Testing the F2 settings...

Thanks for the video calabash! It drives me nuts that Minelab doesn’t document settings a little bit better. F2 does indeed remind me of silencer on the Deus.
 

for every gain there is a loss...something I remember from school. I guess the object for us is to be able to utilize the abilities that our detectors have for various applications with the understanding that there are the possibilities of numerous results. to me, there are gains with this update that many will love and utilize regularly quickly while others may not or may struggle with understanding. I hope that I said that right.
 

Both my 600 and 800 are running very quiet after a half dozen outings with each machine. After trying heavy discrimination, I settled on the default F6 and F2 numbers and have been very pleased. Periodically during a hunt I’ll go back to Fe0 and rescan an area just to validate that I’m not missing anything, and will inevitably have an iron target ring in as a good signal. Yeah...it works well for me.

As for defaults...well, I think Minelab came up with them after a lot of testing, much like the defaults in the different modes. I guess my results are similar to Calibash Digger, but with F6 instead of F4. I will give F4 a try next outing and see how it works out for me.

JMHO, but I think a lot of the problems people are having comes from not understanding how iron bias works, and how to effectively apply it to their hunting...particularly new Nox users with less than 100 hours on their machines. Again, JMHO YMMV
 

On our Florida beaches, I found that finding the sweet spot by adjusting F2, sensitivity and recovery speed provided the best results. In my test case, F5, sensitivity 18-22, recovery of 4 provided the best results. Best results being good separation of ferrous junk and good targets. The higher I adjusted F2 above 6 the more likely the junk masked the good target. The lower I adjusted it below 4, the more the junk sounded like a good target.

As I previously posted, I use test targets on the beach to determine that sweet spot relative to the environment in which I’m hunting.

Just the view from my Florida foxhole....
 

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ColonelDan can you call bottle caps good with those settings?
 

Colonel Dan, I’m sitting here with a smile on my face after reading how you setup your machine for hunting your area. I’m smiling because I just got off facelessbook and read several posts from people asking "What are the best settings to hunt for XXXX?" Most of them don’t know what’s between page 1 thru 68 of the manual (guidebook), because if they did they wouldn’t be asking for "numbers." So many say they just bought their machine and are taking it out for their first hunt. They can barely turn it on much less know what to do with advance settings or even the local settings. I just sit here and smile as the other noobs tell them how to setup the machine from half a world away.

I guess it’s youthful exuberance, but it makes me smile nonetheless. I’ll have to ask my wife if I was that way when I was younger. She remembers everything! :laughing7:
 

ColonelDan can you call bottle caps good with those settings?

Yes, Once I hit the "sweet spot" bottle caps can be separated and are virtually unmistakable depending on their metallurgical composition. Not all bottle caps are made of the same alloy "recipe". The amount of ferrous material to aluminum varies by manufacturer. The more aluminum they contain, the better they sound obviously. If they are the solid aluminum twist off caps or pull tabs, they still yell out "dig me."

Let me also add that my sweet spot settings for Daytona Beach last Sunday were significantly different than the sweet spot settings at Cocoa Beach last Friday.

What I've found is that your average bottle cap will sound off with erratic tones and the VDI will be jumpy...going from minus numbers to positive. During my test, I dug some of those "bottle cap" signals just to validate the F2 effectiveness. Each of those signals that my EQX was warning me about turned out to be bottle caps! I'm happy with the update since bottle caps are ubiquitous on our beaches.
 

Colonel Dan, I’m sitting here with a smile on my face after reading how you setup your machine for hunting your area. I’m smiling because I just got off facelessbook and read several posts from people asking "What are the best settings to hunt for XXXX?" Most of them don’t know what’s between page 1 thru 68 of the manual (guidebook), because if they did they wouldn’t be asking for "numbers." So many say they just bought their machine and are taking it out for their first hunt. They can barely turn it on much less know what to do with advance settings or even the local settings. I just sit here and smile as the other noobs tell them how to setup the machine from half a world away.

I guess it’s youthful exuberance, but it makes me smile nonetheless. I’ll have to ask my wife if I was that way when I was younger. She remembers everything! :laughing7:

Agree. Many new to our hobby want to look for those "magic settings" they can use for each and every situation and for all environments. What they soon learn is that what works here on Central Florida beaches won't necessarily work in California! Live and learn and as I've said:

Pre-determined settings serve only to get you in the ballpark. It’s up to you to pick the best seat

Just the view from my Florida foxhole...
 

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This Fe and F2 iron bias thing is going to get really confusing fast, like what do you mean when you say 'F6' setting? How about using Fe-6 or F2-6 instead.

tabman
 

This Fe and F2 iron bias thing is going to get really confusing fast, like what do you mean when you say 'F6' setting? How about using Fe-6 or F2-6 instead.

tabman

And don't forget the 600 users who have a completely differen iron bias settings scale.

Bottom line, when talking about settings agree folks need to specific on which detector tgey are referring to and which specfic iron bias filter setting tgey are using be it FE or F2.
 

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