PANTERA question for Monte

Hey Monte,

Way back in 2010 on Finds you responded to a PANTERA question with the following comment:

“You can opt to use the Notch Accept or Notch Reject to accept ONLY those targets within the notched range, or IGNORE (Reject or Discriminate) targets in that 'window." better still, you can just rely on the Primary Discriminate control (which I left at the minimum setting so as to reject iron nails and other small iron junk, and then adjust the variable Notch control to provide only a "Tone Break" audio response. That is, I could set it so that most shallow zinc cents and screw caps produced the lower audio response and most copper cents and clad and silver coins produced the high-tone audio”

I am trying to get the same settings on the PANTERA regarding the “2-tone, tone break” you refer too, however it’s not happening...

What position are you setting the notch in?

Thanks!

HH, Aaron



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2019 12:39PM by Aaron.

For your info having owed several Tesoro notch detectors all is controlled by a pot that could be turned and if you bought the unit used it may have been altered by previous owner
and all vary a tad which could be your problem. Hopefully Monte will chime in with his expert advice as been years since I owned a Pantera and forget settings...

Try to put the tone break on zinc cents first and then adjust until you like the high tone on a 6" dime. That is going to be somewhere around a 6 setting, plus or minus.
The key is the 6" dime. Once you know that setting you can adjust toward a 8" dime but by then you start to high tone the zinc....so its balancing act from then on.

HH
Mike

Dan, yes I got it used, hopefully the pot wasn’t messed with. You should have hung onto that Pantera...

Mike, okay, I’ll try your settings

Thanks guys

Aaron

Quote
Aaron
Hey Monte,

Way back in 2010 on Finds you responded to a PANTERA question with the following comment:

Quote
Monte
“You can opt to use the Notch Accept or Notch Reject to accept ONLY those targets within the notched range, or IGNORE (Reject or Discriminate) targets in that 'window.' Better still, you can just rely on the Primary Discriminate control (which I left at the minimum setting so as to reject iron nails and other small iron junk), and then adjust the variable Notch control to provide only a "Tone Break" audio response. That is, I could set it so that most shallow zinc cents and screw caps produced the lower audio response and most copper cents and clad and silver coins produced the high-tone audio”

I am trying to get the same settings on the PANTERA regarding the “2-tone, tone break” you refer too, however it’s not happening..

You have helpful answers from both Del and Mike, but it kind of depends on what your are trying to achieve.

The Pantera, and the Golden Sabre II which was a 'turn-on-and-go' Pantera, were calibrated and shipped so that the Notch Disc. had an internally adjusted Notch Width which would usually work reasonably well for rejecting most then-common Ring-Pull Tabs. That is, you would have the Primary Discrimination set at minimum and could adjust the Notch Disc. so that it would cover a range that would reject or 'Notch-Out' the higher conductive Ring-Pull Tabs which were still encountered quite often. We also didn't search as many places ... back then .. that had the Pry-Tab or Stay-Tab used today that was supposed to stay attached to the can. You know, those rectangular tabs that have a conductivity range the same as, or very similar to, the US 5¢ coin.

Personally, I don't like to use very much Discrimination, and never liked to try and rely on those Variable Notch Disc. modes for rejection, and preferred to adjust the Notch Disc. level high enough to cause the lower-conductive modern Zinc 1¢ to produce a scratchy/blended sort of Low-Tone/High-Tone mixed audio on modern Zincs and a higher-pitched Tone that was clear for the better Copper, clad and silver coins.

I would leave the Accept / Reject toggle in the center 'Off' position, then just rely on the 2-Tone Audio when Coin Hunting. Most of the time I recovered all targets that were not rejected by the primary Discriminate setting, but make use of the 2-Tone Audio to alert me to a lower-tone for a possible US 5¢ coin or gold jewelry, a high-tone for the higher-conductive coins. I could still hear that mixed or broken sort of audio that was kind of "on-the-edge" of a high-tone from targets that fell in the Notch Window. That would suggest a target that had a conductivity in the upper-end of the Low-Tone range but close to the High-Tone range. Those usually included things like Pull Tabs as well as modern US Zinc 1¢ coins.

A lot of average Coin Hunters don't want to recover the 'Zinc' coins so they could use the Notch Disc. and increase it to the point where the Zinc's were just rejected, or they could simply rely on an audio tone break-up for Zinc coins but still hear them..

As Del related to, someone could have opened the unit and tinkered with the Notch Width trimmer and adjusted it to be much wider or narrower than a factory calibrated specimen.

And, if you caught the suggestion from Mike, the anticipated Coin Depth for a hunt site can also make a difference. A deeper-positioned 1¢ or 10¢ coin can produced a weaker response which a detector could interpret as a lower-conductive response, and that can cause a better quality metal coin to produce a poor-quality response, similar to a lower-conductive Zinc 1¢ and produce the broaked tone rather than a desired hig-tone.

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Aaron
What position are you setting the notch in?

Thanks!

HH, Aaron

I don't use a Reject or Accept Notch setting. Instead, I just use it as a 'Tone Break' and adjust the Notch control, with the toggle in 'Off,' so that the better conductive coins, like most copper cents, clad dimes and quarters and the remaining silver conductive targets provided me a clean higher-tone when checked with the search coil swept over a 4" to 5" coin. When I had limited time to work a site I might ignore the lower conductive targets, and the warblers in that Zinc range, and just recover the better higher-conductive coins.

So if you've set the toggle to the center 'OFF' position, you should be able to adjust the Notch Disc. control so that a US 5¢ coin gives you a Low-Tone and a Clad 10¢ piece gives a High-Tone. Once there, use a modern Zinc production held flat-to-the-coil and wave it past the coil's center axis at about 4". Adjust the Notch Disc. control very carefully in a clockwise manner until you hear the Zinc just barely start to produce a raspy High-Tone and you're on the edge and set to audibly separate Zinc from 'most' Copper coins.

If you can't get a clean audio break-up, then it might be that the internal trimmers were tinkered with.

Also, what search coil were you using to try and adjust the Notch Disc., or what coils do you plan to use on the Pantera?

Where you trying to get a Tone Break as I suggested, or were you wanting to use the Notch Disc. to reject some targets? If you can't quite adjust it where you want it, let me know what you're trying to do and what the outcome is. Just shoot me an e-mail.

Right now it is 12:08 and I need to head to the Post Office and ship a Teknetics Mark I Ltd. to someone living in that very wintry weather state of Michigan. I'll check back on the forums later.

Monte

Ah...ok I get it. I got the tone break to work, I didn’t know the Pantera could do that. That’s pretty cool!

Monte, I’m not into using notch either. I’m using the 5.75” coil and got the Pantera set up to tone break at zinc cent.

I’d like to play around with it some more but we lost power over here due to a ice storm, hard to see w these 50 yr eyes in candle light! LOL

Hope that guy gets his Mk LTD, sweet machine! ; )

Thanks

HH! Aaron

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Aaron
... hard to see w these 50 yr eyes in candle light!

I wish my eyes, either of them, could still see like when I was 50. That many years back triggers a few memories for me. That year included my '04' day at a Central Oregon small town highway renovation. They started tearing up the highway through town on a Monday that summer, as well as the sidewalks from building-front across the road to building-front. It is a very small town. An acquaintance called me on Wednesday, late afternoon, after he and his wife drove through the town and after the detour around the tear-up, he stopped and talked with a fellow running one of the pieces of equipment.

He told his that it looked like a good place to use a metal detector, and the equipment drive told him it certainly was. he had been hunting it every evening (Monday and Tuesday at that point) after they shut down for the day and mentioned some of the coins and doo-dads he's found with his White's. The small town was about a 1½ hour drive for me but I was there first thing Thursday morning to get started just before the work party arrived. I took three detectors along but wanted to check out the round, brown 8" Concentric on a Tesoro Lobo SuperTRAQ so that set-up is what I grabbed to start the day. A beautiful clear blue sky summer day and a lot of exposed dirt where the old sidewalks had been removed, as well as some of the old underlying road and edge of the city park grass in from the sidewalk was available to hunt.

I found an out-of-the-way place to park, put on my equipment gear-belt, grabbed the LST w/8", my cane, and headed over to get started. The works had showed up and as I cut through the park and reached the pushed up dirt at the edge where the old sidewalk had been, one of those big center-blade grader backed past me to the corner to get started for the day. The driver gave me a glance as I put on my headphones and did a quick GB with the SuperTRAQ. No, this wasn't 2004, but several years prior, maybe a month -and-a-half after my eyes & I turned '50.' But it was about to be called my '04' Day starting with my first find.

The fellow backed the tractor away maybe 50-80 feet and sat there watching me. I had GB'ed and switched to the Disc. mode and started hunting. Sweep to the left, sweep to the right, sweep to the left and I hear ... BEEP! ... mid-sweep. A quick Pinpoint and a toe-scuff of that loose and pushed-up dirt from where the ended Wednesday's work. Another little 'toe-scuff' and I could see the coin, even those new-to-50 years could see that big ol' coin, and I picked up that shiny Silver Morgan Dollar and brushed some loose dirt away to see '1904.' My 3rd sweep of the day was a great way to start, and I knew I was being watched and suspected that guy might have been the worker who detected after they shut down the first two days. I slipped that coin in my back left pocket.

Back to hunting and just off to the left of the Morgan about 2-3 feet I hit about 9 or 10 Wheat-back cents from the teens and twenties. As I was retrieving the last of those the graded pulled up and stopped. The drive walked over and asked what I found. He said "No, not right there, but that first target that you looked at, turned and looked at me with a smile, then went back to hunting." As I reached to my back pocket I asked, 'are you the one who was detecting after work shut-down?' and he said Yes. but not last night. As I handed it to him to look at I said ... 'You missed one.'

He told me that their long, 12 hours days had him worn out so he headed home and didn't hunt Wednesday evening. he told other workers and they told the locals in the small-town grocery and anywhere I went that day or the next I was asked to show them the '04 Morgan. Anyway, I called it an '04 Day' because it continued. I was finding a lot of coins from the 1890's thru the 1930's, and just before I decided to take a lunch break I figured I'd find one more coin. It turned out to be a 1904 Barber Dime. The afternoon continued with 'V' and Buffalo Nickels, a few more silver Dimes and early date Wheat-back Lincoln's and Indian Heads, to include my last coin for the day, which was a 1904 Indian Head. So I started my day, found 'one more' before lunch, and ended my day with 1904 coins.

I could move a little better back then, and last a lot longer as well, even with those 50 year old eyes. Memories. Oh, I made the drive home, rested up and made the drive back over to work that renovation on Friday, Saturday, Sunday afternoon, and then arrived on Monday in time to see them filling the road, covering the sidewalks on both sides of the highway, and leaving very little left to hunt. The huntable dirt they removed was piled on some private property that the owner wasn't letting anyone on, so my 4-day detecting adventure came to an end.

Oh, to be younger and healthier again.

Monte

Monte,

I love those kinds stories.

Thanks so much for sharing, your a great story teller!

I’m still looking for that silver dollar

Now I need to get back to work, and out of this car, we’ve got a storm storm going on up here in Michigan!

Aaron

Aaron PM me and will tell you how to cut down the odds gold ring vs junk on Tesoro notch units...Dan

Sure Dan, thanks!

Aaron