ON THE HORIZON = MDT-8000

Got a question regarding the "Software" last time i spoke to Dimitar he mentioned no software upgrade needed ,there is no way to update if i m correct??

RR

Test my last sesh with the MDT as mentioned on the 26/10/20


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RR

Rivers Rat & Shelton......... I've been meaning to comment on your successes! Yes...... the Tarsacci will surprise you!......and ...... it looks like it did!

Dimitar can reflash the software; yet, the consumer/end-user is not able to do it. And.........as of right now.........there are no new updates/upgrades for the MDT.

High power lines report. I was hunt under two parallel big power lines yesterday. Regular sens in outside areas 8 to 9 without issue. Under power lines 4. Everything above chattering terribly. Humidity about 97%, temperature 5 Celcius. The average performance was good. The second device was Simplex to compare signals. More reports soon.

Although not perfect...... I still feel the Fisher CZ is the most resilient platform to any/all types of EMI. Not perfect; yet, very good.

This is actually the quietest detector I have ever used. The only time I have had interference was directly over a buried 240 volt line 18" deep, I knew it was there.

Equinox is also quiet... but it means only lost in performance. Probably software cheat you and you get a plain and smooth answers but without depth...

I was out yesterday with the MDT, very quiet. I have it set for the soil on the property I was at. I was running the sens up to 8, no problem. I got a whisper high tone. I put it in mix tone and it bangs much louder in mix verses disc. .. .no question there is a nonferrous piece down there. I was surprised and smiling when at measured 10" deep was a 1945 dog tag, thin and 1"x3/4" in size.

This unit set properly (easy to do) is as deep as my 1021 CZ and my f-75LTD.. . . .maybe slightly deeper. Mix mode bangs harder in my test gardens 9" dime. . .only 2 bar soil. I am gaining confidence with the MDT when things like this occur. I have also noticed between real signals in a high metal and trash environment, there are clear silent spaces between fast oncoming targets. . . easier to distinguish where I can go over and pinpoint targets for removing. .. this is a very fast unit and crystal clear sounds. The tones seem to have a dimension to them, not a flat tone like the f-75 in comparison.

My trust in this unit is growing, rather slowly, because I don't get out near as often as I use to. Relieved to say this. . .at first I had my doubts.

This machine is a pleasure to detect with....i just can't get enough


RR

Hey Tom, Felix one of the guys I know who hunts Miami area said he run into a guy with his MDT there who let him have a go at it. Turned out to be Demitar. He was very impressed with the build, weight .... AND performance. He said they buried a nickel a good 11” in the wet sand and that thing BANGED hard on it. Have heard back to see if that was the 12” coil. But hey.... the machine WILL impress and he’s a good hunter.

Steve....... here's my problem. That 1945 dog tag was (most probably) lost in 1945...... and it was 10" deep. At what depth is a 1925 dog tag?!?!?!?!

Dew...... yep!

NASA-Tom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Steve....... here's my problem. That 1945 dog tag
> was (most probably) lost in 1945...... and it was
> 10" deep. At what depth is a 1925 dog tag?!?!?!?!
>
True that Tom. That dog tag / license was in front of the big barn, opposite side of the bank, as in "bank barn".
It is odd also that I found a 1945 wheat at 4". . . but that could have bee dropped decades later. The original part of this farm house was built in the 1700's,.,. that's the pickle. Here's another pickle. . .I dug a flat button @ 7"... . . How deep are the English and Spanish coins along with the 1792+ large cents and early American coinage. This property has had other buildings on it, I saw them on Historic Aerials site.

My guess is soil was moved around or added as there is a 1 acre dug pond not 100 yards away.. . don't recall if the pond was in the aerials or not. . .been a while since I have checked it out. The owner and her deceased husband purchased the farm in 1972 and she said it was in a shambles. My guess the property is probably worth near 1 million today. . .they fixed it over the years rather nicely.

In general....... the linearity of depth (in your area) is probably something like:

12" = 1925 dirt
22" = 1825 dirt
30" = 1725 dirt

Yes...... there will be a few percent of 'period/era' targets that are NOT at their respective depths...... due to tilling, erosion, fill-dirt, etc........

Those are crazy deep numbers for flat surface targets..... im assuming its mostly being covered as opposed to sinking. That old question.

Those numbers are only possible in loose topsoil. At most colonial New England sites, the topsoil is usually no deeper than 15 inches. Below that is a dense layer of clay where targets generally stop sinking.

We do occasionally find deeper targets in the clay layer. They arrive at those depths over the centuries for many reasons. Animals digging, humans digging, tree roots being uplifted, erosion.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2020 04:45PM by Badger in NH.

Well as usually the case I lurk on the forums and youtube for months messaging people about their experience with a detector before pulling the trigger and I finally got the Tarsacci yesterday and so far I'm impressed. My test garden is deep with almost all civil war related items with some square nails thrown in. The GPX hammers most everything and the Deus and Nox just barely pick up these items if conditions are right. I should also mention its under power lines so EMI can play a part. So I started playing with the settings to see how quiet I could get it and still hunt as I'm hoping for Nox depth with a quieter machine as I've never personally liked the Minelab tones. Turning on black sand seemed to knock out the EMI and I kept doing an automatic ground balance that would get me to around 620 to just to be sure I was consistent. Then on one of my ground balances it jumped to the 820 range, I figured I'd done something wrong and probably did but man the signals in my test garden were screaming like the GPX and it was still running quiet as a mouse. My ground is not THAT mineralized??? Not complaining but any thoughts?

Where are you located? South KY?
Normally....... "Black Sand" = ON........ can induce a little bit more EMI; yet, in your case...... it has settled things down. (Not totally out of the ordinary).

REAL question: Were your deeper relics/targets giving mostly accurate non-ferrous ID's....... or....... even better: giving fairly accurate ID's overall?

You may have had some nearby electrical device cycle "ON"........ causing the Grnd Bal to jump like that.

Yes it was giving very good IDs. I changed the GB back to the 620 range then back to the 820s. It was a noticeable difference.

Rather than start a new thread I decided to add to the existing Tarsacci thread to keep all the data together. I took a trip to Virginia last week for 6 days to Hunt the Diggin In Virginia event. Below is my experience with the Tarsacci for those that want to know how it handles the hot soil.

Day 1-Used the Tarsacci for about 3 hours just to see what settings were required and how the unit handled the hot soil. Settings were 12 and 18 KHz, threshold -2, sensitivity 7, Black Sand OFF, salt balance 44, ground balance 552 (which surprised me), Disc mode with disc set at -30. The Tarsacci with the above settings ran quiet and stable. I dug a lot of targets, all iron just so I could confirm what I was hearing. Some targets were clearly iron as negative numbers were mostly present from all angles. However, some of the targets were really hard to tell if they were iron or not as the signal gave about 50/50 positive and negative numbers. I will elaborate more below in the comments about my 7 hour hunt.

Day 3-Rained all day long, so I opted to use the Tarsacci instead of the GPX since it’s waterproof. The settings changed drastically due to the wet soil. In order to get the Tarsacci stable enough to hunt the wet ground I had to run either 6.4 or 9 KHz, threshold -2, sensitivity 7, Salt balance all the way up to 50, ground balance changed between mid-500’s up to low-800’s, all metal mode. Now let me elaborate on some of the settings.

Black sand OFF worked best but the machine was quieter with is ON. However, the signal changed with it on to a more elongated signal which made it harder for me to tell a good target from a ground signal or bad ground balaance balance. I ran all metal mode due to all the false signals running in disc mode. It was just easier to tell what a good signal was and then evaluate it in all metal. Now the ground balance was always changing like crazy from the bottom of a hill to the top of a hill. On the low ground at the base of the hills the ground was about 550, as you went up the hill the ground changed and you could tell by how unstable the Tarsacci got so I had to re-ground balance about every 10 feet, At the top of the hills the ground balance was about 810. From this experience salt balance could use a higher range. I was all the way up to 50 and could have used a few more points to get it right on. It may or may not have helped with the ground balance. I also tried tracking ground balance and the machine was not as stable as simply re ground balancing as needed. One thing I noticed with ground balance, if you got it on and then manually went down a few points to make it negative, the machine was supper quiet. But it was a pain in the you know what with the ground changing so much. If you could keep on the same level of the hills it would stay in balance for a while, but it wasn’t practical to hunt that way.

Now for the targets recovered and how deep the Tarsacci is in the hot Culpeper soil. I used the Tarsacci for 7 hours in the rain and recovered 6 .58 cal minie balls and 8 pieces of camp lead. Down to about 6 or 7 inches the Tarsacci has no issue telling ferrous from non ferrous. It’s the deeper targets down to about it’s limit of approximately 11 inches that things get tricky. 2 of the bullets I recovered came from about the 11 inch range, so I know it will get at least that deep and still be able to tell a good target with proper signal and ID evaluation. The Tarsacci will got deeper but at that point you are digging everything.
Since targets were not closely located, I opted to use All-metal the entire 7 hours. When I got a signal, I would circle the target making multiple sweeps in each direction and watch the ID. As I said targets down to about 7” were no problem to ID. Deeper targets did give some good data as to what they were by circling the target and watching the ID. For the most part I dug all questionable signals so I could learn what to look for. Nails about half the time would double deep. Also for the most part nails could be identified because they would read negative when sweep across the short side and had mixed positive and negative numbers when swept length wise. A bullet or camp lead on the other hand when questionable would read mixed positive and negative numbers all the way around and the positive number range stayed in mid 20’s when they did bounce. Now deep odd shaped iron was the easiest to tell because it bounced between -28, 29, 30 to positive 28, 29, 30 indicating iron wrap. I was fooled by quit a bit of bend wire as it did have the same characteristics as the deeper bullets. The area I hunted had been pounded by GPX’s for the 2 days before, so I feel like the Tarsacci performed pretty well in recovering 14 good targets.

I hate to make this a comparison discussion, but I think it will help put things into perspective. A lot of people want to know what to use when they hunt this hot soil. I have used the Deus, Equinox, Tarsacci and GPX and feel I know them pretty well. The Deus and Equinox in my experience can give a good ID down to about 6 inches on coin sized targets, 10 inches on bigger targets like a breast plate. The GPX is really deep, bullets to 16 inches are not uncommon, but is also a PI. The Tarsacci is somewhere in the middle and definitely has it’s place and IMO handles the soil better than both the Equinox and Deus. If you are on a budget and lived in the area of Culpeper and could only have 1 machine, I think the Tarsacci would be my pick. It’s waterproof, light, and has reasonable depth. It also makes a great backup to the GPX for days when the weather is bad. I personally won’t take my GPX in the rain. Every time I have, even when covered, I always end up with problems. Last time it was my headphone connection to the battery getting wet and shorting out. The time before that the cable connection from the battery to the detector got wet and shorted out. The Tarsacci in the rain was issue free. I used the Garrett z-lynk system on it covered with a plastic bag and had no issues.

Abenson, good report, thanks.
I have noticed that mixed mode on the MDT is stronger and gets your attention. The whisper signals are louder. When you use mix mode you're less likley to walk over a good deep target. I was never a fan of it but after using it, it's growing on me.. .. . only in sparse to medium target areas though. .. . couldn't take it in high iron/trash spots, it would sound like a Star Wars battle. lol

Ok. Part two = under power lines.

If the device responds from the ground... and is well ground balanced... try to change working frequency first. After that, you have plain and smooth work without chattering.

Andrew......... AWESOME writeup! Yes...... ground moisture (up to/including: heavy rains) can change mineralization 'activation'; subsequently, impose change-requirements of Grnd Bal settings. This is true with any detector. Even PI units will react/respond a bit differently with wet (vs dry) ground...... especially in hot ground.

I surmise the Tarsacci 12" coil (when produced & released)...... will change the equation a fair amount. In fact..... it may make the playing ground more 'even' with the Tarsacci.....when compared to its PI counterpart (Minelab GPX Series).
This brings me to the question....... regarding the GPX: When you find a 14" or 16" bullet (a really deep non-ferrous target) in hot ground......... is it fairly easy to differentiate/delineate DEEP ferrous.....vs.....DEEP non-ferrous....,,,,,....... in Culpeper dirt...... with the GPX PI unit?

Shelton..... yes.......,,,,,,,, changing frequencies to mitigate EMI can work with tremendous success!

Tom-I would have to say that depends on the person and their experience. It usually takes me a day of hunting a new soil type to get dialed in to the sounds. But once I am, I would say that 95% of the time I can tell ferrous from non ferrous. I know people that go to DIV and dig nails all day long. But they are usually the less experienced users who only use their GPX a few times a year.

Yes...... very true. A lot depends on 'skillset' level. I am merely asking..... someone with fairly skillful experience. I know the GPX is very capable; yet, does indeed need a reasonable amount of experience to have formidable success....... as does any platform.

I love the Tarsacci device for a perfect bond with the operator... I know what I have under my coil... and without chattering and false ground response and ghost signals... from minerals... in very difficult ground conditions... machine sometimes is a little bit tricky to setup up but the overall experience is very postive.

Just a tad more (new) information......... that I can share:

The 12" coil goes (at least) 2" deeper on a Nickel in bad dirt. (And in wet-salt).

Tom-That sounds promising. This may have already been discussed, but will we be able to use the 12" coil with the current Tarsacci software?

Yes, the 12” coil has been designed for the current MDT 8000, there are no plans of updating the current models software.

Aaron

TARSACCI - “Digging deeper, BEHIND the competition!”
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Any estimated price for 12” coil yet?

Dimitar has not released a price yet.

TARSACCI - “Digging deeper, BEHIND the competition!”
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