Let’s talk frequencies

[Old and Slow]

Complete noob here. I’m looking to buy my first detector. I’m planning on hunting coins and jewelry and do a little gold prospecting. I’m looking for an all around machine. I’m a techno geek and usually buy the top of the line stuff. In this case however, I’m reluctant to spend $1000 - $1500 for my first detector. I want to make sure that I'm going to stay with the hobby before I spend that kind of money.

I have been reading as much as I can, including this forum. My understanding is that higher frequencies are better for detecting gold and lower frequencies are better for detecting silver. Therefore it would seem that a detector with multiple frequencies would be better for an all around machine.

I talked with the owner of a detector and mining supply store and he recommended the White’s MXT Pro. But with a frequency of 14kHz it would seem that it wouldn’t do as well detecting silver.

The White’s Spectra V3i would seem to be the best because it broadcasts 3 frequencies at once. The drawbacks as I see them would be the cost and the initial learning curve for a noob.

The Minelab X-Terra 705 also has three frequencies. It’s priced right and I really like the user interface. The drawbacks seem to be Minelab’s recent customer service issues and the fact that it can only broadcast one frequency at a time and you have to change coils. This would not be ideal if you were in a park and wanting to find silver coins and gold jewelry.

Am I over thinking this?

Any insight you all can provide will be greatly appreciated.

 

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[leefields]

look at one of the Minelab BBS (17 freqs.) or FBS machines (28 freqs.) all at once.......

there is some claim that the Garrett Infinium LS runs 96 freqs...but i am not sure about that...

 

[Sandman]

First, welcome to Tnet..

You are wise to do a lot of research before buying your first detector and asking for help from us could be asking for trouble. Lee fields is right about the frequencies but that isn't the whole thing. While PI's like the Infinium LS are good for finding all metals like gold and silver they also love to find long pieces of IRON like hairpins at great depths. You do get some disc with the top of the line Pulses, but not enough in my opinion. A lot depends on where you need to use them.

Since this will be your first detector you can go for the top of the line right away or start with a mid range and never have the features you need so you'll spend more $$$ later. Everyone wants ONE detector for all things, but that is like going golfing with one club. Tiny nuggets can be had with specialized gold detectors like the Super Lobo, Gold Bug, Stinger, GMT for example, but they would be too sensitive for normal coin hunting. Silver coins being very conductive can be had with about any detector. Toss in the fact that some of the best do not have a screen and you have some choices to make. All the top of the line detectors have a turn on and go feature with set adjustments and as you learn you can experiment with other settings. The DFX is one such that is easy to use but now days I like the very light weight of the Tejon since I never look at the screen anyway anymore, but it is there with the DFX if I want it.

Good Luck and have fun,
Sandman

 

[ThTx]

Welcome to T'net and treasure hunting. You're going to get all kinds of advice here and all of it well intentioned. I am a Garrett fan and have been since I tried several other brands. They work as well as any machine you put the time in to learn and their service can't be beat. Plus the cost of a Garrett will not break the bank. The new AT Pro that is coming out next month is as close as you can get to an all around machine in my opinion. Lord knows I don't need another detector, but I am going to get one. All that being said remember that free advice is usually worth what you pay for it!

 

[TabWhisperer]

Welcome to the chaos. You are doing the right thing with some research. Once you narrow down what you think is a good choice you could also consider a used unit. That way if it doesn't work for you the financial loss isn't so hard to take. Craigslist and this board with private and dealer sales are good places to check if you go that route.

 

[rockhound]

There are many good detectors out there. Almost all top of the line detectors will find silver, and gold,coins,jewelry and even some relics. It all depends on what type of soils you are going to be hunting(beach sand,low mineral sod, western high mineral clays and sand, or water). Each presents a different problem that is handled better by some detectors than others. Without specializing, most manufacturers have opted to build a unit for varying conditions and soils. With an abundunce of coils, most can be used in varying ground conditions. While they will never compete with a specialized detector, they can be used satsfactorily in these conditions. Larger coils will get more depth,DD coils will help in hot ground,smaller coils will work best in trashy parks,ballfields,campgrounds,or around old houses.Some even have a frequency switch that can change the frequency when you encounter varying conditions, or help with specific metals.Normally, the lower the frequency, the hotter it is on silver,the higher the frquency,the hotter it is on gold.Multiple frequency detectors work well at the beach.PI works best at the beach and out west. I am not brand specific, but I do have my favorites.Good Luck. rockhound

 

[Old and Slow]

look at one of the Minelab BBS (17 freqs.) or FBS machines (28 freqs.) all at once.......

there is some claim that the Garrett Infinium LS runs 96 freqs...but i am not sure about that...

Thanks for the reply. It's interesting that Minelab doesn't recommend any of their BBS or FBS machines for gold prospecting. In fact the only machine recommended for both coin and jewelry and gold prospecting is the X-Terra 705

 

[Old and Slow]

Welcome to T'net and treasure hunting. You're going to get all kinds of advice here and all of it well intentioned. I am a Garrett fan and have been since I tried several other brands. They work as well as any machine you put the time in to learn and their service can't be beat. Plus the cost of a Garrett will not break the bank. The new AT Pro that is coming out next month is as close as you can get to an all around machine in my opinion. Lord knows I don't need another detector, but I am going to get one. All that being said remember that free advice is usually worth what you pay for it!

Thanks, you're right about all kinds of advice. But it's helpful to hear everyone's opinion. The AT Pro looks like a very interesting machine. However with a single frequency of 15kHz it would seem that it wouldn't be as good a detecting silver.

 

[ThTx]

Actually, it is supposed to be very good at it. You might want to check out a post by John-Edmonton with the five videos of an impromptu interview at Garrett about the AT Pro. Very enlightening.

 

[ThTx]

Here's the link to John's post: "http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,355033.0/topicseen.html"

 

[Old and Slow]

Here's the link to John's post: "http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,355033.0/topicseen.html"

Thanks

 

[Old and Slow]

First, welcome to Tnet..

You are wise to do a lot of research before buying your first detector and asking for help from us could be asking for trouble. Lee fields is right about the frequencies but that isn't the whole thing. While PI's like the Infinium LS are good for finding all metals like gold and silver they also love to find long pieces of IRON like hairpins at great depths. You do get some disc with the top of the line Pulses, but not enough in my opinion. A lot depends on where you need to use them.

Since this will be your first detector you can go for the top of the line right away or start with a mid range and never have the features you need so you'll spend more $$$ later. Everyone wants ONE detector for all things, but that is like going golfing with one club. Tiny nuggets can be had with specialized gold detectors like the Super Lobo, Gold Bug, Stinger, GMT for example, but they would be too sensitive for normal coin hunting. Silver coins being very conductive can be had with about any detector. Toss in the fact that some of the best do not have a screen and you have some choices to make. All the top of the line detectors have a turn on and go feature with set adjustments and as you learn you can experiment with other settings. The DFX is one such that is easy to use but now days I like the very light weight of the Tejon since I never look at the screen anyway anymore, but it is there with the DFX if I want it.

Good Luck and have fun,
Sandman

The DFX 300 looks like a great machine. It has 3kHz or 15kHz or you can use both simultaneously.

 

[RushinPA]

Re: I am not educated on the physics of these units however......

I once stayed in a Holliday Inn Express. Seriously though, at one time many many years ago I worked in ultrasound detection. I do recall alot of how the physics of those probes operated. The frequency was an initial consideration in detecting the flaw/crack/void. You had to size the frequency with the size of flaw. Once that was seclected, many parameters, such as dampening, beam configuration, and electrical balancing were evaluated. I have to wonder what the affect the frequency used has on the detectability of various size objects, and various conductive objects. What I am looking for is formula used to model this phenomena, not generalizations. I do believe that the lower frequency detectors miss the small objects (similar to ultrasound frequencies). In Ultrasound the lower frequencies needed larger voids, but had greater depth. The higher the frequency the smaller the void detected, but less depth. I have the physics formula packed away somewhere. Just wondered if there was any similarities or not.

 

[Old and Slow]

Well I think I've narrowed it down to the DFX300 or the X-Terra 705.

The DFX300 is a little pricey but uses two frequencies at once.

The X-Terra 705 is more moderately priced but you have to change search coils to change frequencies. It seems that by the time you purchased a couple of additional search coils you be getting up into the DFX300 price range.

What do y'all think?

 

[bigtim1973]

Well I think I've narrowed it down to the DFX300 or the X-Terra 705.

The DFX300 is a little pricey but uses two frequencies at once.

The X-Terra 705 is more moderately priced but you have to change search coils to change frequencies. It seems that by the time you purchased a couple of additional search coils you be getting up into the DFX300 price range.

What do y'all think?

That xterra 70 is very fast on recovery but it will not be as good on deeper targets that the dfx would be. You said that the new AT running at a frequency of 15khz would not seem as good at hitting on silver. Well I would not be so sure about that because if you ever look at a machine that has a meter on it you will always see that silver is the highest on the scale as far as conductivity is concerned and gold will generally be somewhere in the middle or between foil and screwcaps. That being said the higher frequency machines will pick up SMALLER pieces of gold better but also smaller pieces of lead, brass, copper and foil too plus the old silver coins are going to hit hard also on 14mhz. I would consider a machine that has a good senstivity or gain setting that will allow you to crank it up in certain conditions. Also consider a machine with the ablility to manually ground balance or ground track. The lower single frequency machines are better at getting deeper targets because the signal goes into the soil better and that is why you see alot of coin machines with a frequeny of 7mhz but multiple frequency machines are better for wet salt sand. The gold hunting machines generally run on a much higher frequency and they are good at picking out very small gold nuggets or even gold flakes. If your planning on gold prospecting also then you might consider a Whites MXT but if your planning on hunting beaches in wet sand I would go with a machine that runs multiple frequencies at once and not just one that changes frequncies by switching coils. You will find if you get into it that the coil you use will almost be as important as the detector your going to use. If your going to just use the detector you get for just coinshooting in the park and looking for jewelry occasionally also then you may consider the whites M6. That new Garrett AT looks like a pretty neat machine plus it is water proof too.............In otherwords..........I love to detect a lot and when I go I do not care if it starts drizzling rain or whatever but, you have got to keep a land based machine from getting wet with either a protective cover or plastic bag or whatever. With that new Garrett AT it is already waterproof up to 10 feet and so that tells me it can get rained on with no problem either. These are just my 2 cents..............Oh yea the MXT I had that ran at 14mhz was kick a$$ on silver coins. Just my 2 cents worth, Tim

 

[bigtim1973]

I almost forgot the most important thing besides what machine you pick out is this.............it does not matter how much you spend on it or how many different bells and whistles it has, what matters is swinging it over the target itself. You can have the best machine out there that money can buy but if you do not swing your coil over those good targets in the ground it will not do you any good and that little fellow that comes by after you did with that 150.00 beginner machine will get what you missed because he will swing his coil over it. I have seen it happen several times.

 

[Old and Slow]

Thanks Big Tim. I've heard the MXT recommended for gold prospecting. Why would it be any better than the DFX? The DFX's high frequency is 15kHz and the MXT runs at 14kHz.

 

[bigtim1973]

Thanks Big Tim. I've heard the MXT recommended for gold prospecting. Why would it be any better than the DFX? The DFX's high frequency is 15kHz and the MXT runs at 14kHz.

I made a mistake the MXT runs at 15mhz instead of 14mhz and the M6 runs at 15 also. There are pros and cons to both the DFX and MXT and being a new commer to the hobby and trying to figure out which one you want and the types of machines your looking at it seems your budget is quite good for a first machine. Also what kind of detecting will you be doing the most of? If your not prospecting that often then the 705 would be a good choice for all around hunting. I had an xterra 50 with a 6" high frequency coil on it and I tell you it was about the best little coinshooter I have ever had but I did not like it on deep relics for civil war hunting(with a 10.5" DD coil) and about the best depth I could get out of it was not much more than 8 inches. Instead of the MXT pro which comes with the large coil why don't you get the regular MXT? It does not have a backlite or the 7 tone ID option but other than that the regular MXT is the same performance wise as the MXT pro. Plus if you go out propecting for gold your probably going to change coils to a DD coil anyway due to high ground mineralizatioin. So why spend the extra bucks for a few tones a lite and a larger coil when you could spend that extra money on a set of good headphones and another coil? It is up to you but I am just trying to get you to look at a few different options. The DFX would be better on wet salt sand because of the multiple frequencies and it does have more bells and whistles but it is not as fast on recovery and if you want to adjust a setting you have to go into a program and scroll through menus and then re ground balance it also where as on the MXT you turn a knob or flip a switch. The MXT has a specific gold prospecting mode which changes the whole operation of the detector. It gives an iron reading and a ground reading and that is very helpful if you are looking for nuggets. I would not reccommend it for looking for jewelry because gold is mixed with so many different other metals and that changes the natural make up for gold. The Xterra 705 has a depth reading but only a number for target ID and on deeper targets like old coins and such the 705 just does not do what I call whisper or the ability to hear a deep target and also you must hunt with headphones on the 705 because of the design of the speaker where as the MXT and DFX honks loud and clear to me without headphones. You have to get to know those numbers on the 705 also in order to know what you may digging up but that is not all that bad. With the MXT and DFX you have a segment graph, a number plus a probably target ID of what it may be, and in relic mode it has 2 tones, a high for ferrous metal and low for non ferrous metal. I use to coinshoot in relic mode with the discriminator turned down low and I would listen to what the detector was telling me and I would dig any good repeatable signals above iron. That is your secret to finding jewelry which is to dig all good repeatable tones no matter what your detectors screen is saying to you. All of these have a depth read out which is good for example an indian head penny will read as a scewcap if it is 6 inches or so in the ground and if your coinshooting that is a good sign to dig because more than likely it will not be a screwcap that deep. I know I am making it sound kind of complicated but it is not once you get into detecting. There are several other models that are good all around machines also like the Tesoro Lobo Supertraq(I think that is the name) and I think it runs on a higher frequency than 15mhz plus it is a good all around machine for coinshooting, jewelry and prospecting. I do not hear many people talking about it on the beach but I am sure some have ran it in the dry sand. It has auto tracking and had that feature before Whites did. It does not have a meter but it does have some very good features and with experience you will probably do more without the ID screen and just listen to the tones also. Battery life on the MXT was very good using a set of headphones same as the M6 would be. The Lobo by tesoro will use less batteries than all of them mentioned. The 705 will be pretty good with headphones also but the DFX will use the most battery power of any of these I have mentioned. That is something else to consider is how much your going to spend on batteries. It is nice to have an all around detector but I still do not think there has been one available yet. Maybe I have rambled on too much, Tim

 

[Old and Slow]

Thanks Tim. This is really great information. I agree that there probably isn't one all around detector. If I get into the hobby seriously I'll probably get more than one detector. For my first one I'm trying get the most versatile one.

I'm in Northern California near the Mother Lode so I'm planning on doing some prospecting. I'm also close to the ocean but I'm not planning on doing much salt sand detecting although I wouldn't rule it out. I will be doing some fresh water beaches at nearby lakes. Being in CA we don't have a lot of relics. I will be doing a lot of coin shooting and jewelry hunting.

Right now I'm leaning toward the DFX. I won't be getting it until Christmas so I have time to make my final decision.

Once again thanks for all your help.

Skip

 

[bigtim1973]

Thanks Tim. This is really great information. I agree that there probably isn't one all around detector. If I get into the hobby seriously I'll probably get more than one detector. For my first one I'm trying get the most versatile one.

I'm in Northern California near the Mother Lode so I'm planning on doing some prospecting. I'm also close to the ocean but I'm not planning on doing much salt sand detecting although I wouldn't rule it out. I will be doing some fresh water beaches at nearby lakes. Being in CA we don't have a lot of relics. I will be doing a lot of coin shooting and jewelry hunting.

Right now I'm leaning toward the DFX. I won't be getting it until Christmas so I have time to make my final decision.

Once again thanks for all your help.

Skip

Well since you have a little time to study this is what I would do....You can go to pretty much any manufactorers website such as Whites or minelab or whoever and you can download the instruction manual for free. I would do it on every detector your thinking about......Plus reading those manuals you will learn what means what on settings like gain, ground balance adjusting, pinpoint, discriminator, notch, sensitivity, tone ID and other terms you may not know yet. Also you will get to see exactly how to run the machine and see how simple or complicated certain settings can be with the machines your thinking about. I can tell you this much though...The 705 will be the most user friendly followed by the MXT then DFX as far as beginners would go. I myself would go check out the user manuals, that I know will help you make your mind up, then once you have made your mind up you will be a little more familiar with how it works when you do get your detector of choice. Tim