knowledge and experience.
Then you need to get out there and dig, a lot of everything including junk...especially the junk which you will not have any problem finding.
It has been said in life we learn more from our failures than our successes, nothing can be more true than that in the initial learning curve in this hobby.
We call this "Learning the language", and all detectors have their own little languages and behaviors that we need to know, understand and get comfortable with because none of this stuff is innate and all of it is a learned process...for everyone.
This is a hobby of little clues and making digging choices which I call educated guesses...what we should dig, what will probably be junk and should probably be avoided, and the more you get experience with how targets react on your screen and in the tones the more familiar you will get with how targets present themselves and so with more and more clues and data you can make better digging decisions which will become very important to you as time rolls on.
95-98% of the signals out there will be junk, just a fact of life in this hobby, so the more you learn the less frustrating it will be to dig a ton of trash as you are learning and as you advance.
How to do this the fastest and most efficient way possible.
You get out there and dig...everything, at least for awhile.
As you roll over each signal notice how the screen reacts and listen closely to the tone you hear and then dig and see what you got...and try to remember what you saw and heard before you opened up a hole.
It might all seem close to the same signals and similar tones at first and as I said could very confusing but as you find and dig each target you will eventually start to notice some differences.
Dig a bottle cap or two and the signals are just "there" in your mind but as you dig more and more you will get experience in how bottle caps behave and soon enough you will get enough learning to become familiar with that behavior until eventually you will have some pretty good confidence in calling your shot, 99% sure by then and knowing in your mind that if you hear and see that same by now familiar bottle cap behavior you pretty much know you will be digging another bottle cap...or suspect you will be.
Same with tabs, same with foil, same with the good targets like coins and everything else.
I call these AHA moments, you dig tab after tab after tab just going after all the signals you hear and then eventually, in one glorious second, you swing over something, get a now more familiar tab tone and indicator on the screen and a voice will pop up in your head and tell you, "Hey, this is probably going to be another tab!" ...and then you dig it and wonder of wonders it iS a tab and you realize you learned something that will stay with you forever after that.
It's a learning process and boot camp we all go through it at the beginning learning just entering the hobby with new detectors and as as those AHA moments happen and add up with every piece of junk, (and the good stuff, also), that you dig those moments accumulate until eventually everything clicks and on every hunt things start to make a lot more sense than that first time you turned your detector on.
Maybe you get a high tone and go after a coin but you dig down and find a crushed soda or beer can or the full top of bottom of a ripped up can instead.
After getting fooled a many times by cans you get another one but this time you notice this one seems to be a lot bigger, wider and longer signal in the ground as you move your coil around and "paint" the area with your coil than any smaller coin target you have found so far.
Maybe you lift your coil higher up to even a foot over the top of the ground and as you swing over that great sounding solid high tone and you still get a nice solid signal... also something that never happened over any coin you have found to that point but you remember other big can pieces sure have acted that way and you add two and two together so another very helpful thing you just learned.
As you learn more and more the initial frustration you might have at first not understanding those tones and indicators and target behavior fades away and your enjoyment level rises.

As you put in your time, you might also start to hear slight differences in those tones.
A zinc penny might sound very solid and full and the same all the way through that tone with a crisp and sharp end to that tone but now you start to notice a screw-cap might not sound so full, sharp and crisp.
Maybe you noticed after locating and scanning hundreds of these that a screw-cap doesn't stay full, but maybe many of them breaks a little right at the end.
It gets a little fuzzy or maybe jumps around a bit more than a coin does.
You never could notice or tell the difference at the beginning, but now, after much practice, you can and you learned something new and acquired another new little skill and expanded your skill set by adding that AHA moment to all the others and so you have another good clue that could tell you what you might have sitting in the ground below you.

There is a guy called Mudpuppy who hangs out in other forums that tells of the time he first got into this hobby and asked a friend, a grizzled old detectorist with decades of experience, what would be the best and fastest way to learn his new tool and the hobby so he could get to a point of finding a lot more of the good stuff and a lot less trash and junk so he told him to just get out and dig.
He told him to dig a thousand bottle caps and a thousand tabs and a thousand pieces of foil and a thousand coins, when he had done exactly that he will know and understand his detector better than just well and he will be able to dig way more better treasure on every hunt on the future, forever, and end up with a whole lot less junk in his trash bag.
I don't know if you have to go that far but there is a reason most more experienced around here and on all of the forums suggest you dig a ton of everything at the beginning, you do the work now so you will be able to spend way less time in the future getting frustrated spinning your wheels and ultimately you will enjoy the hobby so much more.

Eventually you reach a point where you know you are on the right learning track.
You get a solid tone, rings true, no breaking of the signal, says zinc in my screen, small like a coin, really loud tone, can raise the coil pretty high before it fades out...I think this is a zinc penny that is about 1 inch down...then you dig it...and it is.
Or maybe not, nothing is 100% in this hobby...ever, strange and weird things could happen from time to time so you truly never know what your target will be 100% until you dig it and hold it in your hot little hands unless you have Superman's X-Ray vision, but you made a good educated guess and cut your odds down some on digging trash.


It's a process.
As you progress your, by now, educated guesses get better and better and that is truly when the real fun begins.

There are lots of other things to learn, too.
The universe must be laughing at us that do this hobby because it made so many bad things ring up in the same areas as so many good things.
Aluminum hangs out where the high tone coins do.
Gold can live in the very same neighborhood as foil, nickels or pull tabs...as a matter of fact, gold seems to live in almost all the neighborhoods from iron to zinc...or even higher on say a big old $20 gold coin which your detector will tell you it thinks it is a quarter of half dollar instead.
Sometimes a junk signal can be disguised as a good target and other times great sounding and behaving targets can end up to be junk but with each target dug we learn.
Nobody is perfect, we all still usually dig lots of trash but the better you get the less trash you dig and the more treasure you will be able to find in your time spent out in the field.

Study the picture, know your metals and where they line up in relation to your disc range on your screen.
Then practice, practice practice.
Really listen and try to remember that tone you hear before you dig a target, then remember what target you dug after that specific tone and the way it behaved.
It takes time for your instincts to kick in and this stuff becomes second nature, but little by little it will eventually happen.
Once you dig enough holes.
That's how I do it.

It works, trust me I know, I have thousands of hours using a couple of detectors and I have dug a ton of great treasure in my time and learned to confidently avoid about 80% or more of the junk and trash out there as time went by but if I pick up a new-to-me detector you better believe I dig everything for several hours on many hunts before I consider myself familiar enough with it to cut back on the trash digging and just concentrate on the better, more higher percentage better targets.
I don't dig it all anymore, I used to but over the years I had less time to dig and less energy to do do that and digging tons of trash got real old after awhile and too time consuming for me so I decided I would learn and concentrate enough to move to a much more "High Percentage" way of hunting where I usually dig mostly just the more solid signals with known behavior.
Not recommending you do that at all but it works for me and I enjoy my time out in the field much better nowadays.
I probably miss something good here and there doing it this way, heck, I will guarantee I have missed great treasure over the years with my method but I have found much more than my share of great treasure despite that so the "What If" feelings I used to get all the time it I didn't dig everything slowly faded away and don't bother me if I don't dig every blasted signal I come across anymore.
Using this exact method and mindset I have found tons of old coins going back to the 1800's including silver dimes, quarters, halves and even a Peace dollar...and more.
In the jewelry department I have recovered more silver rings, earrings, chains, medallions and other great stuff than I can count and more than you might believe.
Regarding gold I found a couple of gold targets way back at the beginning but they were just pure luck.
Long ago I realized I loved to find gold most of all so I decided to study that particular metal as best and as deeply as I could...how it sounds and behaves and vowed to find higher percentage sites where I might have a better chance of finding that rare metal.
I have over three dozen gold rings and other jewelry types to my credit now using my method despite avoiding as much trash and junk as I possibly can and they were all mostly found in typically normal parks on land in the dirt because I have no beaches near me so I ain't done half bad.
Plus relics and many other great things.
This is my method and how I enjoy the hobby the most but others might not want to do it this way and that's fine...eventually we all end up at a point when it comes to the amount of trash we want to comfortably dig which keeps us sane and satisfied.
You do it anyway you want to find all you want to find to keep those what if feelings at bay.
We are all different and you will eventually find your way, too.

The only way I have been able to accomplish all I have, found all the great treasure I now have in my possession, (or now in my wife's possession...and she has a lot), is because I always have made an effort to learn the language and target behavior on every one of my 6 detectors I have used much more than just pretty good.
It took a lot of time and effort to do that and I am still learning because for me that never ends but all that work and time has paid for itself multiple times over.


This is a great hobby with thrills and satisfaction that you might not have ever experienced before in your life so far, it can be challenging at times but what is life without challenges here and there and once you get good enough, experienced enough, you will truly come to understand why so many of us have such a rabid fascination with this hobby.
Dig your first Indian head or some other old or silver coin , silver jewelry or, if you are lucky, something made of gold and you will find out quick what attracts us all that dwell on these forums so deeply.

I noticed you have posted that you are interested in finding caches, pretty sure this one isn't going to be particularly great for this purpose, especially the deep ones, you really need a much more advanced two box unit for that or some other highly specialized detector but there is still plenty of treasure to be found at normal depths in the dirt mostly everywhere in the world.

So ask a lot of questions if you need to, plenty of knowledge on these forums and plenty of experienced hunters around that have already gone through just about anything and everything you are about to experience and so many that will be glad to help.
It takes a village and the metal detecting community is an unusually supportive and giving one.

You'll see if you commit to sticking it out through the initial learning process.
Happy hunting and good luck!

 

[islamoradamark]

welcome from florida

 

[TreasureHawk]

Hello Phillip...

YouTube has some videos on your detector that might help.
Don't run your sensitivity too high. You want a stable detector.
Learn how to ground balance your detector.

Try to really understand what the sounds and display are relaying to you. Practice with quarters, nickels, dimes, bottlecaps, pull tabs, rings etc. Throw in a nail or piece of aluminum foil in the mix and see how your detector responds. Try putting a valuable target next to or close to a junk target. What is the detector showing you on the display? How does the Landstar sound on the various targets?

 

[BigMerv]

I'm probably late to reply to your thread...just catching up on my forums. What Digger 27 said is golden...it takes time to gain the experience to get to the point where you can dig the high percentage targets and leave the trash behind for the casual detectorists. I've always had great admiration for the LandStar. It's a fantastic machine and a real workhorse. It has genuinely useful features without unnecessary bells and whistles, and the manual ground balance is very desirable.

One tip I might add would be to get the 4" coil for your LandStar and hit the kiddie playgrounds, the local parks, near the concession stands and under the bleachers the morning after the high school football game. You'll get a LOT of experience on learning your LandStar's response to trash and treasure in a tightly confined space and very quickly. You'll also have a 4" sniper coil which will really open up the useful possibilities for you detector. I feel that a small coil is a "must have" for about any detectorist.

Welcome to the hobby! Please keep us informed on how you're coming along. BBJ