XLT = Bounty Hunter JR?

[bronco]

I'm trying to get confortable with the descrimination features and readout on the XLT.

If I could make its program match my sons Bounty Hunter JR (toy) I will have learned a few things in the process.

I'm working a sandy beach area in front of a bar. Lots of coins and tons of trash -great area to test. The toy metal detector has no visual readout and forces you to listen to the signal. I can tell trash from coins 90% of the time. I'm sure I'm missing a lot (No nickels) but I don't care for now. I have found that it is extremely efficient not to be looking at a readout and to have that degree of confidence.

I use the Bounty Hunter JR (BHJR) with the disc. knob better than 3/4 max. When I get a trash signal it is extremely broken and dificult to pinpoint. Coins come through clearly and seemingly from a very small concentrated spot in the center of the coil. This is the effect I'm hoping to duplicate.

What are the major variations on the xlt that might get me closer to the feel/sound of this tiny coiled JR?

I have an even worse trashy area to hunt nearby and I want to go through on a corse setting first to get the low hanging fruit. I don't wan't to use the JR.

I don't mind the sound of junk as much as want the coins to sound more distinct and concentrated inspite of the neigboring trash.

Any ideas?

 

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[Zincoln Miner]

you can turn on tone id if you want.

read (or download the manual from whites site) the manual several times and put the coil to the soil.that's
how I learned my xlt all by my lonesome b4 Tnet .

keep in mind that in combination the audio,signagraph,and vdi is a powerful tool.phooey on the icons.

good luck HH

p.s. forget mimicking the bounty hunter tame the beast.

 

[djabend]

Well as far as getting between the trash, you will need a smaller coil to do that effectively.
Whites sell bluemax coils and I just got one (4x6 DD) last week works very well in high trash areas.
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,145108.0.html
As far as getting junk to break up more and just using sound?
Increasing the bottle cap reject may help.
And try turning tone ID on that will give you a separate tone for each VDI number
Then you just have to get used to the tones and listen for the tone coins make.
This is not the way I hunt because I dig almost everything.
but then I don't hunt beaches ether.
I will let you know if anything else comes to mind and ask me questions if you have any.
HH,
Donny

 

[Highwater]

Bronco,
If you are just after coins then you can to "block edit" on your xlt. I don't have my manual handy and haven't used the block edit for a long time, but if you read the manual, which you can get on line, then you can learn how to discriminate out all the lower vdi numbers that you don't care to look at or hear. Just reject everything below the penny vdi and accept everything above. That will give you the cherry picking program you want for just digging mostly coins and some silver jewelry.
On the other hand, since you are in sand, why not just block out from +10 and below and dig everything. This way you have a chance to find gold. Coins are nice and should be dug while searching for jewelry, but at the price of gold now days one good find will equal many times more the value of all the clad you can dig. Sand is easy to dig many targets in a hurry. If you are going to be digging anyway you should give yourself a chance to dig gold while you're at it. We only have so much time to hunt, so why limit yourself to just digging clad? One good find will make all the effort of digging trash worth while.
I hunt with a pi (Sandshark) and I don't mind digging everything because mixed in with all the trash are some very nice tickets. I would hate to run my coil over gold and not want to dig it thinking it might be a pull tab.
Also, when in a trashy area go with a small coil. If you are on salt sand the a small 4X6 dd coil would be the way to go as DJ mentioned above. It would also be more forgiving on wet salt sand than a concentric coil.
Hope this helps. Good luck.... Hope you find some good stuff.. Highwater

 

[Ray S ECenFL]

You might thy the settings shown here:

http://66.51.97.78/jb/progra34.html

or here:

http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Trails/8641/program.html

Ray S

 

[bronco]

Thanks for the input. I can't wait to try some of these suggestions. Went out today and felt beter about things. I'm starting to get used to the sound of coins on the coin program. The beach is actually on a lake, about 3 inches of sand over a red clay hard pan so nothing is very deep. Except the vienna sausage cans and lids - they sound like shallow coins.

I had some success turning down the AC sensitivity, raising the bottle cap reject a little. Speeding up the refresh rate. I turned the icons off, but decided I liked them better on now. (Allready starting to get spoiled) Felt a lot better after today I think I found about 25 coins and probably knew what I was digging 80% of the time. A couple lead weights which I don't mind. To be fair I switched back to the factory coin setting and did about the same. I think I was able to avoid some trash by tweaking it.

Also I turned down the volume. That may have helped as much as anything. Not so nerve wraking.

One thing I still haven't figured out is MODULATION?. I realize now that the whole key to the JR's efficiency (at this spot) is that it finds and pinpoints in one step. As you get closer to the target it gets louder. This is the feature I'd like most to know how to mimic. Is that possible on the XLT in AC settings ? Looks only allowed in the DC, pinpointing mode?

Thanks for all the input. As to finding gold rings- I have no idea what one of those would sound like. I did find my first nickle (out of about 100 coins) so I know I've been missing them. Of the 3 nickle signals I got today 2 were pull tabs and was a nickle. I think the coin had the cleanest visual signal #20 with one long bar.

I would be interested to hear what types of signals you expect from gold jewely. I'd hate to walk by my first one.

Cheers

 

[djabend]

Try turning mixed mode on, I use that.
gives you AC and DC info at the same time.
Turn VCO on too to help with pinpointing.
Gold is going to ring up anywere from foil to large pull tab
I have only found one gold ring so far and it was a +17 VDI
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,88531.0.html
HH,
Donny

 

[bronco]

Well I tweaked a few more things just to see what they did and kind of blew my mind. I think I'm going to try the tone ID as the only other change for a while and see how that goes. Looks like to get enough confidence to find Jewelry I'm going to have learn to ID common trash with as much reliability as a target. Back to the lake to dig up all the trash see if I can find any ryme or reason to it.

 

[Highwater]

Bronco,
It sounds like you are starting to get control over your xlt. You are doing some of the right things for your conditions.
I am curious, which coil have you been using? A BM 600 coil would work very well for you. It is a 6 inch concentric coil and will give you great separation. A 4X6 dd coil would also be a good choice. There is also a BM 800 concentric which I like for a lot of my hunting.
As far as the modulation setting. It is supposed to give you a softer hit the deeper the target is. If you have it set for off then any target that will trigger a respose will be the same volume. It doesn't work as well as White's would have liked it to, but when you start hitting deeper targets you will certainly notice a difference. I leave modulation on.
Unfortunately as DJ mentioned gold rings will be in the foil and up through the pull tab vdi. It is a bummer because if you want to find gold you have to dig the foil and pull tab range and it can be a hassle when you dig your umpteenth pull tab and still haven't scored gold, but if you stay with it you will eventually hit the gold and it will make it all worth while. That is why if you block edit to reject everything from about +10 and down, then accept and dig everything above +10 you will more than likely find gold. You can also block out from about +42 up to about +68 if you want to dig less targets and have a chance to find gold and clad. However, you will miss a lot of silver jewelry if you do.
Also, be sure that you save your settings in a custom program before you shut down each time if things are working for you. You have 4 places to save custom programs so you can have a custom program for each type of hunting you like to do, or for each area you search. The XLT will keep the last settings in memory as long as you don't remove the batteries, or they go dead, or if you don't pick a factory program the next time you turn your unit on. After the battery check just squeeze the trigger and it will take you back to the settings you were using on your last hunt. You probably already know this, but it is easy to forget to go to the save mode and end up loosing your settings.
One thing about trying different settings, you can't screw up the factory programs no matter what you do with the touch pad. It is also a good idea to learn the short cuts to get to various parts of the menu without having to scroll down the list. Good luck and HH. Highwater

 

[bronco]

Thanks again highwater,
"but it is easy to forget to go to the save mode and end up loosing your settings. "

Too late!

But I got them back.

I suspect I've already passed over some jewlery. I see now what you mean about the block editing and the way the coin program weeds out the lower numbers. I think the coin and jewelery/relic program adds most of them back.

Hope I can get out again soon
Happy Friday

 

[bronco]

Re: XLT = Bounty Hunter JR

XLT >Bounty Hunter JR?

3 weeks later found our first silver coin a '44 mercury dime. The XLT is now king. Bounty hunter can't hold a candle. Just have to find enough stuff to recognize what the read out is saying. Takes a while to get confidence in those display bars!!!!!!
Cheers