Both my SEs are Blankedy-Blank-Blank!

Ron B

Hero Member
May 11, 2007
961
4
Trinidad, Colorado
Today I stopped at a really old house here, in Trinidad; knocking on the door, humbly begging permission to search their yard with my trusty SE. Already receiving no less than 3 "NO!s" this morning, I was expecting yet another. The kind lady and her child answered; affirming "Yes!" Quickly, I got out my backup SE; the one I just received this week from Captain Jack; I had her dressed with an 8 inch coil. Immediately, my machine began blanking, losing threshold. I've had this happen before and believe me, it's not a good sign. There's really nothing you can do or is there? I know the problem has to do with ground balance. The SEs are factory set. Does anyone have an answer? It was so aggrevating, I went to my truck and got out #1 SE; same thing. Adjusting GAIN and SENSITIVITY had absolutely no effect on the situation. I did opt to run SUNSITIVITY maxed to 32 but in AUTO SENSITIVITY mode. The hunt was not a total lost as I did succeed in finding a GOOD FOR FIVE token, 5 wheats, a piece of inexpensive costume jewelry, and numerous clads. I know I left a lot behind and that always bothers me. Oh yeah, I changed coils thinking maybe it was somehow a coil problem. Not. Mr. Cortes Tesoro is having surgery; I'll sure be glad to get him back from the Tesoro Doctors in Arizona! Well, I know the inexpensive little Boy can certainly teach those two SE twins how to do the detector dance! I promised the lady, "I will be back!" She smiled; saying, "We will be here!" :)

Has anyone else had this problem, the SE blanking I mean?
GRB
 

Treasure-Diver

Jr. Member
Feb 8, 2005
80
3
Houston, Tx
Detector(s) used
Minelab Explorer SE W/ SunRay X-1 Probe
BH Pioneer 505
Fisher Impulse UW Pulse Ind.
Fisher F2
Were there any transforms or electrical lines around? The only time I had any real trouble like that was with electrical interference.
 

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Ron B

Ron B

Hero Member
May 11, 2007
961
4
Trinidad, Colorado
Hello TD!
Electrical lines-transformers?
No, not any more than usual. The problem wasn't with excess noise but blanking due to ground mineralization. Lowering the coil to the ground, both machines blanked-having absolutely no threshold. Raising the coils up 12 inches or so off the ground allowed the threshold to re-sound. Lowering them, blanked?

I should mention I hunted in ALL METAL MODE---IRON MASK@20---SENSITIVITY@MAX32 on AUTO---GAIN@10.
I did try backing off GAIN but doing so made no difference at all. Neither did manually lowering SENSITIVITY. Reducing coil size made no difference either.

Thanks!
GRB
 

Sandman

Gold Member
Aug 6, 2005
13,398
3,992
In Michigan now.
Detector(s) used
Excal 1000, Excal II, Sovereign GT, CZ-20, Tiger Shark, Tejon, GTI 1500, Surfmaster Pulse, CZ6a, DFX, AT PRO, Fisher 1235, Surf PI Pro, 1280-X, many more because I enjoy learning them. New Garrett Ca
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
You should have lowered or even turned off Iron mask. The amount of iron minerals in the ground caused the threshold to null or blank on you. Because the Tesoro doesn't have iron mask, it can gb better in the mineralized ground where you got permission.
 

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Ron B

Ron B

Hero Member
May 11, 2007
961
4
Trinidad, Colorado
Hello Sandman!
I didn't adjust IRON MASK; it could actually be the problem!
I'll give it a go tomorrow and report back.

Thanks!
GRB
 

Captn SE

Silver Member
Apr 1, 2007
2,774
13
Southern CA
Detector(s) used
Minelab Explorer SE; X-1 Target Probe; Pro Coil, 6x8 SEF, Coiltek Platypus Elliptical, Sunray X8, Expl. 1050 coils
GRB,

I don't think it is a Ground Balance problem. The Explorers will blank(lose threshold) when there are metallic objects in the ground that are being rejected by your machine's discrimination circuitry. You say you're detecting with an iron mask of 20. Well any metal(iron/trash/etc.) in the ground that falls in this "masked out" area is going to blank/null out the threshold. Either there was a lot of rusty iron in the ground or there was iron piping(sprinkler systems) nearby. If you were to hunt in All Metal (which means Iron Mask beyond 32, or AM), then your machine will accept all targets, and would never blank. However, you will hear every rusty nail/pipe in the ground. It's a trade off. Blanking usually signals for me to swing slower, or try using an even smaller coil to pick between the iron.

Also, hunting with max sensitivity (32) will cause your machine to overload, so even iron/nails beyond the footprint of your coil will cause you to lose threshold with an iron mask setting of 20. I typically hunt in Conduct, with an iron mask setting of 27. If I were to hunt in All metal, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between iron/rusty nails and silver coins without constantly looking at the smartscreen. At IM 27, small, rusty nails will blank just enough for me to not have to dig them. I still dig nails from time to time...they sometimes give off just enough of an iffy signal for me to dig. Better to be safe and dig an iffy then to leave it in the ground and always wonder... :icon_scratch:

HH,
CAPTN SE
Dan
 

FredCobol

Jr. Member
Apr 6, 2007
98
0
Chandler, AZ
Detector(s) used
Minelab Explorer SE, Tesoro Lobo SuperTRAQ, White's MXT Pro, White's Coinmaster 2 TR Deluxe
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I agree. It sounds more like the machine is discriminating out iron targets. Maybe the house sits on an old junk yard. Do what the other people have suggested. Try putting it in AM in Iron Mask and turn down the sensitivity. You may even want to put it in pinpoint and see if you can hear where the targets are and then dig to see what is there.

As far as electrical interference is concerned, have you tried doing a noise cancel? Minelab told me to do a noise cancel with the coil sitting on the ground. I found that in my front yard I cannot get rid of the interference (probably from the cable company's coax cable running through the yard). It's pretty funny. With the coil in the air it is fine, but as soon as I lower coil to the ground it starts chattering like nuts. I can put it in pinpoint and leave the coil just sitting on the ground, not moving, and the cursor jumps all over the screen and it plays nonstop random tones. In the back yard it works fine.
 

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Ron B

Ron B

Hero Member
May 11, 2007
961
4
Trinidad, Colorado
Hello Guys & Gals!
I left early this morning, headed back to the old two story house! I changed my settings to ALL METAL MODE---IRON MASK-OFF---SENSITIVITY 32 MAXED-with SEMI-AUTO ON---GAIN@10---FERROUS. Thanks SandMan! I chose to use Minelab's 8 inch coil initially. My very first find was a wheat followed by a 1915 Barber dime! I thought dam; may be on to something. More wheats followed by a 1898 V Nickel. I also found a writing merit pin and an old button with an anchor on it about the size of a dime and a handful of clad. ALL METAL certainly takes some getting use to as you hear every signal. Hunting in FERROUS, all the iron made low blat sounds, non-ferrous-high pitch. Threshold was steady! There was quite a large amount of old ammo brass and twenty two bullets. During the day, I swapped detectors already having my backup SE equiped with Excelerator's 4 inch DD coil. It's a nice coil but I found I had to concentrate working really small areas. Being able to work the flower beds close to the house resulted in a lot of clad but no really old coins.

One more thing I found useing both the 8 inch and 4 inch, I had to go really, really slow in order not to miss any high pitch targets. Depth was amazing on the 8 inch. The barber dime had to have been down at least 8 inches as was the V nickel.

Captain SE!
I like to have my SENSITIVITY Maxed out at 32 whenever possible with SEMI-AUTO SENSITIVITY-OFF! But, there are a lot of times I have to rely on SEMI-AUTO SENSITIVITY turned to ON. According to my SE Manual, SEMI-AUTO SENSITIVITY@ON will adjust the Sensitivity setting ""AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE TO YOUR SPECIFIED LEVEL OF SENSITIVITY." (Page 22)

Thanks everyone for your positive imput!
I am beholding!
GRB
 

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Cynangyl

Gold Member
Apr 12, 2007
11,346
78
God's lap
Detector(s) used
X-terra 70
ACE 250
Sweet! Sounds like it worked REALLY well for ya! Sandman sure does know his stuff and lots of other great advice here as well. Glad to see you got it worked out and found some really great stuff! Congrats! :thumbsup:
 

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